Fox's Glade all teeth

Cole moved like stone given purpose—silent, solid, and deliberate through the thick mist curling low across the forest floor. The Glen had grown too quiet for comfort. No birdsong, no wind, just the weight of damp lichen and old, uneasy scent. It hung in the air like rot beneath snow.
This wasn’t nothing. He knew that much.
He wasn't far from Bearclaw Valley now, out on one of his longer scouts, checking the reaches that others didn’t. The silence wasn’t just stillness—it was a warning.
And then he saw it.
A shape, broad and unmoving, just beyond the veil of trees. Shadowy. Massive. A stranger—alone, as far as Cole could tell. Black-furred, streaked with bramble and blood gone brown. The stranger stood near the edge of the field, where the trees thinned, watching. Unbothered. Too calm for someone this deep in the valley’s outer paths.
Cole didn’t approach yet. He watched first, muscles drawn tight beneath thick fur, ears forward, tail low but stiff behind him. He’d seen enough violence to recognize it in posture before words ever came.