Big Salmon Lake runaway

The pale woman moved forward with measured steps, her body low and prowling, muscles coiled just beneath the surface. Enough to make a point. Her turquoise eyes gleamed with cold amusement as she watched the bird flounder. „Is that you flying?” she drawled, head tilting ever so slightly. „Looks more like drowning.” Hardly a bird at all.
The water splashed as the boulder thrashed, wings and legs flailing in chaotic rhythm. Aneira halted at the edge, watching it with the stillness of a glacier, the tip of her tail flicking once. She made no move to follow him into the shallows; just stood there, tall and pale and unbothered, like some ancient statue left to haunt the lake’s edge. But the message was clear in her posture: I could; I won’t. But I could.
Her ears flicked dismissively; „Swim faster, carrion-bird. The lake smells better without you.” And with that, she turned away, unhurried, her attention already shifting elsewhere, leaving only the echo of her words, and the sting of her eyes still burning between its feathers. Hunger did not beckon, and so the wretch was granted mercy for now. But she would return, perhaps, to trace its tracks through mud and memory, and see if death had found the so-called bird too slow to flee.