Ouroboros Spine Send up my heart to you

The dusty scent of feathers always excited him, but Valiant was far past the age where it might be cute to let his his excitement get the best of him. He moved swiftly and silently into position, keeping an eye on where he thought the boy ought to be at any given time.

And an eye on the pheasants, of course. That was just good sense, not fixation.

He came to his desired position and tried to catch Ludovic’s eye. He thought he saw the boy, but it was hard to tell if it was him through the brush. Without knowing whether a visual signal would work, Valiant went with the obvious:

"Alright, now! Get 'em!" he hollered, springing onto the scent in a cacophony of hissing and thrashing as the pheasants all began to take flight.

Valiant jumped for them, tearing first one and then another out of the mess. He snapped for a third, even giving chase, but ended up only with a long tail feather in his mouth for his trouble. It was very quickly too high for him to catch.

Of the two he'd nabbed, one was very dead, and the other, though largely grounded, was flapping wildly through the trees, skipping across the forest floor but unable to take flight. It'd keep, of course. Valiant turned back to the boy, tail wagging.

"Did you get any?" he asked.