Greatwater Lake the waiting game

When Jaws left his den that morning his grayjay, growing more comfortable around the coywolf, alighted on his back. Before, he would have shooed it off with a snap of his teeth, but this time he simply smiled and continued on with his passenger. He was becoming more fond of the bird's company, and after his visit with Wildfire he felt a little more tender toward it as well. In a way he had adopted the runty bird and it adopted him. It would never hurt to have an extra set of wary eyes around anyway. His feathery shadow was sometimes quicker to detect others than he was.

He was determined to find a badger today; Fox's request had gone unfulfilled long enough. Remembering he had typically encountered them in tree-less areas of meadows or scrub habitat, Jaws headed for the flatlands, bound to return to his pack before nightfall, badger in tow. He finally located an active burrow near a large lake and a quick investigation revealed the badger was still inside - it viciously hissed at him and snapped at his muzzle, but it would not come out. Jaws would not go in either, badgers were fierce and he was not keen to let one tear his face into ribbons.

So, he settled to his stomach a short distance away, the grayjay sitting on his shoulder. Here he would wait with the wind blowing toward him so as not to betray his position to the badger. It would come out sooner or later, and when it did, it would not given much chance before Jaws would seize it.

A combination of tracking and scouting ushered Saena away from Blacktail Deer Plateau territory once more, this time in pursuit of something more dangerous than mere hares and weasels. A few days ago she'd borne witness to the strangest of animals, with a flat, broad tail and a squat physique, tugging whole chunks of tree trunk into the river with a strength that didn't befit its size. She'd heard the way it slapped the water and seen the size of its teeth, and decided it was a worthy quarry.

So she followed the river, and eventually found her way to Greatwater Lake. It was here that the animal was building its dam. For a long while the pale-furred bitch paced the shoreline, seeking the pile of wood that signalled a beaver's hideaway, but long before finding it, she spotted something even more peculiar than the paddle-tailed rodent.

A jet-black wolf lay some distance from the water, facing a hole in the ground. Although he looked quite untamed and possibly fierce, what with his hair spiked along his back, there was a bird sitting comfortably on him that ruined the image entirely. Saena crept toward him, slinging her head cautiously between her shoulders and lifting her ears, as though prowling... in a way, she was. If there was a way to get that bird without disturbing the wolf, you could bet she'd have tried it.

Alas, there was simply no way to go without Jaws' involvement, so she cleared her throat and said, "you've got a little lunch on your back."

Jaws' attention was trained on the hole in the ground, his muscles somewhere between tense and relaxed, wholly prepared to spring with deadliness. It was the nervous shifting of his 'lookout' that first alerted him that he was not be alone much longer. His ear flicked toward the approaching female, his gaze cast sideways, but his head did not turn. He did not want to miss his chance. To his surprise, the bird did not shriek and fly off as it normally did, but Jaws felt his little claws dig into his fur, felt his little body tense as it huddled closer, seeking protection from the stalwart male.

"You've got a little lunch on your back," she said as she drew near, to which Jaws had a clipped chuckle, recalling the time when all of this had begun, the day he opted not to have the bird for lunch. He had soon regretted it, but now embraced it. "Of course," Jaws drawled. Turning his muzzle so slightly to the female, but retaining his position, not sensing any reason he should stand. "Don't you pack a lunch for stakeouts?"

The jet-black hybrid seemed relaxed, but in reality, he was patiently waiting for an opportunity. Saena still didn't entirely understand what he was doing, but sensed that he was no danger to her by the slow turn of his head and the way he remained prone on the ground. She also posed him no threat, and as for his bird... well, it seemed it was already claimed. Drat.

She slowly seated herself with her eyes still trained greedily on the bird, even though it was off limits. "It may be hard to believe, but I find it hard to get them to stick around like that. Something about not wanting to be eaten," she joked, glancing away from the bird and finally seeing the faint outline of a hole in the ground not far from the dark, scruffy male. "What're you doing?" she asked, suddenly more curious about the hole than the bird.

Ooooo Saena's new avatar is so pretty! I have always been a big fan of white and orange or red accents, just looks so sharp.

Jaws tipped his muzzle slightly as the white female took a seat, inwardly grateful that it did not seem she was going to interfere with his business or try to eat his gray jay, who still kept a wary eye on her. "If you eat the thing that's trying to eat them, it apparently turns them into a permanent shadow," Jaws shared, though he doubted his results could be duplicated. Although gray jays were naturally more tame than other birds any other probably would have flown off to live another day without another thought about its inadvertent saviour. Ironically, his gray jay was more nervous than the rest of his species, and it was runty, perhaps two clues to why it adopted Jaws.

"What're you doing?" and Jaws cast her a sideways glance. He did not really want to share with anyone what he was doing, less they try to steal his kill away from him. "I'm hunting," he finally replied, his answer deliberately curt. But he sighed and flicked his tail, choosing to elaborate because he antipcated being questioned further. "I'm waiting for the badger to stick its fool head out of that hole. When he does - he's mine." Jaws' voice became stern, emphasizing the badger was his prey and subtly warning he would not tolerate someone else trying to take it.

"I suppose that makes sense," mused Saena wryly. She lifted her brow at the bird, shot it a grin, then looked away from it. She'd already decided there was no way to get it without pissing off its wolf companion; it wasn't worth the hassle. Instead, she focused on what he was doing, which he took some time explaining. Even when he did, the tone of his voice was different enough to make Saena frown a little. She wasn't too put out by it—he seemed the roguish type that didn't really make friends very easily, expect apparently with grey jays—and she couldn't be bothered to be offended, anyway.

"Chill, I'm not gonna take your badger," she informed him, casting a sidelong glance at the lake in the distance. "I'm a Gamekeeper, so it's against my code to steal food. Besides, badgers probably taste just like the pain and suffering they cause." Saena would eat those words the second she was starving—badger was not off the menu for a hungry wolf, nor was stealing, for that matter—but that wasn't the case right now. She had the support of a pack behind her and certainly didn't need the extra weight from anyone else's meals. "Are you a Gamekeeper, too?" she wondered aloud.

The grin the white and red female shot the gray jay was enough for it. Its eyes bulged and, after a moment of staring bug-eyed at her it chirped and flew off, it's nerves having gotten the best of it. Jaws' attention was momentarily stolen from the badger hole as he watched his feathered companion flee. He did not see the grin she passed to it, but he did not need to, knowing all too well how flighty the bird was. His gaze refocused on the task at hand.

"Chill, I'm not gonna take your badger," she said and Jaws gave her a slight muzzle tip in recognition of her words. "I have never eaten them," he commented, "but food is food. I have eat carrion so rotten even the flies were done with it. The badger is a gift for someone with exotic tastes." Jaws' ears suddenly thrust forward and his body became rigid, a sudden bit of movement catching his eye. He stared intensely, but the badger did not show. It must have just been the breeze, so he relaxed again, somewhat.

"Not officially," he replied to her question. "But I can hunt anything that lives." he turned his head just enough to give her a devious wink. If he was not so focused on the badger, he would be a lot more focused on this pretty thing.

Jaws gave her some background. Saena's face contorted when he said he'd eaten extremely rotten carrion, and she coughed quietly, barely suppressing a full-on gag. This was another of those things that, if she was starving, she wouldn't think twice about, but her comfortable life prevented it from ever becoming a necessity. She flicked her tongue out, trying to chase away the image of food that wasn't even fit for flies, and froze when Jaws suddenly moved.

It seemed to be a false alarm, for he settled back down and answered her question. "Are you planning to become one?" she asked. It seemed logical that a man who claimed to be able to hunt any living thing would pursue that trade, though maybe he was free-spirited like her aunt. Some wolves just didn't think jobs were all that useful. She disagreed, of course. "Because if you can hunt any living thing, you should think about it. I don't know anyone else who can make that claim."

Jaws had been carrying out the duties of a gamekeeper and warden, and to a lesser extent an outrider, not only because Peregrine had asked him to but because it was his best means of contributing to the pack. Eventually, he would gain the official title to go with his work, but the coywolf felt the designations were superfluous. Nothing about his responsibilities changed with the awarding of a trade, and although he could understand the logic behind designating specific individuals to concentrate more on one task or the other, he felt the system was overkill.

"I am one," came his answer and there was a slight smug look on his face. "I just don't have the title." Jaws shifted his jaw a bit. "Who needs a title? Why have them?" The coywolf doubted this young female had the answer so the question was more rhetoric than anything.

I am one, Jaws proclaimed. Although this was confusing to Saena, she didn't let it show right away, and instead nodded slowly as if she completely understood. It wasn't until he asked what the point of the title was that it really clicked, and even then, she felt that someone couldn't call themselves something without the title. Perhaps it was just a formality, but it was nevertheless one that she had always put a lot of stock into.

"I don't know," she honestly admitted with a shrug, then added, "I always figured it was so others know exactly what you can do." That was partly a lie; Saena felt that titles were empowering. She was ambitious, almost everyone knew that, so it was no wonder that she thought having a title meant something. Still, Jaws' suggestion that it might not niggled in her back of her head, and surely she would lose several hours thinking over it and contemplating what she considered most significant in life.

Although he expected no answer, the one he received was lackluster. Her reasoning that the titles meant to convey to others what one was capable of did not carry much weight to him, unless it was expected that everyone went around introducing themselves by their titles, and perhaps some did. Jaws was more for demonstrating what you could do rather than talking about it, so his opinion on the futility of having titled trades assigned to you remain unchanged.

He opened his mouth to speak in response when yet another flash of movement stole his focus, and this time it was no false alarm. The badger, obviously feeling comfortable, exited its burrow with barely a look around, his back completely exposed to the coywolf who was rocketing from his perch to descend upon him. Jaws immediately opened his mouth to clamp his teeth around the back of the badger's neck, who managed to roll just enough that, amid a storm of snarls and hisses, he was able to land several blows with sharp claws to Jaws' snout, kicking out to land several more on his neck and chest. But the coywolf had a deadly grip, and the badger's defense failed quickly as it struggled to breath, before an audible crack stilled it completely.

Badger in mouth, Jaws walked back to his rust-pointed company, dropping his prey at his own feet. "Well, gamekeeper," he said, stressing her title but not in a mocking way. "You now know at least one technique for hunting badger." He grinned roguishly, rather pleased with his latest kill. Gathering the badger again, he gave her a curt nod before turning to head back to the Caldera, wanting the meat to be delivered fresh to Fox.

Saena stepped back as Jaws suddenly launched into action, though she remained in the vicinity to observe his technique. For all his lack of titles, the male was a fine hunter, and even made a point of rubbing it in by dropping the badger to address her. She smirked, finding his ribbing less insulting than she might had someone from her home said it. "I think I'll leave badger hunting to crazy fucks like you," she joked even as he stooped to pick up his catch. Without another word he was moving off to his home, his only parting sign a firm nod.

Dismissed, the female glanced back at the hole in the ground. There was no point sticking around there, and a wistful glance at the sky revealed that Jaws' grey jay was still far out of reach. Turning back to the lake, the pale female resumed her patrol in search of a beaver, though she snuck glances at Jaws' departing silhouette until he was long out of sight.