Blacktail Deer Plateau Dirty Paws

AW, but I'd prefer someone Koda hasn't met

Koda had really been on top of his game lately. The hunter had managed to catch not one, but two hares on his morning hunt. One he had eaten himself, while the other would be added to one of the pack's caches. Between the trout he'd fished up the other day, and the rabbit he had caught this morning, he'd built up a nice little store for the winter, when food wouldn't be quite so abundant.

The sight that greeted him upon reaching his hiding spot made him stop short. The cache had been dug up; the thief had struck again. "Fuck," he said, with a frustrated growl. He dropped his catch and rushed to the hole, finding it completely empty. Only a faint whiff of the food remained. This was the third time his cache had been raided. Even though he'd tried a new location, and disguised the hole with rocks and leaves, they'd found it again. Someone out there was determined to keep cleaning him out.

He inspected the area around the crime scene for clues, hoping to learn more about the identity of the thief, or if more than one individual was responsible. There wasn't much to go on, other than a few faint tracks in the dirt. They were definitely canine, but much too small to belong to a wolf. He guessed they belonged to a coyote.

With a sigh, he sat on his haunches, keeping his rabbit between his paws. Gazing into the empty hole, he pondered how he would catch this thief.

The fact that there was an invisible thief raiding their caches was no secret to Osprey either. During her morning patrols she had found more than one dug up food hiding places and this had made her wary. Truth to be told - she had never been a fan of storing food away, she preferred a much safer method - eating it, while it was still fresh. But since she didn't live alone and being part of a pack required responsibilities to be taken, she had adjusted to the common trend. Now - to see that both her and her packmates' hard work was so easily destroyed by someone, who didn't even care to go and hunt for himself (well, quite wise from the perspective of survival), wasn't very pleasant.

As she walked through the forest, returning from her wanderings around the northern borders, she caught sight of another sullen face right besides a dug out cache. Poor fellow... Osprey thought, changed her direction and approached the packmate, who she had seen before, but didn't quite know by name. "Thief again?" she asked, as she came near enough to be seen.

Absorbed with thoughts of revenge, Koda failed to notice the presence of another wolf until he heard her speak to him. He glanced over at the she-wolf, recognizing her from around the plateau, but unable to put a name to her face. He nodded and turned back to the empty hole.

"I think it's a coyote," he informed his packmate. Koda had never been a fan of coyotes. This was just one more reason to hate the lesser canines. "I'm gonna catch the son of a b-..." Koda suddenly remembered he was speaking to a lady and let his voice trail off before he could utter the offensive word.

"Please, go on," Osprey told Koda to finish, what he had begun to say. She was a lady, but she was educated in swear word lexicon quite well throughout her childhood and early youth. March Owl had been a notorious potty mouth, so had her brothers had occasional bouts of swearing and cursing. If one used those words to express emotions rather than insult others, then why shouldn't they be said? In two cases out of three a good swearing at the right moment helped you to get relieved from the stress.

"Your caches aren't the only ones he or maybe they have raided. There are dug up and emptied spots at several places in the territory," she informed the young wolf about her observations. "Have you caught a fresh scent or tracks nearby?" she asked, tilting her head to the side slightly.

"There are tracks over here," answered Koda, indicating the faint prints with his paw. The trail ended in the grass, from there it was impossible to tell in which direction the thief had fled. "I'd say these are a couple days old, they're pretty worn out."

"I can't find a scent trail, or else I'd be hunting his little bitch ass down," he muttered, letting his irritation be heard in his voice. He doubted Osprey had any information that would aid in his search, but he decided to ask anyway. "What about you, you found anythin'?"

"Apart from empty caches and pawprints that disappear in the distance - I have had no luck at all," Osprey shrugged, feeling sorry that she couldn't help much with the knowledge. It was in her nature to offer help, whenever it was possible, but at the moment she was of no use for her packmate.

"Maybe we can attempt to track the older scent trail and if luck would have it - we would find a fresher track?" Osprey offered another solution that seemed quite reasonable to her. "I mean the thief resides somewhere near here, otherwise his or hers visits wouldn't be so frequent as they are now."

Koda knew Osprey had a good point, the thief was probably hiding out somewhere nearby, maybe even within the boundaries of the plateau. But he didn't want to off on a wild goose chase looking for the little creep. He had his own opinion about how the problem should be dealt with.

"We know the sneaky bastard will be back, I say we set a trap for him," said Koda. Everything they needed to rig a nasty surprise for the culprit could be found in the area, but it would take some work to put it together. He would need his pack mate to help him, of course. "Sound like a good plan to you?"

"A trap?" Osprey raised her eyebrows in surprise. She was a decent hunter - good at tracking, chasing and killing - good at springing right to the action without much of a second thought. Setting a trap was a field she had never taken interest in. It required too much of a strategical thinking, planning, as well as waiting. With a great possibility that the prey would never come your way.

"What do you have in mind?" she, however, didn't voice her peers out loud, neither did she sound skeptical. It was a genuine interest and a possibility that she could learn something new. Koda could probably be the best trap master in the world - if that was the case, she didn't want to miss her opportunity.

Koda motioned for Osprey to follow as he started to look for a good place to set his trap. He needed to find soft dirt in which to bury his bait, and a big, heavy log to bash in the head of whoever tried to dig it up.

"Back in my pack, we used traps to catch food and protect our stashes," he explained. He didn't know why the strategy hadn't caught on in this pack. Traps were a much bigger deterrent to thieves than the occasional patrol. "There were two main types, snares and deadfall traps." He went on to explain how snares were usually used to trap bunnies and other small critters. "Our thief is too big for snares, so we're gonna rig up a deadfall."

He picked out an old, rotten trunk that looked heavy enough to crush bones. "This should do the trick," he said, pushing against the dead wood with his shoulder. The damn thing was stubborn. Koda dug his nails into the dirt and heaved with all his might. "Watch it," he grunted as the trunk uprooted and fell to the ground with a loud thunk.

After a short break, he dug a hole and buried his last rabbit. The bait was set, and they had their log, there was only one piece missing. "Can you find me a couple good sticks?" He requested. He would roll the log into place as Osprey fetched the last of the supplies.

Osprey followed Koda, but all the while he was explaining the hunting traditions of his old pack, she couldn't fight the feeling that they were... a bit odd. What did they do, if the prey didn't come barging right in their traps? Snares? What were these? This sounded all too novel for her and she felt an immediate distrust of the method. Wasn't hunting all about trusting yourself and no one else?

She jumped a little, when Koda brought down a rotten trunk of dead-wood, then she watched him dig the hole in the ground, feeling a little guilty for not helping him out, but simply standing by. Observing as if it was some kind of a show (in fact, it was). "Alright - what kind of sticks?" she asked, casting a glance around, catching the sight of tiny twigs to thin tree trunks lying around. Sticks of all shapes and sizes. "Are you sure that the thief will come to this exact spot?" she asked, while looking. "I mean, what if any of the pack members get trapped?"

The explanation was surprisingly simple and made Osprey feel a bit ashamed for her skepticism. At the same time it was important that sometimes there was someone to remind her that she didn't know everything about the world just yet. Therefore with a fresh perspective she spent the rest of the hours together with Koda, waiting for the thief to appear and asking more questions about traps and the foreign customs of hunting.

ooc: adding a quick conclusion, since the thread is getting old and Koda's player has expressed a wish to leave the game.