Cricket Creek Bog Itsy Went Up The Water Spout

...okay I didn't think this had gotten quite this long when I scrawled it out earlier today.  x.o;  Oops. Lots to pick from to reply to at least, hopefully? <3 lol. ...I may get around to winnowing this down s'more later, if you don't reply first, heh.

The little twitterbrain seemed quite happily to be enslaved by the coyote, it seemed to Grimeye. Such a servant was of somewhat limited usefulness in some ways, but well, she could and would make do with what she had. Grimeye followed resignedly after Itsy, placing her paws more and more carefully to minimize the chances of the bigger birds catching on to her presence, though she grimaced as she stepped carefully into the muck a few more times as a result—but hey, she steadfastly reminded herself, if it cushioned her steps enough to let her sneak up on her next meal, it would be worth it.

Itsy was not really the best of guides, with Grimeye forced to follow her exuberant flittering with considerably more caution. Once or twice she had to detour around a patch of undergrowth and step a little more lively to catch up to the small bird. Fortunately, Itsy herself was not much of a master of stealth, so Grimeye kept an eye on her relatively easily even at the slower skulking pace the coywolf was taking. No warning was given before the pair approached the open stretch of marsh where a much longer-legged feathery bunch was milling about in the patchy wetland. Grimeye jerked to a halt and then scuttled behind a particularly profuse and verdant bush that sat perkily at the clearing's edge. One bird's long-beaked head whipped about to look in her direction, Grim not having been quite fast enough to avoid detection entirely, but although it let out a nervous squawk as it craned its neck and squinted toward her, it seemed unable to make out her frozen shape in the shadow of the overexuberant shrub. Of course, it also wasn't able to keep its attention on the concerning flicker of movement it had noticed for too long, because Itsy was being an increasingly unstealthy little bird herself, swooping and singsonging and making a general nuisance of herself. Two more of the birds squawked back at her, one of them mantling its wings threateningly as it tracked her whilst the other simply ruffled its feathers in annoyance. In the end it didn't take long at all for all of the swamp patch's birds to be fixated on Itsy, with varying degrees of annoyance, alarm, disbelief and bafflement apparent in their shifting legs, glittering beady eyes and wavering long heads. At least two of them that Grimeye could see looked as if they were seriously considering stabbing the noisy little featherball the next time it fluttered within their needle-like beaks' reach.

She wasn't certain what type of bird they were, and for that matter, while she could see more than one messy lump of twigs and grass that was probably a nest, from back here she wasn't spotting any smaller or pinker birds anywhere around them, or the sweet curve of a delicious egg nestled in any of their depths. But Itsy was doing a bang-up job of making herself such a nuisancy distraction that Grimeye thought perhaps one of the adults could make a dumb and easy enough target, after all... She crept slowly around to the bush's far side, and kept herself scrunched as close to the ground as caninely possible as she moved up on the nearest bird that was gawking stupidly at her feathery little brown-speckled friend. Grimeye spared hardly a glimpse for Itsy's aerial acrobatics herself; instead, she gathered her hindquarters up beneath her and made a sudden spring for the tantalizingly long and slender neck of the nearest waterbird. There was a sudden explosive ruckus that drowned out Itsy's yammering racket from the long coyote ears for a minute, but no matter: she could feel the whippy birdneck between her teeth as they snapped shut, and quickly and ferociously shook it until the long, muscular tube snapped and went limp. She dropped the first bird and made a quick lunge toward the next nearest one, which had been slowed not only by Itsy's confounding antics but also by the particuarly oozy patch it had been standing in, but it was already breaking itself free in a flurry of feathers drumming at the air and a volley of loud, unhappy squawks—the screechiest and loudest noises yet, which caused Grimeye's long ears to flatten back against her skull as she snapped frantically again once and then twice. Then she slowed and then stopped, watching futilely as the second bird stepped further out onto drier land and rapidly gained ground on the old coywolf. Mentally she shrugged before turning and going back to make sure the first bird hadn't just been playing dead.

She could already see from here that it hadn't been playing her false, though. Smugly she slorched through the mucky swampland toward her prize, but lo and behold, she too was now sidetracked by the flittering about of little Itsy, and paused half a moment to consider, same forepaw upraised. That hesitation gave another small movement to catch the corner of her eye, and Grimeye first turned her head irritably and then instead smiled. She took two long steps to the left and peeled back her lips as she grabbed at the thrashing earthworm whose tail had been exposed by the mad churning of a dozen fleeing birds' tall legs. Grimeye flipped it casually in Itsy's general direction—There you go, Itsy!—and smacked her lips and ran her long pink tongue through her worn ivory-yellow teeth several times to try and rid herself of the taste of the worm and the small clump of mud that had accompanied it, both. She had neglected to mention not only the three grasshoppers, half-dozen caterpillars, and earthworm she had spotted on the way to the birds, and didn't bother to point out the other frantically wriggling earthworm she saw two tussocks away now—it didn't seem worth the effort, really, and as always Grimeye's own food was a much higher order of priority, of course. She wasn't about to chance some other beast happening upon her bird carcass, after all the trouble it had taken to get here— but she would make a short swift detour for the lone chick that now burst out of its nest a little ways away, unable to stand hiding any longer as the coywolf trotted slightly nearer to it. Grimeye spun about and, with only a few hitches to her stride between the swamp and her stiff bones, galloped awkwardly up on the smaller birdchild, to grab its frantically peeping form between her teeth as well. Her tail quirked up and swayed at a jaunty angle as Grimeye returned to place the tiny corpse upon the first, feeling smugly that she had very much gotten the better end of this bargain. She grinned widely up at Itsy, swiftly and neatly licking a small, downy feather from one corner of her mouth, a motion which didn't even touch the light smears of blood on her maw's opposite end. I knew a brainy little bird like you would be good luck. Heh heh.