Grouse Thicket all i want is a night of sleep

@Marruz - tracker specialty 4/10

It was growing dark, but still the empress failed to return to the keep - she wanted to inhale as much of the crisp, untouched air as she could before returning to where shadows seemed to leap at her from behind every step. The air there was thick with unspoken emotion, and she had no desire to wrap herself in the cold of the night's watching eyes; so out she stayed, weaving swiftly between the naked trees.

She thought of Raziel's face, so torn by guilt, anger, loathing... hurt. It was her fault, the very wind whispered it so - but he'd hurt her, too. There was no doubting the sharp sting lodged deep into her chest, where her heart seemed dusted in cobwebs and spiders. Love - so terribly bittersweet.

Now she watched the stars as they became masked by clouds, dissolving into the night just as her plush figure did, white blending into the darkest of blues; following the rabbits as they twitched and grazed and hopped. Would the world speak to her in the blackest of days, or would she be left in her solemn isolation, alone to rot in self-pity?

At least hunting provided her with an outlet of which to cast her wasted energy.

thanks for getting this up :)

Marruz had never been to the Thicket before, but he could catch the strong scent even from the eastern Alpine Lake. Many a bird, he knew, dwelled that way. And so, finding his energies at a particular maximum and his agile appendages anxious for movement, he figured he might best expend such zest upon the fruitful activity of hunting.

Seeing as the sky was unfit for stargazing, he would resort to something that pleased him equally as much. Though still only a year in age, the boy was well equipped for the job. Observant, stealthy, and built for speed, there was a viperine quality in the way the panther of a wolf moved. 

The shadowy creature noted the subtle variations of the terrain; careful to take into account the stouter breadth of the trees and the barren limbs which, within the year, might bear plump apples. It was a wonderful sight for the keen-eyed predator, who surveyed the desolate expanse with the air of a triumphant imposter. Back in the Weald, he was aware of a small population of birds sequestered high within the shelter of lithesome trees. In comparison, this place was practically a playground. 

It did not take long after his maw was split wide to detect the scent of unsuspecting life. With an earnest flick of his ears, the darkling directed his attention to a nearby clot of snow and dying shrubbery. Immediately, he pushed his snout forward so that his Stygian shoulder blades stuck baldly upwards in jagged edifices upon his back. Perhaps this might be his first catch of the night?

np <3

The smudge of charcoal against black skies was not so easily distinguished amongst the shadows, but she'd trained her senses specifically for such a purpose - to locate, uncover, and though the scent was not of prey, she picked it up and fiddled with countless decisions in her head. For security reasons, she ought to head away, dissolve into the darkness, but she found rather suddenly that she didn't want to. Not yet.

She watched him.

Carefully tracking his movements, wondering if he'd caught wind of her own presence - perhaps the branches had whispered to him - the empress inclined her head, awaiting his move. The coming night was distinctly silent, as though holding its breath for some unknown performance.

Marruz did not notice the stranger at first. His mind was acutely aware of only one presence in the solemnity of the night: the hare. So it was that when he crouched to begin his hunting ritual, it came to him as a surprise when he heard the small pinch of sound nearby. 

Immediately, his mind abandoned the rabbit. Though outwardly he didn't change even to a fraction, his nerves were screaming at him internally to get moving; urging him to make use of his nimble appendages before he was good and dead. Instead, however, he shifted his eyes. The source of the eruption, minute though it was, had arrived from the location of his darker orb, so that without moving his head it was scarcely possible to notice his scanning of the foliage.

That's when blaring white fur pushed against his retinas. He chided himself for not having noticed the pearly stranger sooner. In the black tide of night, the sight was almost spectrous. As soon as he collected sufficient data — that is, the fact that this was a mature female and not a bulky alpha-wolf — he drew himself to his full height, ears flicking mechanically to address the stranger.

"Fancy interrupting my hunt?" his voice was of youthful timbre, though it was taut with a pulsing flare of curt temper. "Or would you like to catch the hare for me next time?" 

She hadn't seen the twist of his blackened eye as it swerved over the dips of the land, not until he drew himself to his full height (a tall figure of shadows) and allowed words tinged with disgruntled annoyance to slip from his lips. The Eruna's tongue darted out to swipe across her maw in contemplation before dipping her crystalline crown in his direction. "My apologies."

Indeed, it hadn't been her intention to sway the course of his hunt - her goal had purely been to observe, to absorb whatever techniques he used to see if they might improve her own abilites, but she had not concealed herself enough within the shade of the undergrowth. A gaze of fathomless sapphire was cast toward where the hare would have fled, plush ears tipping back gently across her skull.

"...If you would like, I could hunt with you. Make up for ruining your catch." If not, she'd turn and dissolve back into the lingering fog, which sat in a hazy cloud over the area. She had time to waste, and she'd rather be productive than sit around and laze in the warmth of her den, whether Raziel was there or not. Besides... a pebble of guilt had tumbled into her stomach, and she would have liked to dislodge it.

To be honest, Marruz wanted to shake the girl off. He wanted her to sound a lot less pleasing and a lot less polite. So when he listened to her apologize, he only nodded impatiently and warded her words off with a chuff of wintry air.

He followed her gaze to where the ghost of the hare mocked him and frowned at her offer. As much as he would have loved to deny her the gratitude of redemption, the prospects of a successful hunt - considering how far he had gone by now - was enough to persuade him otherwise. Plus, perhaps she had a skill he could learn? 

Marruz allowed an indifferent shrug; shook out his fur gruffly and squared his shoulders. "I would like to be recovering the dead body of a hare right now," he muttered under his breath. "But I suppose this will do — if we can even find a rabbit so large." But part of that was spiteful, of course, because the hare had definitely been on the slimmer side from any angle.