Whitefish River rude awakening

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Rolled a bunch of dice in the Tabletop channel and got: high risk badger fight!!

The riverside had been appealing to him before, and it should not have surprised him that someone else saw the value and took it as a claim. It didn't have the same interest to Firefly now that someone else's scent was all over it - but he could at least trace some of the paths with certainty, cutting his exploration time down considerably. As he roamed he wondered if this space was where he'd always been destined to live, or... Maybe he was overthinking things. That wasn't like him.

The task of hunting down every cache was at the forefront of his mind. Learning the layout of the terrain would come naturally, and Firefly had lived in enough places now that he didn't worry for the sake of worrying. He found a few of the caches pretty easily and made sure to drop and roll in the scent collected there, gathering the scents of the other residents upon his coat in the process. When he moved on to another cluster of - what appeared to be - freshly tilled dirt, he was hit by a wave of otherness.

The scent was musky like a fox, and so that's what Firefly focused on. He began to investigate a patch of bramble where the smell was thickest, but he'd only just ducked around the hedge when a shrill scream hit his ears; he saw teeth and a flash of bristling two-toned fur, and felt something lunge from the undergrowth for his investigative snout.

she'd been in pursuit of the newest member's trail. her distrust of strangers had not faded, but rather than avoid them, she sought to confront them head-on, now. the idea of wolves with questionable intent hanging around while her brother healed was out of the question. 

she spots his dark rear a moment before noting the second, foreign scent here, and calls out a "hei," to get his attention at the same time something screams and lunges out from the undergrowth, her view of it mostly obscured. her tail curls higher, bristling, but doesn't move forward immediately; she has no idea what's going on.

Rolled a 4/15.

The shriek was all that filled his ears, and he reacted. The creature aimed for his face and in a flurry of aggression, had dragged its claws down the length of his already tough snout and forced Firefly's head down. It was hard for him to see the creature clearly with his wounded eye, but with the bloom of red on the rim of his vision and the burning lance of pain, he felt himself focus. The sound of the girl's approach - and her greeting - fell by the wayside as he launched towards the offensive thing that lay in his path.

The blood awakened something in Firefly that had been dormant since the island, perhaps even before that. Something that had gone to sleep when he'd been thrown from the cliffs by the wretched woman of Stormrift — this desire to fight, to rend, to tear apart another living thing. The badger was no match; deflected by a ramming of his head in to the claws, through them to the chest, and then he was shaking and snaking his head as close as he could to the bulk of the beast - gripping, biting hard.

The badger refused to give up so easily, but it was shocked by the no-holds-barred style of Firefly's unhindered rage, and fell victim to it. The crunch of bone and the panicked squealing of the mustelid sounded a lot like the shrieking of a child as it was butchered, and when Firefly was done, he lifted the creature by the throat and threw it free of the brambles, then stood there panting and dripping.

she takes a step forward, wanting to charge into what is clearly a fight but seeing little of the attacker. there - black and white, the size of a fox, coyote, maybe, but wide - and she stood on, tensed and waiting for an opening, heart pumping. and then that scream again, different. a death scream. crunch of bone, the wild trembling of the undergrowth, and the creature was tossed aside, the dark male victorious. 

"shit." came her voice, finally, eyes bright as they fixed on the male. "that—you're awesome!" it was one of the few true fights she'd seen, but she recognized the way with which he fought was different, reckless.

Blood was seeping from the gouge across his snout, but he paid it little mind. It hurt - of course it hurt! - but with the effects of his adrenaline coursing his system, Firefly managed to ignore the sensation. It took him a few seconds to catch his breath. The badger wasn't entirely dead yet either; he'd managed to break its clavicle and do some serious damage, and it was going to eventually die, but there was still movement and a desperation to the dimming light in its sad eyes. Ragged breathing from the both of them - then - that-you're awesome!

The girl's voice is full of adulation as she praises him, and he wheels around to face her almost like she's another target for his rage. She's young, and familiar, sort of. It takes a few beats of his heart before Firefly recalls what Vercingetorix had threatened hours before, remembering that there were children of Kaistleoki he is meant to avoid. As his breathing returns to a state of normalcy he lets out a grunt but doesn't engage the girl - rather, he tries to sweep towards the brambles where the badger had originated, eager to get away from her.

The adrenaline starts to ebb though, and the pain in his face sharpens. For a split second he is so hypervigilant of the burning in his snout that he forgets she is even there, and sputters to himself: Motherfucker, that hurt.