Redtail Rise XXV

first augur's steps slow and then bobcat's — taking his cue from his father. it is only in the following seconds that he hears their quarry: the soft scurry of the mices' tiny feet against the hard, freezing earth.

bobcat's ears twitch, hunger for the hunt bubbling in his chest, warming him as augur urges him on.

hunt.

eager to please augur and earn his praise, to be the pride of his parents, bobcat slinks down drawing nearer. they were small and in this he suspects they have an advantage, especially if they took to ground.

bobcat tries not to overthink. tries to channel blossoming instinct.

but he is clumsy and green and though he pounces on one of them, it slips in a panicked fright out from beneath his paw. brow furrows and a low, annoyed noise rumbles in bobcat's throat as he tries again and again to pin one with his front paws only to have them escape into a hole in a hollowed tree trunk.

failure droops his shoulders and he lets his annoyance known as he rams his shoulder into the wood though it did nothing but cause his shoulder to ache.