Redtail Rise eulalie

“Two holes,” Avicus said and Masquerade immediately began searching for the other, though her mother had more to say. She would find the additional one. She instructed her daughter to wait.

Masque had never done this before, though she intuited that the Wealda would flush them out somehow, leaving her to catch them. She breathed in sharply, trying to prepare herself. She crouched near the first hole, constantly fighting the urge to track Avicus’s progress and instead keep her focus honed on the hole.

Her eyes snapped upward when she heard the Wealda digging, then quickly fell back to her own dugout. Her hindquarters lifted slightly, Masque dipping forward in preparation to pounce whatever exited. She bit back a whine of excitement when she definitely heard scurrying underground.

A creature emerged so suddenly that Masquerade didn’t even clock its size or the color of its pelt. She struck like a rattlesnake, her aim very imprecise but nonetheless hitting her target. Her teeth dug into flesh and fur as the groundhog began writhing with surprisingly ferocious force.

The Toweard backpedaled rapidly, dragging it out of the hole. Her mouth had closed over its shoulder, leaving the rodent’s blunt snout free to sink its overgrown teeth into the side of her face.