There are very few things in the world that do not set Aiofe into a state of chaos. They are small, often insignificant things that, when coupled with greater troubles, are overlooked completely, but on their own, they leave her placated and at rest; the constant trembling in her muscles easing, if only for a moment.As it were, she had been enjoying the night, which is rare. For once since the start of summer, it has cooled pleasantly from the scorch of mid-day, and no storm clouds threaten the horizon. Every evening for the past fortnight had beckoned nothing but thunder to her door, and the change is welcomed. She imagines those would be less frequent if she did not live within the mountains that border the desert and the plains, but she cannot care enough for clear skies to move; the hunting here is superb, and the valley to her liking. Perhaps the reason that she most enjoys this night, however, is that the moon is unmarred by the thick, black clouds of rain that have thus hidden it away. Even if it is only a crescent, a relatively small sliver of light in the sky, it is enough that she pauses in her patrol and gazes at it, a very thin smile tugging at her lips. She does not know why she enjoys the moon so, only that she does, and it is the fact that she stops that alerts her to something else.
An equally insignificant thing that overwhelms the thing that made her stop and sends her into a flurry of emotions, none of which pleasant.
There, beyond the line of trees that cloak her figure in darkness, she can see a form lying upon the grass. It is still, and as the wind picks up, it carries with it the scent of death; of blood, and dirt, and broken grass. A low growl builds, live magma overflowing the tip of a volcano, in her throat and erupts into the cool night air, shattering the deafening silence that had prevailed. Without care or worry as to what has intruded on her territory, she crashes from the underbrush, wings flaring out to either side of her as she approaches the kill. She can smell him, lingering on the air and the fur of the animal that had been his prey (her prey), and she cannot help that her eyes narrow as she searches the surrounding trees for him, as if daring the fool to protect his meal. Has he stayed near by? Is he still within her valley - within her territory? How has he gotten past her senses long enough to kill her prey?
Numerous questions tug her brain this way and that, fury tinting the edges of her vision the colour of the blood that sticks to the grass, and she lashes out at the dead thing, feeling it's fragile skin tear under her sharp hoof. "Who are you?" she all but snarls quietly into the darkness, nostrils flaring as she searches for a sign of him. She has made her boundaries clear, and she seeks no mate, and she wonders what audacity, what little intelligence the male that has invaded her territory has to pass those obvious lines. "Who are you?" Louder, still, she snarls, and turns to violently kick the animal, hearing rather than feeling when her hoof connects to bone and cracks it. She almost stomps it into the ground in a fit of rage, but instead, whips her head to the sky and throws herself upward, her wings bearing her swiftly above the trees. She will save her energy for this intruder, and teach him the error of his mistake.
Though the flight brings her closer to the crescent, the sliver of light in the sky, she is all but blind to the moon, now.
She finds him, closer to the base of the mountains than she will ever be comfortable with, drinking from the stream that cuts through the valley and continues down to the lake beyond the plains. Brightly coloured as he is, she is once again struck with the notion that he evaded her senses, and spirals down towards the trees, landing with loud 'snap!' of the wings and a growl in her throat, leering at him menacingly as she takes one step, then two, then four in his direction, fast approaching him. "You," she sneers, snaking her head low and snapping her teeth at him. "You intrude upon my valley, steal my prey, and drink my water as though it were your own. You have thirty seconds before I mar that pretty coat of yours with your own blood, lest you leave."
Whoever he was, whatever explanation he might have, she does not care. This is her territory, and she is willing to fight for it.
