Fall was the best time.
The crunch and crackle of the leaves, the scent of cut hay and the harvest on an ice kissed wind, the deep brown red golden of the falling leaves and a forest on the edge of winter... All of it is gone. The dying season has slipped away, eaten up by the bitten white of the world, the icy fangs of winter gnashing and gnawing until the dead leaves are gone beneath sparkling white and crackling ice. The prey animals move south or stay wandering, chasing scraps of food where they can find it clinging against the chill. Many trees are stripped of bark as high as the deer can stretch, grass grazed to the earth before the snows came in, brush stripped of leaves and even the most tender twigs. All the nuts and seeds have been collected and stored away, roots dug up and eaten, until nothing seems to be left.
Not that Tengu would eat such things, though they have snapped their beak at a clinging fruit or nibbled at a few seeds... But they were not the sort to gather and store away food for the deep cold. Now the deep cold was upon them, and foraging was not really an option. The true hunt began, tracking the length of rabbit warrens and lying in wait for them to emerge... Seeking out denning creatures that might not wake until their doom was upon them. In this way did Tengu pass their time in winter, and when at last the snows began to recede they reveled in the reawakening of the world. Soon the young would be emerging, unwise in the ways of the world and the danger presented, and Tengu would feed.
Though the scent of ice and snow and cold is slowly retreating, there is a scent they recognize from before... the sweet crackle of ozone, a deep predatory musk, and ink. Shaking themself from nose to tail and shedding ink as they go, Tengu debates setting a trap for the stranger that seems to be following them and slinks in a den to dose and consider.
'We are the Hunter... who dares to hunt us?'
Tengu Shockwing Wordcount: 366
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