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 Posted: Sat Jun 27, 2009 12:23 am
Soft sunlight filtering through the forest canopy, a gentle breeze blowing her scent away. It was a good day for hunting, and so far the prey had yet to realize Dafina's presence. The small kirin mare smiled to herself at this thought. Hunting brought her a sort of peace, reminded her that it was perfectly natural to be as she was. It was the cycle of life...and while it might not be what others thought was the Way, it was her Way.
Now if she could only get a little bit closer to that deer...
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Posted: Sat Jun 27, 2009 1:03 am
 The golden coated young buck ducked under a low handing branch, pounding hooves carving furrows into the moist forest soil. His eyes were fixed avidly on the fleeing form of a feathered saurian. With bugle he lunged into a small clearing, teeth snapping at the fleeing morsel just beyond reach. Something large and long legged bounded off into the underbrush, but it barely caught Myrrith's attention. What did stop him in his tracks was the Kirin mare in his path. Perhaps stopped in his tracks was a bit of an overestimation, for no sooner had his concentration wavered, the saurian disappeared down into a bolt hole and he found himself lurching off to one side to avoid trampling the small female.
Oddly enough, she didn't look too happy to see him.
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Posted: Sat Jun 27, 2009 1:11 am
Not happy was...definitely one way to put it.
Dafina's lips curled back from sharp fangs, the implied threat clear. Anger flaring in her narrowed eyes, she boldly took a step forward, her ears pinned back. "Do you have any idea what you just did?" she demanded, tone as icy as a mountain peak. "I don't think you do, so I will tell you. My meal is now gone. You caused that. The question you have to answer is what you'll do about it." Raising her head imperiously, she glared at him.
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Posted: Sat Jun 27, 2009 1:20 am
The greeting he was about to offer died on Myrrith's lips as the mare... snarled at him? Ears flattened back, the buck took a moment to gather himself back together. "Erm... I... am sorry?" Myrrith sighed with a woebegone expression. "I'd offer you mine, but it seems like it's gone to ground as well. What were you hunting? Not ... the big long legged things?" He tilted his head, light refracting into tiny rainbows through crystalline antlers.
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Posted: Sat Jun 27, 2009 5:56 pm
Dafina regarded him through narrow eyes for a long moment. But in the end, she could not fault him for having pursued his prey. "You should have kept your focus," she finally said. "Being careless will cost you meals, and enough lost meals can cost you much more." Eyeing him up and down critically, she concluded that he couldn't be much older than her. Maybe even younger.
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Posted: Sun Jun 28, 2009 12:03 am
"I didn't want to run you over..." Myrrith ducked his head as if scolded, wuffling puffs of air into the dirt. With a sigh he walked over to the bolt hole and pawed at the dirt futilely. "I don't catch most of the things I chase... the long legs are too fast and can run longer than I can, the small ones just hide in places that are too small for me to go, so I usually chase down the feathered running lizards." Annoyed with his lack of progress, Myrrith sticks his nose down the bolt hole, trying to reach the saurian.
"My sire is a great hunter... I ... um... I'm still learning." Myrrith hoped he sounded more confident than he felt. Rajah's last assessment had been scathing to the young stallion's self image. Either we both starve, or you stay home! I've never seen someone with so much enthusiasm and yet so little sense of patience!
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Posted: Mon Jun 29, 2009 7:57 pm
"You should trust others to be capable of dodging," Dafina remarked, flicking her tail casually. Peering down at him as he stuck his nose into a hole in the ground, she shook her head. "You should also avoid doing that. Do you want to get stuck?"
At the declaration that his sire was a great hunter, the mare snorted. "It did not seem that he taught you much."
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Posted: Thu Jul 02, 2009 12:12 am
Myrrith flattened back his ears and pulled his head out of the hole, a retort hot on his muzzle. Unfortunately, the buck failed to recall the hanging vines and ended up with his long branching antlers entwined.
"Shellcrack, stupid tree!" Snorting angrily and tossing his head, Myrrith tears loose from the vines and proceeds to shake bits of plant loose from his rack. He rolls his eyes towards Dafina. "Well, my dam taught me it wasn't polite to run strangers over on sight. Sire... has been busy keeping the family herd fed. Too busy to spare time for lessons. I'm learning on my own... mostly."
With a faint growl he eyes the hole, then the trees nearby with a calculating glance. Picking out a low hanging branch, Myrrith snaps it off with his teeth and proceeds to strip off all the leaves. Thus armed, he returns to the hole and shoves the branch down it, rewarded with a loud hiss and angry snap. "C'mon... " snorting softly, he shoves the branch in harder.
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Posted: Sat Jul 04, 2009 11:39 pm
With a snorting laugh, Dafina watched Myrrith extract himself from his entanglement with a smirk on her face. Had he proven himself inextricably caught, she would have stepped forward to help. Eventually. But for his inexperience, he was strong, and she was pleased to see him able to free himself.
Stepping closer, she peered down at him as he poked the stick into the hole. "He could not take you with him?" she finally queried, her brow furrowing. "Strange. In any case, you won't make much progress like that. Do you eat fish?"
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Posted: Mon Jul 06, 2009 9:02 pm
With a resigned sigh and a final irritated jab down the hole, the golden coated male abandoned his stick and shook his head in disgust. Gone to ground, again. If only I'd been a bit faster... He wasn't the most agile on the ground, though, the large double wings on his back tended to get caught in branches and vines, as did his antlers.
"Sire..." Myrrith licked his lips, looking wistful. "Sire had three of us to feed, himself, my sib-sister and me. There wasn't time for mistakes, I guess... and... erm," he ducks his head, mumbling. "and I was a bit too ... exuberant."
With a snort the stallion tosses his head. No matter! That was then, and this is now, he was much bigger and stronger than the gangly foal that had bounded along at Rajah's heels. Arching his neck he turned to regard the small mare in front of him. Sandy brown and orange-gold, soft rounded ears like his family herd. She certainly didn't look to be suffering for a lack of meals. Probably a better huntress than he was, then. Myrrith's ears flattened slightly in shame.
"Fish are good, once you make them stop flopping about all over the place." He turned to look towards the river, hidden behind many lengths of forest. Fish... sigh. It was almost always fish. Myrrith didn't mind them, but fish had been a staple in Rajah's hunting and he preferred the sweeter taste of saurian.
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Posted: Mon Jul 06, 2009 9:08 pm
"Fish are good practice," Dafina remarked, watching him with an impassive air. Whatever her innermost thoughts, she didn't appear ruffled by his frustration. Amused, yes, but she was done laughing for now. "If you can stay still and silent for long enough for a fish to come within reach, you are well on your way to being stealthy enough for larger prey. Use patience and focus, and you just might eat tonight."
The message was clear: she would not carry him, but she would help him if he chose to accept it. If he made progress but was fantastically unlucky...well, maybe she'd give him a demonstration.
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Posted: Mon Jul 06, 2009 9:16 pm
"Fish it is, then... I was probably going to end up at the river anyways, had my hunt gone badly." At least it hadn't been a total washout, here was another Kirindae who liked their food live and kicking. Well, at least until the first bite...
With a last wistful look at the hole, branch still sticking oddly out into the air, Myrrith turned about and trotted towards the river, wings tucked tightly against his sides. The larger creatures of the forest took this route regularly, and it wasn't hard to find the running stream. Well before the banks were reached you could hear the unmistakable sound of water over rocks.
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Posted: Mon Jul 06, 2009 9:24 pm
Nodding her approval, Dafina peered into the rushing water. Fish swam against the current, some well-sized enough to take the edge off a kirin's hunger. Pausing, she turned her head to eye Myrrith's translucent antlers. It would be difficult for him to spear them like another kirin might...well, hopefully he wouldn't mind a few mouthfuls of water before he succeeded.
"You'll want to move into the water slowly, and brace yourself against the current," she began, her voice quiet so as to not disturb their quarry. "I face upstream so they cannot see me coming, although they are sensitive in hearing. Once you've found your spot, you'll want to be as still and silent as possible, so they believe you're just another piece of the river." Gesturing towards the river, she urged him to begin. "Once you see a fish within reach, strike as quickly as you can. Aim a little below them."
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Posted: Mon Jul 06, 2009 9:34 pm
Myrrith curled back his upper lip and shook his mane. He wasn't a fuzztail! Not only that, her way of fishing sounded far too long and boring. "Waiting? spearing? Hmph, maybe that works for you, but I've a better idea." Tail arched well over his back to stay dry, the buck poised himself on the riverbank, eyeing the flashes of silver below. With a leap and a few wingbeats, Myrrith soared over the broad but shallow stream, executing a twisting turn before landing.
Rearing with a yell, he charges into the stream, all four wings fanned and antlers lowered. Like a scoop, he funnels fish into his outspread antlers before throwing the whole lot, fish, water and everything in between, up onto the bank with a snap of his head and wings.. and into the path of one likely very surprised mare.
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Posted: Mon Jul 06, 2009 9:38 pm
...What the?!
Ears flattened against her head as she shrilled her dismay, Dafina scrambled to scoot backwards. Too little, too late. Fish and water pelted down like a bizarre rain, leaving her drenched and smelling faintly of...well...fish.
Shivers running down her coat at the sudden drenching and tail tucked between her legs (Goddess but that water was cold), she looked very much like a wet cat. A pitiful, smelly, annoyed wet cat.
"...You could have told me you knew how to fish."
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