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Treacherous Snow stalked through the swamp like a predator stalking its prey. Watch Your Step prowled after her, paws and talons as silent against the ground as Cornice's light hooves. Suddenly, Cornice stopped, and dropped low, belly brushing against the ground. Eyes up and head down, the doe brandished her horns. Beside her, Caution's winds flared threateningly. They were being watched. Ordinarily she wouldn't have bothered stopping or even taking up a defensive, she was confident in herself, but she wasn't confident in the load that she carried. Loathe as she was of the idea of children, she would still carry this clutch because amongst the soft, vulnerable, oh so fragile and mortal children there was the potential to grow strong and grow cunning, a viscous companion for a ruthless doe. If they ended up with their father's stupidity, Cornice would leave them, but if they inherited her tact and her and No Mercy's combined ruthlessness, she would teach them, teach them to hunt the swamp and all its inhabitants.

They would be hunters of the hunters and they would prowl the swamp knowing they had the knowledge and tools to take what was rightfully theirs.

Cornice didn't tense up when the caiman surfaced, rather she kept her muscles relaxed ready to strike out should the caiman foolishly decide that a kin made good prey. She wasn't particularly worried, she could take down a caiman, even with the extra burden of children. Then suddenly, the air went blurry and a mare stood in its place, rows of sharp teeth very much unlike the sharp fangs of kin flashing at her when the mare smiled. Cornice eased up from her defensive posture to properly face the legendary.

Confident. Strong.

And Cornice thought intelligent and cunning. Treacherous Snow made it her business to be able to tear kin apart in seconds and know them. Sometimes she could not necessarily pinpoint what tipped her off, but she always knew. Shifting around, almost as if she were to circle the mare, Cornice smiled disarmingly. Oh, she would get her cunning children, she would get her equal companion.

"Perhaps so, but one must always be careful when it comes to one's children." Next to her, Caution settled her feathers and took on a more relaxed posture. Cornice shrugged. She hadn't had any real reason to come to this dark corner of the swamp. She just did. If for no other reason than because her she was surrounded by predators rather than the soft kin that roamed the rest of the swamp. Ever polite, Cornice continued on, "No particular reason, but I certainly did not expect to meet a legendary, and not one such as you."

"Perhaps the Swamp led me here," Cornice paused before saying, "I do not doubt that my children will hunt, I do doubt that they will hunt with cunning and mind rather than simply brute force. Would you be the one to help bring forth the sharp and keen mind of a good hunter?"

Cornice stood calmly as the mare watched her with sharp eyes and circled around her with calm intent, the type that made true hunters. Nodding when the mare spoke, Cornice wondered if she should feel very different for she did not feel as if something of huge magnitude had changed within her, but it did not bother her. After all, the greatest hunters were subtle and the Swamp itself worked the greatest and its most dangerous power in the most simple and unnoticeable ways. She did not doubt the power of the mare before her to bless her children well.

Dipping her head down, Cornice merely said, "Thank you."

There was no need for flowery words between two hunters. Perhaps the swamp really had led her here. Regardless, Cornice was now more than ever sure that her children would be sharp of mind and strong of body, creatures that would hunt the hunters.