{The patience of hunting}

[Verfallene Hund]

Verfallene stalked the few remaining hours before the sun touched the horizon. His pack was strapped snug against his back, shifting slightly with each long rhythmic step. The only sound to be heard was the slight hiss of disturbed sand with each footfall. The sun warmed his left shoulder, casting his shadow to mammoth proportions on his right. He followed the slight imprint left by a rabbit in the sand.

He was in no hurry. The trail would lead him to a burrow, and he would sleep there tonight. If he didn’t make it in time, well he had his pack with him. He wouldn’t need water for days yet, and he could find something to burn and set up camp anywhere. This wasn’t an especially dangerous section of the desert.

So he trod onward, his gaze flicking between the tracks he followed, the horizon, and the progress of the sunset. Just as he was preparing to give up pursuit Ver crested a small rise to find a tiny dried up bit of streambed before him. A pair of acacia trees provided spidery shadows splayed across the scene, and an abundance of hummocks and bushes only added to the location’s potential for concealment.

If he was going to find threats, or if they were going to find him, this would be the place they were. Treading lightly, he circled the foliage, peering into the shadows with his eyes while at the same time probing the patch’s depths with the senses of his fingertips. After one full circumnavigation, he sat down still staring at the patch. He wasn’t going to get himself killed by simple lack of patience.

Still keeping watch with the fingers, Verfallene pulled his father’s bone flute up to his lips, slipping the cord it was attached to over his head. Any predator lying in wait for him already knew he was here, the sounds of his flute had never scared off game before, and there was no reason he should waste a perfectly good opportunity to practice.

Steady again, Ver stood, carefully looping the flute’s strap back over his head. There hadn’t been any movement from the copse, and the sun was setting. Soon it would be vanish from the horizon. Confidently, he stepped forward to follow the rabbit tracks. Most likely he would find the burrow here.

Places like this were Verfallene’s favorite. In the gentle shade he didn’t have to worry about heat exhaustion or energy conservation. The richness of patterns and textures of these groves provided the eye with a break from the monotony of endless sand.

He had enjoyed the morning out away from the camp with nobody to disturb him, no need to maintain any façade. It was an opportunity to just let his mind wander.

Finally just when he was coming to suspect that his first solo foray would be wasted, Verfallene had come upon the rabbit trail. He wouldn’t be able to bring much back to camp, but it would be nice to eat a meal not completely vegetarian tonight.

Entering the copse of greenery, Verfallene dropped onto his hand and knees to fit through the time-worn wildlife trail. His hair still caught on a branch. Verfallene had to clench his teeth together to resist the urge to mutter curses under his breath. There was no need to scare away his prey now.

He carefully untied the cord knotting back his and disentangled it from the branch. He moved forward again. There. There was the burrow. Still crouched, Verfallene let a rare smile creep across his face. This might be easier than expected.

Trying to make as little noise as possible, he removed his pack and withdrew a length of trapping cord. Slipping the knife from his side, he hacked off about a yard and tied off an appropriately sized noose. Preparations completed, he tied the other end of the cord to the base of a nearby bush and set up his simple trap at the burrow’s mouth. Now he just had to hope it didn’t have a second exit.

Pulling his pack back over his shoulder, Verfallene slipped back outside the grove to sit on the ground and wait.

[Zacharias]

     The sphinx lay amongst the bushes and brush, the small, stunted objects of barely growing growth about himself casting just the right amount of shade across his white fur to help keep the winged creature cool in the heat of the day. His large paw, razor sharp talons extended to help keep his grip upon the rabbit between them, where wrapped slightly around the half eaten carcass with a second laying near his body. He had been flying over head, and spotted the running rabbits which had sensed his approach. Massive blue wings had tipped and dipped, sending him in a spiraling descent that had brought him down upon one rabbits. With one massive swap of a paw, the rabbit had been killed, the small spine snapping and killing the lagomorph instantly.

     Hitting the ground, and shoving back off the sphinx had beat his wings once, the downward thrust of wind obliterating the solitary four tracks of his bounding motion from the sand, and he had bounced in to the trees and landed upon the second rabbit with feline grace and ease. He had sat there momentarily letting the rabbit scream in fear and struggle fruitlessly as he played with his food. He let the creature go once or twice, only to snatch it back with a paw and pull it to himself again. Finally the male tired of playing with his food, and bit down upon the rabbit's neck and jerked his head from side to side, snapping the creature's neck efficently.  Leaving the rabbit in the bushes, the sphinx leap in to the air, gliding slowly around and picking up the first rabbit the it had killed and returning to his spot.

     There, hidden amongst the bushes and trees, the sphinx had begun to feast upon the rabbit that he had snapped the neck with his fangs. Ripping in to the flesh, devouring it and cracking the bones open to suck out the delicious protein filled marrow the sphinx had finished it's meal and was simply lounging in the sun when somebody else came along. Not really moving or making a noise, the predator had sat watching as the anubis had moved around, investigating the copse and looking around. His tan fur providing excellent camouflage agains the sand and scrub brush, Zacharias was not surprised when he was over looked. Finally the other being left, having set some sort of trap up to catch a rabbit. Zacharias almost chuckled with amusement. He had already killed the two thing, but this other being did not know that. He decided to finally reveal himself, and so thus using his shapeshifting powers he slowly transformed, hiding his true sphinx form in a more modern mundane creature's of similar size and shape: a mountain lion. In this form, the creature stood and grasped the dead rabbit between his lips and leap from the bushes, pausing nearby but safely away from the anubian and stared at the other intently, rabbit dangling teasingly from his maw.

[Verfallene Hund]

Verfallene had been watching the slow circling of some vultures in the distance. The warmth of the sun, the repetitive “ping” the coin made as he flipped it, and the slow rustling of leaves was slowly lulling him to sleep. His eyelids lidded halfway as he was becoming oblivious to everything. He really shouldn’t sleep. It wasn’t an appropriate time or place thought it wasn’t the most dangerous, either. The rhythm of his coin toss faltered.

A blur of black feathers brushed his head as it arrowed toward the fertile copse. Reflexively he sat up straighter and touched the spot where he had been touched. His eyes followed through the long moment as it crashed into a bush. Weren’t birds supposed to be a bit more graceful than this?

“Caw! Caw!” The bird cried as Verfallene stood up and padded towards it.

He made placating gestures with his hands and whispered, “Hush! Hush, you’ll scare away the game.” It wasn’t as if the creature could understand him but some animals responded well to a calm voice.

As he got closer he could see that the bird was actually a crow.

“There, little guy, I’ll help you out,” Verfallen whispered, moving aside some branches. He was going to end up with bloody hands, either from the birds claws or the bushes thorns, but the consequences would be worse if this crow turned out to be a god and he didn’t offer assistance.

“Caw!” The crow called again.

Out of the corner of his eyes, Verfallene watched as a mountain lion emerges from the bushes. And with HIS prey nonetheless dangling from its mouth.

"It seems someone has beaten me to the kill. Guess now I'll have to hunt something else. I hear cat meat is high on protein."

[Zacharias]

     Zacharias watched the male cynocephaly, tilting his head as his triangular black tipped ears twitched from side to side. He understood everything the male was saying, but showed not that he did understand. Suddenly, with a flip of his head, the mountain lion tossed the intact but dead rabbit at the cynocephaly where it landed a the jackal headed being's feet. Sitting back upon his haunches, the feline raised a paw and began to lick it's fur slowly, eyes never leaving the anubian creature before itself as it began to lick a smidgen of blood from the fur. After several seconds of cleaning, the lion stretched languidly, retractable claws digging furrows in to the ground and huge canines flashing in the sunlight before it stood up straight again and sat back upon haunches and resumed it's unusual vigilance of the interesting male who seemed interested in food no matter the source. Zacharias would never allow such a thing as this jackal headed creature to lay a finger upon himself, but that was of no consequences. Instead he was interested in seeing what the other was intending to do with that rabbit, now that the cycocephaly had it in his grasp. Zach had known a few of these creatures before his long sleep, but he wondered how they had changed in culture since that time. He was testing the waters, and experimenting to see what would be done by the other.