Log: Foragers

Characters: Mothwing, Zen, Kala (and NPCs)
Setting: In the Wild, beasts find their food, in whatever way they can...


The popping of the wood in the old mill was what woke her up...Killer, destroyer..The owl that had become one of the top two predators on the farm. Only rivaled by that cursed cat. What was his name? Dragfin? Two large eyes snap open and Mothwing ruffles her feathers in irritation. Dragon..What is a dragon anyway? What is that supposed to even mean? She sidles around on a window sil. It was the time of year that the grass would get crunchy. Crisp..It would be easy to hunt during the fall as always. Her head swivels on her shoulders until she's glaring down into the grass. Something in the wind hadn't been smelling right and it was making her cranky. She thought maybe eating something would be good. Spreading her wings, she silently dropped to a low rafter to look out of the door to the mill. Who knows? Maybe her prey would walk right by the door..Just walk right by! Her eyes narrowed in a small smile and she shifted comfortably...Walk right by indeed...

"Ugh, no... no... pthtbhbh, ugh! NO..." Obviously, finding food on this farm seemed to be quite an annoyance for this rather odd mouse. Bounding through the high grass, the mouse made his way towards one of the largest sources of water at the water mill. Surely there'd be something there! That's when he heard a rather odd rustling... He stopped, ears standing straight up and down as he froze in his place... It was then that he realized what seemed to be a few larger rodents ahead, already at the water mill! The mouse gruffed to himself as he tried to get closer and closer to the rats, seeing if they had any food he could steal... Little did he know what lurked in the structure near them...

There is little that can frighten Kala, or so the young ratling thinks. She has been raised from birth to endure the harshness of the wild, to survive nature, red in tooth and claw. Her colony was of moderate size, not so big as those in the Far River or the Deep Ravine, but still strong, enduring, as rats should be. Here she is, on the verge of adulthood, searching for food with her colony's Braves. There were about a half dozen of them, scurrying about, sniffing the air, rubbing their paws together fastidiously. Have to clean yourself. Have to be /tidy/. "Something's coming," she communicates, chirping silently in frequencies unknown to Man. She was young, but she would do. They all did.

Pupils dilate as the sounds from the rodents reach Mothwing's delicate ears. Her attention shifts to hunt-mode and she rotates her head, trying to pinpoint the precise location of her prey. There? No...There! Her wings beat, carrying her up to another window on the other side of the mill where she can watch the rats and mice. (Who cares which is which, just go for the big ones) The fading light of the sun seemed not to matter then; Her pupils were almost completely filling her eyes, letting in as much light as she could manage to focus only on the food below. They hadn't seen her and likely wouldn't, since she was in the shadows of the mill..She had time to pick one out, so she sat completely still for a while to choose.

Seeing that yes, some of these rats did have food, the mouse grinned and darted forwards a few paces before stopping, then repeating and coming to yet another halt. Trying to make sure he didn't alarm the rodents but move at a quick speed, the mouse darted into some grass; quite possibly putting himself with in one of the rat's reach should they find him! 'Alright… just nice and easy, shouldn't be too hard at all... Just take it when they let go... uh oh..." Something told him one of the rats had spotted him... or at the very least was on alert for something... That's when it hit him. The mouse started to feel himself shaking as he realizes this wasn't just one or two rats... It was a larger group... The mouse froze in place, unsure of what to do.

There are berries here, almost fully ripened, a feast for them all. The colony would certainly appreciate knowing of this bush, along with the others they already had learned about. It is good to have many places to eat. Greedily, the rats snatch some choice berries and chew, nibbling rapidly to sate themselves. Kala is the youngest, so she goes last, but there is plenty for hundreds of rats. None others knew but they; it was a lucky find. Or so they think. They turn as the scent of a stranger comes to them. "Who's there!" squeaks the largest Brave, the one they knew as Arak. "You are not of us, and we know." We know.

Feeling that she couldn't hesitate any longer without being seen, the small barn owl dropped, claws extended, onto a particularly plump rat that hadn't stopped eating, but was eyeing the grass beadily to see who the biggest rat was yelling at. With a single pop of her wings, she knocked the other rats to the ground and snapped down on the fat squeaker, paralyzing him. He was unsavable now and would likely bleed out without any more worry or fuss. She straightened and realized it probably wasn't the brightest idea to drop into the midst of the rats..The edge would have been so much easier to get out of. Something she would remember next time and every time afterwards; live and learn was survival to an owl.

The mouse started to panic, his little heart beating rapidly as he barely managed to squeak. "Z-Zen, I..." The mouse took a quick moment to look around for an escape. Unaware of where or how many rats there were though, he knew he was in deep trouble. For all he knew, any direction he ran could have lead straight into another rat! He took a few quick steps to the side, waiting to see just what the rat would do. At the first sign of an attack, he knew he'd have to run as fast as he could. What happened next though, was far from what he expected. Seeing an owl dive bomb into the area caused the mouse to squeak noisily! He tried to find a direction to run but every step he took, he felt he was closer to death and as such, he continued to turn and change paths almost every step, resulting in him running in a wobbly circle.

Whatever plans the rats have for Zen are thrown aside in a most violent way when the owl attacks! "PREDATOR! PREDATOR!" Arak squeaks, and they all scatter, dropping the berries as they escaped. Goruk had been a good friend, a nice rat, but his size has caught up to him at last. The slow, the tardy; they are soon dead. That is nature, that is the Wild. Kala knows this, knows this too well, for she has already lost a brother to the winged terrors of the night, and the memory of the loss spurs her on, drives her every instinctive movement. Flee. Run. Escape. She darts to and fro, hoping to confuse the creature. They knew that some of the predators only hunted once, but some hunted again and again. They could not tell which tonight, so they fled far. Her path happens to match Zen's almost exactly, by coincidence. "Little fool," she mutters to herself.

Folly seems to be no issue today; the rats are more inclined to run than to fight. It makes her feel like she's finally a force to be reckoned with. She wipes the smile off her beak and spreads her wings half-way, glaring at the rats and puffing up enough to show she wouldn't hesitate to attack if they didn't run for their lives. "Beat it vermin!" She shrieks viciously, glaring at them, "And let it be known that Mothwing is watching." Another smile almost crosses her features, but she hides the fact that this is all very fun and amusing for her well.

Zen finds himself entirely lost until he spots Kala. At this point, he could tell that she had no intent of sticking around and as such, she probably knew a quick way out. He started to move closer towards the rat as to try and follow but quickly froze as he heard the owl speaking. He then turns over his shoulder to see none other than the massive owl glaring towards him and the rat he was trying to follow... He starts to back away, the fur standing on ends as it started to sink in just how large the owl was. The scent of fresh blood did nothing but make the situation any better.

"Keep up or get left behind," Kala tells Zen, though the advice is needless since by now they've both gotten far enough away that the owl's scent has mostly faded. She crawls into a bush and takes several breaths, rubbing her face, rubbing her paws. Gotta be /tidy/. "Are you lost? Where's your colony?" she says, tersely and brusquely.

Mothwing laughed coldly and dug her beak into the corpse of the fat rat, taking flight again to finally eat and get some more rest in just in case DogBone..Dragon...whatever...Showed up again. It was a fun start to the night for sure and even if the rodents knew where she lived now, none would be brave enough to attack and none would leave the comfort of the farm for the forest. She was still the top predator compared to Dungheap the cat..Definitely.

Managing to pull himself out of his fear induced trance, he followed behind Kala closely until they came to a stop. Then, he proceeded to keep his distance, just in case. "I... Don't have a colony. I've been alone for a while... Was there really a whole colony of rats by there? Oh man.. I... I could have been torn to pieces... Then there was the owl! I didn't think there really was such an owl, I thought they were just rumors!" The mouse was still a bit shaken up, his tail coiled around him as he fidgeted with it in his paws. "I... I got to find a place to hide... Yes, I need to hide... "

Kala can still remember that owl's name. Mothwing. The colony will soon learn to fear her, soon learn to hate her. But not yet. Now, she must return. "We do not eat the small wormtails, unless they bother us," Kala explains, sitting on her haunches and sniffing the air. "Your flesh is too...tough." Mice /were/ gamey, and there were legends told of rats who ate mice and slowly became mad. Those two things were enough to dissuade her from trying. "A smalltail, alone...is that common?"

Zen starts to settle and calm himself, relieved to hear that the rats did not normally hunt mice. He scraches behind his ear with his hind paw and nods, "I'm very glad to know you won't eat me... I won't lie, I was worried about that." He then sniffs around a bit, picking up on different scents, "Well... I used to be part of a small group of us... but then the cat attacked us. I've been alone ever since. Before we split up... one of us said they saw a flying beast. I didn't believe them but... now I... Dragon was bad enough! Now there's this... Mothwing... I really need a hiding place." Trailing off, he mutters to himself.

Kala frowns, familiar with the stories about the great cat, the one the humans called 'Dragon'. "That is far from here, a bit too close to the humans for our liking," she says. "There are many predators in the Wild, smalltail. Hiding is good, but eventually you must emerge...and eat."

Zen gives a slight nod of his head. "I know... but I can't go around when that owl is around. Maybe later... Yea, yea, I'll get something later... now, need to hide." The mouse shakes a bit, his thick fur poofing out. "I... I need to go. If... if I see you again, will I be safe or with the others you were witch chase me?"

"We do not hunt the smalltails, as I said," Kara counsels. "But do not get in our way." She sniffs the air again. No danger. Good. "I have to go back to my colony. Don't get eaten, smalltail." She scurries off, sticing close to the bushes, stopping every so often to wash her head, wash her paws. Gotta keep /tidy/.