We watched her grow

@Katja <3

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He raced. 

Wind beat back on his coat, and where it could not touch, the frost clinged tightly. The prints left behind were long drags from haughty leaps. A hare bolted ahead, fast paced breaths that were suffocated out by the sound of the hunt. He'd tracked it's scent a mile down. A deep balance of life for a little bunny. It was not its fault that it was born prey.

It was not his fault that his jaws would grind to a close on its body.

 

Run

 

Run

 

Run

 

Run

 

Run

 

Run

 

The clock striked its hour.

It would've, anyways, had Bonnie not slammed to a stiff halt. Birds sang warning of canine teeth as they dispersed in clouding flocks overhead. Sliding in the snow in a harsh tumble and slowly settling upright, he was struck by distraction, nostrils flaring and eyes to the wind. There it was again. That..smell. The hare skipped away in a desperate flee. The boy was too busy to notice, or perhaps care in that moment, instead flagging his tail stiffly in anticipation, approval, for something he had never yet seen. But it was there, somewhere.
He just had to find it.

Old man thought wrong.

Look at him now.

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Her steps were both careful and easy, a tell that she was comfortable with snow and ice herself. Katja was borne of it, enjoyed it even, if partially because she could not feel the cold that others so complained about. This meant she had to be more careful, of course, watching for different signs.

Today was fine though. She could see the sun shining across the white landscape, glittering as it bounced off of the snow and ice. The sun meant that the ice would, at least, melt off her pelt if she basked in it. Not only that but the snow-covered ground "crunch!"ed beneath her paws, not hard enough to have kept frozen even under the sun's watch. 

The young War Lord paused then, ears swiveling to catch the sounds of a chase, eyes tracking a hare that darted out -- towards her -- in its attempted escape of its pursuer. Another wolf.

Quick to the trigger, Katja moved to anticipate the hare's path, her own jaws flashing to crash down on the creature's spine; a swift and clean kill, like Mother had taught her. Seaglass eyes lifted and observed the out-of-breath wolf, his breath pluming in the cold air.

A heartbeat of silence.

Katja's head moved and her jaws opened so that she could toss the meal in his direction. She lived plentifully. Others did not have such fortune.

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The squealing rattles of death made the boy's fur fire up.

Eyes of fresh spring leaves stared him down. There stood a tall woman with a dark coat dipped lightly into the fallen snow. She bore dark painted ears that pointed forward at him, holding the same hare that escaped one fate to be met by another. Minutes of violent sprinting after that thing, and she appeared out of thin air for it in a singular second.

Even from their distance, he took in the information of her scent, got familiar with it, and got familiar next with a slap to the face. The fallen prey hit the ground in front of him– she threw it as if he were stupid. But he knows he's no little boy, but a man who didn't need no help! He could've caught it all on his own, had she not intervened!

So, the wolf's nose scrunched up and a grumpy short flared out. That tail tucked all the way to the belly before releasing, legs having him take a step back, presumably enough distance that his mouth felt comfortable opening! Ears back, "What was that for? I had it!" No he didn't.

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Ah. Would he have rather she had taken it from him? Stolen the kill that he'd worked so hard for? 

To Katja, it was quite obvious he'd never been part of a pack, or at least had never learned to work with others. Mother and Father had instilled in them the importance of working together to reach a common goal. Was it really so offensive that she had killed the rabbit?

Her shoulders rolled and her chin tipped up slightly, thoughts churning as she sought out her next words. 

“Would you rather I take it take it then? That I allow you to find your own?” Blunt and to the point, as she ever was.

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"No!" Next, dared to take it from the man, and a set of greedy teeth snatched the bunny off the snow in an offended fit, tucking it away between both legs, and somehow hungrier than ever before after the lady threatened to take it.

So, he ate it! Tried to scarf it down the hole of his mouth, and when that did not work, held it down with a single foot to rip at the meat of it, starting at the rear- the good part.

A famished soul a long way from a big meal; however, he'd get there, once them foul smelling elk-deer were found. A nice fatty something he'd been huntin' down as he explored the souths forest.

Unable to fit a full-sized hare down the throat in one swallow, cut down to ripping pieces off just big enough to fit into his mouth, Bonnie didn't forget there was someone in front of him. 

Offended the first minute, and downright.. confused the next. It demanded an answer and he was hellbent on getting one.

"Why'd you give it, anyways? That's stupid. You caught it."

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As she expected, the wolf snatched it back and set upon devouring it. Red stained the snow, steam rising from where warm blood came into contact with the cold ground. Her ears still pushed forward, Katja sat back on thickly furred haunches and watched him.

He ate like he hadn't had a meal in a while, which could have very well been true, but she imagined some of the behavior also came from a guarded greediness. Greedy. No... It was likely more that he had expected her to take it. If she had been another wolf, one raised by someone other than her parents, she very well might have.

“I do not need it.” Her speech and pronunciation were perfect. Exact. Her tone, even and unbothered by his question. “To take something away from you that you need, and I do not, is unnecessary and cruel.”

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He could tell she wasn't alone like him.

A silver-spoon girl who approached a ragged boy like him. Fed a dog in the wild because it was cruel to take from the mutts. Had it been so wrong to wish instead that she had taken it in his protests? To have instead been met by nasty words back rather than humiliation. To wish to be proven as more than a loner dog. Even then, the boy-man still filled a hungry belly, and perhaps was also too filled in his mouth to run it as he normally did. Shut him up.

​​Even now, watching as if she'd rip the food from his teeth.

The boy soon sat awkwardly on both back legs. Loose white fur hung from red-stained lips, and those eyes stared into the green of her own. Both ears stood attuned, having listened intensely the same as he felt the cold intensely. Moving into his second year, experiencing the strangeness of an adult shed. Undercoat was more filled out in some places than others. 

"Yeah?" Bone snapped, flesh was pulled apart, never daring to break eye contact. "When you're out like me." Break. "Alone." Snap. "Breathin' in the wild." Torn, swallowed. "As time bites your feet." Lucky life, to not need it. "You'd be takin' some of them words back." He'd seen mongrels go after each other for the scrap of a doe spine.
Been one of em.

"You know?"
​​​

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Her head tilted just slightly, perhaps a touch surprised by how poetic he spoke against his contradictory nature. It might have been that she was too used to spending time in @Runar's company, but Katja was not used to hearing such improperly proper speech. There was more to him than met the eye. Her Mother's voice rang through her head...

"Look beyond the surface."

Curious. Katja had never before met someone who was such an true example of a learned concept. Distracted though her thoughts were, she heard everything he said, her eyes refocusing on him once she put herself back on track.

“Agreed. I have not walked your path. Bun then why have you not found a pack to join?”

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A bullish snort erupted his nose. Heavy, tightening his nose, muzzle crinkled up in the bite of rabbit flesh, tangy blood down the throat. The boy's head whipped to the side and tail bristled up, eyes keeping her in daring peripherals. Spitting out a hunk of fur, the response that came was then quick. "Don't need 'em." Left some. Kept falling back in them for whatever reason, and it never went any different. Shitty old men that had nothing better to do but sit around and keep the rest of them hunkered down. Couldn't feed themselves. One starved, they all did. Then there was the deep of the forests, calling to him. Taunting bird whistles, siren elk bugles cutting through the tree leaves. The itch that ached the boy's bones. Again, and again, and again.

His head slowly swiveled, gaze finally shattering away from her own as he pieced together his thoughts on the snow.

"'N they ain't want me, anyways."

The rest, chased out of.
Ruined.
But Bonnie would never admit it. Not to anyone.

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“Why?” Why didn't they want him? She knew there was more to it, more than just "they didn't want me", if only because no one admitted that. At least no one that she knew. The question was brutally straightforward, a pointed arrow knocked and aimed directly for him. She had never not been a straight-shooter, not seeing the point in sugarcoating things.

---

V short but its what she had to say lol

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Bonnie tensed, dragging what scraps remained of the hare closer to himself, hoarding it like it was his last claim to anything. Tail curled tight to belly, before bristling back out.

Distance was then made, just enough to crouch back on his haunches, watchful.
 
A vicious bite landed at the carcass’s foot, teeth grinding against bone with a force that sent a dull ache through his jaw. He felt it, sure, and yet wasn’t stopping. Couldn’t afford to. He chewed through that pain, ripping at the sinew and muscle, swallowing down what little strength the meat had to give. He’d need it—to keep moving, to keep searching. To catch the next meal.
 
"They're all weak." Voice mext muffled through a mouthful of flesh. "Just tethered mutts, doing tricks for scraps. The kind that bark loud but wouldn’t bite if their lives depended on it." A pause, then a sneer tugged at his lip as he finally lifted his gaze, swallowing. "Can't hold their own without the mouth of an old boss's tellin' them what to do, when to do it, and how to do it."

​​​And still he tried to integrate into them again and again.

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