Black and White and smells like death

Otis came running to her in a tizzy, his angry growls and screams announcing his approach long before the grass parted to reveal his form. Chips, her ibis, hopped away with a flap of his wings, a questioning Rawk?! croaked out while Otis growled back his own remarks. Sedna couldn’t make heads nor tails of it, her companions didn’t speak to her in the way some did, and to be fair, she didn’t take steps to learn to speak in their tongue either. What quickly became apparent by the way he tugged on her fur, his chittering and screaming increasing in intensity, was that he wanted her to follow him. With a roll of her eyes and a tip of her head to Chips, she plodded in the direction the opossum was pulling her, turning an ear as she heard the bird take flight. Maybe he could find more information of use while she dealt with whatever had her other companion so flustered.

He clambered up onto her back, growls reduced to groans, and teeth clicks, pulls on her fur urging her to go faster. The Archer-Lyall had half a mind to pull him off and rip out a few chunks of his fur! She quickly found herself heading back to her own den, Otis’s complaints increasing in volume the closer they got. Apparently someone was messing with the storage den. He was quite proud of the level of organisation he managed to achieve in there. Everything had a place and everything was in it. There was a familiarity to the scent that filled the air as she approached, her lips pulling down at the corners to show just how pleased she was at this turn of events too. It seemed a striped interloper had decided their stores were a good place to bunk down for the winter (and hey, she couldn’t blame it, the scent of dried herbs was far more pleasing than the scent of skunks arse, but even she doubted they were strong enough to overpower the painfully musky scent for long).

She could just kill it, take it to the children and let them practice using their teeth to cut through hide, or even with blades, if skinning things took their fancy? But she also felt kinda bad. The winter was likely to be a tough one (as most winters were), if the edge on the breeze was anything to go off. That and looking at Otis, was there really that much between a skunk and an opossum? They both had clever hands and sharp teeth. What if it was someone’s companion and she didn’t find out until after it was dead? She would feel terrible. So with a long suffering sigh, she shrugged her shoulders, felt Otis’s weight slide down her flank and onto the ground. He stood up on his hind legs and started at her expectantly. She only grimaced. Was there anything that could really get skunk spray out?

Maybe if she moved slow, if all her steps were deliberate, then it would just go on it’s merry way? Hell, even if it just strolled next door (it wasn’t like she’d been sleeping in her own den, more often sneaking off to the willows to bunk down with Baracuda so she could actually sleep)... But shit could never be easy, could it?

She stepped into the den, giving her eyes a moment to adjust to the darkness, nothing had really been upset, but there was a very sleepy, slightly defensive skunk curled up on one of the lower indents dug into the wall to serve as a shelf. Sedna groaned. It was an easy position to defend if it decided that was where it wanted to sleep...

She let a low growl fill the small space, and was answered by a smaller one. She tried to angle herself so the sunlit entrance stood unimpeded, the skunk could just wander on out, there was no need to fight over this. She was answered with another stubborn rumble, he had chosen where he wanted to sleep out the winter and to hell with her and whatever claim she had on the place. The Archer-Lyall felt a bit like she was arguing with a wilful pup. Knowing it was a bad idea, but too impatient to wait out a resolution she quickly snapped towards the skunk, grabbing it by the scruff of the neck. Indignant shrieks and a cloud of horrible odour filled the small den. It was all she could do to not drop the creature and start wretching on the spot. She did her best to hold her breath as she darted to the door, dropping the skunk with a growl once daylight burned her eyes again and chasing it into her garden with a few well placed air snaps. She never wanted a skunk in her mouth again! Her eyes were watering and her chest was coated with the awful spray, her eyes were streaming, burning! And she heaved and she heaved, but nothing came up.

She dropped to the ground, dragging her chest against the earth but nothing would help. Otis seemed offended that she hadn’t managed to get the skunk out without it spraying but he wasn’t the one that was going to have to wear it for her mother’s gods knew how long. "Fucksake!" she growled, stomping towards the beach. It was far too fucking cold to just take a dip in the ocean, but anything that even took the edge off her new living hell was worth losing a few toes over.

"speech".