Space Bound

She wouldn?t mind it. Very well, then they would have the pleasure of eachother?s company. Gargoyle gave a slight nod of his head to seal the agreement, and then excused himself with a dismissive flick of his tattered ear. The first order of business, of course, was to actually find the meal. Almost as soon as he was out of sight, the male dropped into hunting mode. His large paws began to slide across the forest floor. He avoided brushing against ferns, but kept to the shadows of the thickets. The scent of ash was still powerful in the air, but there was a great deal of life. The meadows that the forest were home to, made playgrounds for all sorts of creatures. Had one of them seen the male wolf out of the corner of their eye, they no doubt would?ve thought a bear had come to see them. A canine of a tame species becomes huge when it?s shoulder reached 24 inches, Gargoyle was just shy of twice that. Beasts of his bearing hadn?t walked the earth since the days of the Dire wolves. But thought he was built like a bear, he still moved like a wolf. His shoulders rolled and churned as he crept forward, step by silent step.

To the edge of one of the meadows he went, and there fixed his eye upon, a plump doe rabbit. She was chewing the head of a long grass stem, dragging it along as she did their awkward little step-step-hop, step-step-hop. She turned herself around, her meaty little back turned to the killer. Gargoyle needed no other invitation. With a spine-shivering, roarish bark, courtesy of his Doberman heritage, he threw himself forward. An inexperienced hunter might?ve thought the utterance a mistake. Far from it. The rabbit species is trained to leap at the slightest rustle of grass ? which even the most cat-like of hunters can?t help making in the last, sudden spring. But a roar such as echoed from the massive chest of that brute was enough to momentarily freeze so frightful a creature. Before the rabbit to take it?s second leap, Gargoyle was upon it.

But even as he brought his nose to the ground ? half a heartbeat from closing the ivory trap around the neck and head? he realized why the rabbit had been so slow. It was pregnant. The hunter paused, a vicious exhale ripping from his wrinkled muzzle. Most days he wouldn?t have cared. More meat. But?. after all it wasn?t as though he was starving, and had he not been told as a pup that all animals could be hunted save the ones that were making more future prey? Such advice seemed so coldly practical, but there was a softer side too. Back home Gargoyle had a mate who would soon be swollen with pups. It is always considered a bad practice to start empathizing with your food, but in this case Gargoyle would surrender himself up as a softie. He opened his jaws and raised his head. The rabbit had originally been kicking crazily in the dirt, but as it?s little heart became overwhelmed with fear it had stopped. Now, free, it took a second to realize what was going on. Her velvety nose twitched, her ears shivered, and then, like a shot, she bolted away into a tunnel of grasses.

By now, after seeing not one but two lupine hunters, all the prey had been warded off and probably would not return for many hours. So it was that Gargoyle returned empty-pawed to the creekside. ?Not my lucky day,? he said with a shrug in the direction of the girl. He strode to the water?s edge and laid down among the earth and reeds and ferns.