bad hare day

Another question, right off the bat. Clouse hesitated for a second before tipping his snout upward, feeling the wind against his whiskers and fur. It was pulling each strand backward, away from both the wolves and their prey. The boy gestured over his shoulder with his muzzle and looked expectantly to see if he'd given the right answer. No sort of admonishment followed, as often did when dealing with Scully, and so Clouse assumed he'd answered correctly. Not that it had been a difficult query, but the small Archer was always anxious he would misunderstand or be misunderstood and a big scary stranger, even a so-far helpful one, only exacerbated that concern.

Clouse pulled his gaze off the man and tracked the rabbits instead, while his ears listened and his mind sparked with new connections. Downwind, he stowed the word away into his memory once his mind pieced together what it specifically meant. The wind needed to be moving behind him, away from his prey. It made sense now why his habit of circling until he found an angle he was satisfied with wasn't very reliable...

It was a leg up but he wasn't so sure he was ready to just go for it. What if they all went underground and were too smart to come back up? It could be one shot and done, couldn't it? His lips parted, and he almost asked the other wolf to turn around instead of watching him mess up, but realized in time why that would be a dumb request. So instead, he took a deep breath, and slipped forward.

He moved in a straight path, veering only for a few particularly nasty tangles of brush and minding the direction of the wind every way. The gently breeze held up, and Clouse found himself atypically close to his prey. Their little noses twitched and their ears swiveled but none of them seemed to realize that he was there and drawing closer every moment. Still, every step nearer caused the boy to think more and more laboriously on what he was doing, rather than allowing instinct to take over and trusting in his own body. It was his hesitation that left him in place too long, and a grazing hare happened to look up and realize what that darkness between the grass blades really was.

Clouse took after his prey with ready fangs but he was still seconds too late; the rodent escaped underground and when he looked up, he did not immediately see any others. Promptly, his tail and ears fell, and he did not turn to face his impromptu mentor; he probably looked super disappointed.