The faint crunch of old ash beneath an earth-bound beast's feet drew the eagle's attention from her introspection. A swift sharp movement brought her fierce gold glare to the intruder's form, and she clacked her beak sharply in irritation. A wolf, that was all, idiot enough to disturb her with its stomping about. "Run along like a good little wolf, and do try to be quick about it. Though you have already utterly demolished the peace anyway," she groused irritably. And with that she dismissed the beast from her mind, returning her gaze to the forefront and half-closing the gold eyes.
But the beast refused to be dismissed so easily as that, thrusting its image upon her consciousness once more. How had the creature captured her attention so easily, and without a single word? She carried herself with confidence, arrogance, vanity - yes, see how that pelt gleamed with a glisten that could come not from good health alone but necessitated constant grooming, yet she traveled the blackened ashy ground with little regard... a vain creature who was willing to get her paws dirty if it got her what she wanted. Nothing of interest there, no, arrogance and vanity were traits shared by many species and held no interest to her beyond that of scorn and a fleeting amusement.
It was her color, the hue that gleamed so brightly upon that well-groomed fur. Locke paid little attention in general to the pelt she tore through when she fed upon the lesser creatures but this... this was a shade unlike any she'd ever seen in a wolf, a hue more golden even than any subspecies of Aquila chrysaetos had ever boasted. She was unwilling to interest herself in the affairs of the furred four-legged species and yet...
Her talons tapped restlessly against the charred branch before she gave in to impulse and dropped off the branch. Strong, elegant wings longer than any wolf alive lofted her effortlessly, carrying her ahead of the wolf to a new perch from which to glare down at the beast. "You, wolf - how is it you come to be such a hue? It is impossible for a wolf such as yourself to exist. The genetic history of your species supports no color such as yours and yet here you are." She hissed through her beak, twisting her head to better aim her glare at the impossible beast. "The color must be false. Tell me how you do it. I must know."
Puzzles irritated her as much as the challenge delighted her. She did not care how the beast looked, it was the impossibility that intrigued her. Were there more wolves such as this on this continent? A new subspecies, as yet undiscovered? Perhaps she was... mistaken, to have dismissed the creatures so offhandedly. No, no, the color must be false. The only question that remained to satisfy her curiosity was how the wolf had managed such trickery.
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