rain, rain, go away

Word count: 960

Spring had settled in with nearly constant rain. Rhian didn't particularly like the clinging mud that made it hard to keep her footing when she was running, or the dampness of the air itself even when it wasn't raining, or her fur always being soaked. In fact, she hated it. She was tired of everything being so wet all the time. It was annoying. But still, she wasn't going to just sit around hating life -- she'd done some of that already, and it hadn't made her any more tolerant of the situation. She needed to get moving. So, even though it was raining already and threateningly dark clouds were amassing on the horizon, she decided it was time to get up off her butt and do some exploring. She was officially a year old now, and she wasn't going to let a little rain stop her. Competing with nature itself may not have been the best idea, but what else was she going to do? Nothing, that's what. And she may have been tired of rain, but she was just as if not more so tired of doing nothing.

She had met a valley, and she stared down at the sloping, muddy hills with not a little trepidation. But there was a small group of four does grazing at the bottom of the valley, beside a winding river that she wouldn't have known was quite a bit deeper than usual due to the all the rain. She hadn't done much hunting practice yet. She wanted to be better at such things. It seemed more fun than healing and more useful than studying. Besides, she liked fighting and she thought those skills would probably translate back and forth pretty well. Attacking wolves and attacking prey couldn't be much different. And she wanted to be valuable to a pack one day. She had decided recently that she wanted to be the leader of a pack someday -- you probably had to be good at things like that to be respected enough to be a leader. Besides, again, hunting just seemed fun. Therefore, she had decided to make her way down into the valley before she even really thought about it. She wasn't afraid of any mud.

Carefully, she snuck down, slipping a little here and there on the mud but never losing her footing entirely. She wasn't moving very fast, but she told herself to relax, that was okay. Sure, it would be fun to just sprint down at top speed, devil-may-care-like. But if she slipped and fell, that would not only be very annoying but would also probably alert the does that she was near. Be smart, she told herself.

Thunder crackled as she got closer, and the wind began to pick up on her side, raising the fur on her back. She noticed that two of the does looked very pregnant. Where was the buck? She couldn't see or smell any other deer nearby -- although she couldn't smell much through the rain and the muck. Whatever. It didn't much matter, besides the fact that the laden-down animals would be slower and thus easier prey.

Her paws sunk a little into the swampy grass as she neared the river. She kept moving, now downwind. Better for hunting normally, she knew, although maybe not now since the wind was lashing what felt like buckets of rainwater directly into her face. She was trying her best not to close her eyes against it, glaring directly at the little herd as the rain continued to downpour. She was soaked already, and every step made little squelching sounds that made her cringe. With every step, she was more and more sure that it was only a matter of time before the does alerted to her presence.

Knowing that, she took a breath to collect her nerves, hearing another roar of thunder in the background, hearing the steady patter of rain striking the river's surface, and sprinted forward. The does fled. They were fast, but Rhian was gaining ground on one of the pregnant ones, her strides long and quick. She wasn't the fastest wolf in the world, but she was also not nearly the slowest. She could already taste blood and victory in her mouth.

One last leap and she would catch up. One last leap and -- the deer's back hooves caught her in the chest, slamming her back. It wasn't actually too hard of a hit and she would have kept going, except that she slipped on the mud as she was trying to get back up to speed and landed face-first in the wet.

All she could taste now was mud.

She spent probably a few minutes just laying there, angry out of her freaking mind. She had been so close! She could have actually gotten that! She was like a foot or two away when the doe kicked her, and then the stupid mud, and... UGH. She wanted to bite something.

Eventually, she stood up, because laying in a muddy puddle was not actually how she had planned to spend today, and while she was still annoyed, she had calmed down enough to think. What had she done wrong? The rain sucked, but there had to have been a way to take down one of those deer anyway. Had she sprinted too soon? Should she have snuck up better -- more quietly, more quickly? She didn't know. Could she ask someone for advice? She didn't really want to, but rain was a part of life. She was a competitive wolf. If there was a challenge, she wanted to beat it.
But for now, she was going to find somewhere to warm up and dry off a little. And hopefully not get struck by lightning.