The Search
Starry Moon had left her old home and family two days ago. She could hear her stomach growling. She knew that hunting something larger than a deer would be more satiating for her, but it would also be riskier without help, which she was still lacking. She hadn't expected to immediately find a mate, though. She knew it would take time. Some could be on their own for two or three years without finding a mate.
Still though, she needed to find food and she needed to find it soon. She sniffed the air and caught the scent of a mountain goat not too far away. She began at a nice loping speed to catch up to it, only slowing down as her nose told her that she was getting close. She crouched down, low to the earth, her stomach practically grazing the loose dirt beneath her, as she slowly crawled her way towards the goat. It was now visible to her between the blades of grass.
It was a nanny, she was able to tell by the lack of beard, unless, of course, it was just a very unfortunate bully who would likely never find a mate, since he looked like a nanny due to a lack of beard. Starry Moon slowed her crawl, making sure to mind where she placed each paw. She was downwind, which meant she could get within lunging distance as long as she kept quiet and didn't startle the grass much more than the wind or a rabbit would.
Yes, she could feel it. Success would be hers as she drew closer to the nanny. Taking the upper hand from the get go would be important. While a nanny, particularly one without a kid at her side, wasn't as lethal as a bully, she knew that just one wrong stab from those horns could literally make the difference between life and death.
That was it. Another two steps and she could pounce on that nanny and hopefully claim a meal. Finally, she was at her target point. This was it. Starry Moon took a moment to breathe in deep and focus on her strength and energy. If she did this right, she could take down the nanny relatively quickly. Once she had herself mentally prepared, Starry Moon lunged. The nanny goat didn't even know a wolf had targeted her until it was too late. Starry Moon had managed to tear deep, very deep, into the right hind-shoulder of the nanny, causing the goat to start trotting off at a ragged, unsteady pace, one that Starry Moon was able to easily keep up with.
She tore her claws through the left hind-shoulder next. This was enough to make the nanny stop running and try to fight. That was exactly what Starry Moon had anticipated. She backed away before the nanny could clob her with a hoof or stab her with a horn before lunging again, her white fangs sinking deep past the dirtied grey fur of the nanny and into the flesh beneath. The nanny let out a final bleet, as if calling for help, or maybe even begging for mercy, before finally falling to the ground.
Starry Moon let out a proud howl to announce to any local predators and scavengers that this was her kill and they would just have to wait their turn before trying to get to it. She sniffed the air just to make sure there wasn't anything too near that might try to hurt her to get the food she had just killed before digging in. The blood ran down her jaw but blended in well with her dark brown fur. The only problem she had was the feeling of her fur matting, but she knew that would go away when she took a drink and a soak in a pond or creek somewhere.
That was another thing she looked forward to about finding a mate. She would have someone to groom her and someone she could groom.
Once Starry Moon had eaten her fill, she moved off to the side of the goat and laid down with a yawn. She looked up at the sky. The sun was still high, practically directly over her head. "Hmm... good," Starry Moon muttered softly. "A nice warm nap in the sun will do me some good after that hunt." After taking another sniff of the air just to double check that nothing was too near, she laid her chin over her front paws and closed her eyes.
-
Starry Moon's dream consisted of her running through the forests and the fields, performing as a true apex predator. Nothing was able to stop her from her hunts. She was able to kill anything and everything she wanted in just the blink of an eye. The Bison weren't even standing a chance against her. Of course, though, she knew this was nothing more than a dream and would never be a reality. Even a pack of ten wolves could barely bring down a full-grown bison bull so quickly. Their hides were tough to penetrate and their ability to take pain, fangs, and claws was practically unmatched. Even the bears in the area feared hunting bison.
Starry Moon knew the true risk of fighting a bison in real life. She had seen one trample one of her littermates when they were moving from the den to a grassy field to start learning how to hunt. That brother had broken away from their little group, thinking that a bison wouldn't hurt him if he didn't bother it. He was wrong. Starry Moon could still remember the panic that struck her at the sight of her brother's mangled body under the giant hooves of such a large and merciless creature. The crunching of his bones still rang in her ears when she thought of it.
Remembering what happened to her brother began to shift her dream. Suddenly she was a pup again, surrounded by bison. She was trapped with no where to go and no one to run to or call on for help. Her tail quickly crawled up between her hind legs as she kept her body low to the ground and her ears flat against her head in submission. She was terrified.
She began to hear this awful crackling noise. When she pinpointed that it was coming from just behind one of the bison, she managed to look past their legs to see what it was. It was her brother. His mangled body was stumbling its way towards them. Was this how she would be saved? Her brother coming to spare her the same fate he suffered? She began to grow hopeful, until she saw the crazed look on his face. No... he wasn't there to save her.
The bison parted just enough to let him through before closing the gap again. The crunching and grinding of his shattered bones as he moved closer to her sent chills racing down her spine, all the way out to the tip of her tail. "Please... what did I do?" Starry Moon asked pitifully.
"Not a damn thing," he started, "and that's exactly the problem. You did nothing. When I died, did you guys stop to mourn me? Did mom and dad kill the bison responsible? Did any of you do anything?"
"What did you want? We were mom and dad's first litter. It's not like we had older siblings that could help, and two grown wolves and a bunch of pups that aren't even yearlings yet stood no chance. Did you want us to die with you? Is that what you wanted?" Starry Moon asked desperately.
Her brother merely scoffed as if she were just making up petty excuses instead of pointing out the straight facts. "The Great Spirits did call to you, and if you're not careful, your fate will be worse than my own," he told her before turning away from her. That's when the bison charged Starry Moon's helpless form.
-
Starry Moon startled then, the feeling of something trying to dig into her tail. She whipped her head around and growled at the ignorant coyote that thought maybe it would be able to get the upper paw on her. She stood and that was all the coyote needed to know it had, quite literally, bitten off more than it could chew. It turned tail, that tail now tucked firmly between its legs, and ran off with a pitiful whimper.
Starry Moon rolled her eyes and looked at her tail. No harm done. It barely got to sink its teeth in past her fur. She then turned her attention to the nanny she had killed before her sleep. It was still there, and the coyote had only gotten a small helping of it. She sniffed the air and noted that a puma was in the area now. It was dark, and that gave the overgrown feline the advantage over her if it decided to go to the food source while she was there. She quickly ate a little bit more before trotting off, not wanting to deal with a temperamental cat.
She had seen smaller cats before. Surprisingly smaller. They often spoke of stories of their ancestors once belonging to these two-legged creatures that were like furless, out-of-shape gorillas and apes. The idea boggled Starry Moon's mind. An animal without fur? That claimed ownership over other animals? What an outrageously proposterous idea.
Though perhaps the scariest tales they would speak of were the ones of those strange bipedal creatures owning wolves that were so tiny, when the bipedals died off, so too did those miniature wolves, as they did not know how to survive in the wild.
Thinking about that caused Starry Moon to shiver in disgust. "Ridiculous... I'm sure those tiny cats just like trying to scare us," she told herself. Her family had grown to live in peace with those smaller felines. As long as they didn't come to steal any food, they were fine, just like her family's relationship with foxes.
Starry Moon stopped when she heard a distant howl and lifted her head. Her ears twerked this way and that, pinpointing where it came from before releasing her own howl. She could tell it was a male, and he sounded like he was without a pack as well. Perfect. That's what she was looking for. A solitary male. Once she finished up her howl, she was off, searching for him.
