Her body, lithe and already bearing a wealth of slender, toned muscle, slides with unfettered precision across the snow-choked loam. She has made her departure from the earthen tomb of the den quite unhindered by her dam or her sibling. The whelp has born witness to her sibling’s departure on more than just a single occasion, and has thusly slithered about in her larger sister’s wake, keeping to the shadows as a strict stipulation of her own foray into the outer world. However, before today she has only acted as silent witness to her sister’s adventures, the ever-watching eyes peering out from the shadows. Maud is not as Scally, she does not flounce about with considerably reckless abandon into the ominously open arms of whatever the cruel and twisted fates may have laid ahead for them. No, her mind, young though it undoubtedly is, has already begun to dictate itself upon calculations, upon logic and what shall one day morph into a perfectly cruel sense of reason. She is, after all, her father’s daughter.

The charcoal-stained yearling breaks from the tree line, four slender stilts delving into the thick crust that has formed over the powdery frozen blanket. This precipitation irks her in some new and dark way, its glacial kiss but an afterthought, a byproduct of the true reason she loathes it so… the blinding white of this heavenly sheet clashes quite harshly with the deep charcoal of her youthful pelt, rendering camouflage (a skill she has, in the past year, become quite adept at) nearly impossible lest she confine herself to the thickly-packed shadows of the wood. Maud will be inexplicably pleased once this loathsome season and its parade of non-too-subtle inconveniences have succumbed to the warm breath of spring.

The aroma of another shatters the thin gloss of her reverie, the opposing female’s odor curling into Maud’s waiting nostrils, licking against every sensorial gland. Instinctively, fine cords of muscle pull taut against the bone, the youngling growing still, tense, as the depthless amber of her eyes find those of the larger female. Even in this short life she has lived as a rogue, the runt has accumulated a rather significant collection of axiomatic truths. First and foremost: None, apart from her undeniably small familial unit, are to be trusted. This is tantamount to survival, and it is a truth sanctioned above all others. And it is this axiom that she bears in mind, muscles tense… and she does not move to cower from this newcomer, despite the discrepancies in size and age that linger between them. Even though this yearling has known exceptionally few acquaintances, she is fully aware that she is small, that her physical self may very well be viewed as lesser. And yet, she does not cower, no growl rattles away in the recesses of her gullet, the fine curtain of her lip does not rescind to reveal the ivory of her fledgling weaponry. Perhaps the only physical manifestation that she has heard the words offered by this other female is the slow ascension of the spires of fur that adorn her neck, her amber eyes unnerving and piercing even in their infantile newness. ”Go away,” she hisses, simply, choosing for the moment to disregard the inquiry and the implication that she is, somehow, helpless in her youth. It is a phrase given as much in command as it is in warning, though whether it shall be heeded is a separate matter entirely…