Oh, small-minded creatures; oh, the simple foolishness. A badger was mighty among the minute, but, to greater game, he was no more than a thorn at his best, prey at his worst. And yet, so blinded was he, thinking himself rather a bear than a badger, that he barreled his way toward a wolf several times his person, both in witness and wit.

A show of teeth through black lips on the wolf’s long, white muzzle caused the badger to pause his charge, beady black eyes wide with a moment of caution before it, too, bared its fangs, a stream of hellish hissing and spitting between its teeth. Content that the belligerent little creature had heeded his warning, at least mostly so, Stark pushed forward along the narrow deer path, the moon casting his shadow over the little beast as he went. No sooner had his heels passed the creature, however, did the brush shake with the little devil’s sudden, rage-driven lunge.

Expecting as much from the moment the badger had ambled its way across his path, Stark’s anticipation met the creature’s blind fury, turning full circle and replacing heel with jaw. Finding purchase behind the base of the badger’s small skull, the wolf pinched the spine between his molars, a twist of his well-muscled neck severing the lifeline and rendering the creature’s squat little body still. With a heavy sigh—more a huff through the nose, if truth be told—the wolf adjusted his grip, hoisting the girthy little boar off the earth. It was the badgers own fault, really. Even simple creatures should know better than to play a zero-sum game when they are so ill-matched.

Lacking any real hunger in the moment, Stark would not make himself a glutton on this badger’s flesh—at least, not there and then. With its weight swinging from his jaws, the tall wolf continued on down the narrow path at an easy jog.

So filled with the musty stench of the little mustelid, other scents in the forest came diluted, some entirely overpowered, and so, sometime down the shadowed path, a voice whispered out so near that it caused the wolf to halt, his entire person coming to attention. Peering curiously through the ferns, the moderate shade of Stark’s gray eyes were no more than a faded shadow in the leaves, the pale silver highlights within no more than specks moonlight cast down through the canopy above, and he laid these eyes on her—the small, pale painted lady nestled in the shadows between the trees.

Setting the badger down behind is present cover, Stark licked his lips free of lingering fur before setting them in a pleasant smile. Curious, indeed, to have stumbled upon such a pretty little thing in the darkness, he would not keep her waiting so long for an answer.

“Well, I would ask the same thing,” Stark mused, exiting the cover of shadowed foliage with sure steps and splendid posture, coming to stand in a lone patch of moonlight, his bright white fur catching the silver light like a halo around his impressive form. “But it seems there’s no who to ask—just a small, white, rambling rose sitting alone in the forest.”