[Hunting] Different Day, New Friends

The group had decided on a late evening hunting expedition, and it was slowly getting darker than they had originally expected. It had been a few weeks since they had run into Zireael, and they were on their way to the submissive halfmane’s home to see if anyone there was in the mood for a late night hunt, since that’s what this was turning into. As they neared the homestead, the scent of nearly twenty different tokotas hit the at once, along with plenty of other scents. As they made their way into the center of the homestead, the toki spoke up.
“It almost looks like no one’s home?” Lilith said as she looked around, peering into the cabin windows and checking the tack shed.
Next to the cabin, Hera was sniffing around in the natural and man-made den that looks like it could house around five tokotas, “No one’s in here either.”
Just as the Thor was about to speak, a low growl came from a few yards away. Looking up, he could make up in the dimming light of the setting sun, a brindle dog with short fur and large ears. “Greetings!”
The dog bared its teeth, the growl in its throat getting more threatening as it got closer. Thor, trying to remain calm and not cause a fight, looked the piebald dog up and down, “Listen, I’m not here to fight. Is anyone home?”
“Who are you,” The dog growled, though it seemed to have settled itself a bit and was now sitting calmly by the door.
“I’m Thor, the shy girl behind me is Athena, that lovely girl who’s by your tack shed is Hera, and last but not least the little toki down here is Lilith. We’re friends of Ciri’s.” The dominant tokota explained calmly.
The dog nodded, “I’m Adhiraji. My apologies for mistaking you as trespassers.” He paused as he glanced over his shoulder, “Most of everyone is out hunting with our master. However…”
As he stopped talking, a greying brown tokota bounded her way into camp, stopping next to Adhiraji with a raise brow, “Can I help you guys?”
“We’re here to see if anyone wanted to go fox hunting with us!” Lilith exclaimed excitedly.
Behind her, Athena smiled shyly, “Is Ciri home?”
“Afraid not, loves. I’d be happy to go fox hunting with the four of you though.” The greying brown tokota said, though a look of confusion spread over her face as she looked into the confused faces of the four new tokotas. Her eyes widened as she realized, “Oh! I’m sorry, I’m Nasnan!”
Thor offered a friendly smile, “We’d be more than happy to have you go hunting with us.”
“Great!” Nasnan turned toward the brindle piebald dog sitting next to her and bowed, “Thank you for guarding the house, these four are no harm though. Friends of Ciri’s are friends of mine.”
“Be careful, and I’ll see you soon.” Adhiraji said as he bounded off to continue making his rounds of the property.
“Well let’s go!” Nasnan exclaimed as she fell in line with Hera and Athena. Just above the group, the sky was littered with the sparkle of stars and the galaxies beyond their own as the sun settled beyond the horizon. Thor lead the way into the forest, Lilith bouncing at his side in excitement, and they were followed by Athena, Hera, and Nasnan.
“So, we’re hunting for foxes at this time of night…? Alright.” Nasnan said quietly, nearly to herself, as she assessed the situation and started to plan the best course of action. She was startled when Thor responded to her.
“It’s no big deal, the group and I have done this in the fog before with Ciri, we’re more than capable of hunting at this time of night.” The dominant tokota stated as he led the way into the forest. “I know a clearing a bit from here where there’s an abundance of foxes scurrying around.”
A nod of approval came from the group as Lilith looked back on Nasnan, Athena, and Hera. The rest of the walk was silent except for the occasional moment where someone would trip a bit from not paying attention to where they were going or even Nasnan’s occasional quiet humming. Athena and Hera had taken a liking to Nasnan, and in fact liked her more than the submissive halfmane they had originally gone to see. Even Thor and Lilith seemed to enjoy the upbeat personality of this one much more.
As they continued walking, the scent of fox grew stronger, and before Nasnan knew it, the group had stopped with a visible clearing just through the trees. Thor turned around to face the group, Lilith right on his side with a smile brightening her toki face. “I’m sure you all smell the foxes, and if you can’t already tell, there’s a small stream that goes through here that the little critters seem to love.”
“So what you’re saying is this should be a piece of cake and each of us could bring back like… say… a max of 2 foxes each, right?” Lilith said questioning, her eyes glinting excitedly at the thought of a hunt.
Thor nodded, “Or more even, but I’d like if we could try to keep it at 2 each for the fact it’s not like there’s an abundance of foxes in the forest.”
Nasnan nodded and then looked between Athena and Hera to see if they agreed. Above them, the moon was now shining bright, and the stars that littered the night sky were glittering every so intensely. The dominant tokota jerked his head back towards the clearing, “We’ll split up by ourselves. However, Lilith and I will take the clearing, Hera and Athena I want you to take the east side of the clearing in the forest, and Nasnan, if you don’t mind could you take the west side?”
A nod came from the greying brown tokota as she bounded off to her designated spot. On her way there, the scent of a nearby fox instantly hit her nose and she spotted it just a few yards away through the trees. Lowering herself to the ground, so the fox wouldn’t see her, she started towards the fox. Just when she thought it didn’t notice it, it’s head shot up and it turned to run. Unfortunately for the fox, the greying brown tokota was faster and had her teeth sunk into its neck before it could take off.
In the clearing, Thor and Lilith were having similar luck. They had each already caught one fox and were on their second. A fox had just walked into the clearing from the north, and Lilith was on it in seconds, locking her jaw around the creature’s neck and just behind her Thor had caught another one as well sneaking into the clearing from the south.
On the east side of the clearing, Hera and Athena weren’t having as much luck. Hera was the only one to have caught anything, and Athena was struggling to find one of her own. Although the two continued to try, Hera had only caught one more, and Athena one, totally 3 foxes from them. After briefing each other on how their hunt went, the two started towards the clearing to meet up with the others.
When everyone met up once again in the clearing they threw their kills in a pile and distributed it. “Nasnan, why don’t you take back one extra to your group? You have a lot of pups at your place that I noticed the scent of, so you should be fine to take one extra.”
“But Thor, Hera and I only caught 3 all together.” Athena said with a frown, knowing they too had a pack to feed.
The dominant tokota nodded, but Lilith chimed in, “We can always do a bit more hunting on our way back, we’ll be fine!”
“Okay…” Hera said as she nudged Athena to cheer her up.
The greying brown tokota looked around the group and smiled, “Oh it’s fine, really. I told you that my pack went out in separate hunting parties, so they’ll bring back more than enough prey to deal with us and Devon.”
“Are you sure,” Lilith chimed in.
“Of course,” Nasnan stated, “In fact, keep the two I caught. We really won’t need it.”
A gasp left Hera, “Are you sure?”
“Certainly!” The greying brown tokota smiled.
Thor offered a smile, “Thank you. Are you just going to head home from here?”
“Yeah, I’ll see you guys around! Just stop by any time, mostly everyone’s friendly and will more than likely be happy to join you on hunts!” Nasnan stated as she turned to head back home.
“We’ll keep that in mind. See you around!” Thor called as he and the others gathered up the nine lifeless fox bodies that were resting in a pile on the ground. Once they grabbed everything and were ready to go, the group left and head home.