𝘿𝙀𝙑𝙊𝙐𝙍 | 𝙈𝙞𝙜𝙪𝙚𝙡 𝙊'𝙃𝙖𝙧𝙖

2| 𝘈𝘯 𝘢𝘭𝘭𝘪𝘢𝘯𝘤𝘦

𝘾𝙤𝙣𝙩𝙚𝙣𝙩 𝙬𝙖𝙧𝙣𝙞𝙣𝙜:

𝘌𝘹𝘱𝘭𝘪𝘤𝘪𝘵 𝘷𝘪𝘰𝘭𝘦𝘯𝘤𝘦, 𝘨𝘰𝘳𝘦, 𝘤𝘰𝘯𝘴𝘶𝘮𝘱𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯 𝘰𝘧 𝘳𝘢𝘸 𝘢𝘯𝘪𝘮𝘢𝘭𝘴, 𝘮𝘦𝘯𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯 𝘰𝘧 𝘥𝘦𝘢𝘵𝘩.

Your wounds wither into scabs and fall off as the moon changes phases from a full disc to a sharp silver crescent. Hunting grows less daunting eventually; you slowly progress from hopping across branches like a hatchling learning how to fly to chasing macaques across treetops like you used to.

As you lay down in the comfort of your little nest nursing yourself into full recovery, subsisting on strips of sun-dried leftovers from your previous hunts and the juicy flesh of certain succulent parasitic plants, you would see the apex predator's scarlet eyes flashing across your mindscape, sending a shiver down your spine.

The intruder. If he were to cross your path again, you would have to finish him off lest he mauled you first. You can't afford to lose the only bit of territory you had to some gluttonous, covetous brute of an apex who had the whole jungle to hunt in.

Thankfully, you don't smell him in your part of the forest for a while, which either meant he was still injured or that he had decided to terrorise some other part of the jungle. Your ego hopes for the former, you had put up a brutal fight after all and you were quite proud of yourself for dealing so much damage to him.

Fear grips your heart as you mull over the possibility of you starving to death come winter. You would have to hunt a lot more to compensate for the time lost if you wished to survive your first winter.

Once the snowfall starts, the herds would migrate to the South, seeking greener pastures to graze in until spring arrived, leaving predators such as yourself to rely on your food stores. If you didn't plan through, this long harsh winter could be your last.

The next day saw you tracking the hoof prints embossed into the wet mulch covering the forest floor as you swung through the trees, your nose carefully picking out the scent of the herd of white-tailed deer from the wide spectrum of smells. Your head perks up as a stag's distant blare falls on your ears.

You were quick to recognize it as a homing call, a warning to the rest of the straying herd to not venture out too far. A smile spreads across your face as you sprint across the branches, your soles barely touching the moss-covered barks as you run. You were practically pulling your body with your talons and webs through the leaves at breakneck speeds, guided forward by the scent of your meal.

You spot a small herd of deer grazing in a clearing surrounded by a ring of birches, unaware of the danger lurking in the treetops.

You sigh. The food was getting sparse way too quickly for your comfort. This was the first prey you had sighted after tracking for hours.

The leader was a three-year-old stag browsing on a bush, the sunlight making the pair of magnificent branching antlers sprouting from his head shine. Occasionally he would grunt at the two fighting younger males in his herd whenever they pushed each other towards him. The two young stags would break away and stomp off seeking a better arena, brushing foreheads, shoving each other, locking horns, snorting, and huffing to one-up their opponent. Of the five does scattered across the clearing, you glimpse two of them having three little fluffy white tails waving underneath their bellies.

Your nose scrunches, the blended scents of musk, blood, and milk making your stomach growl. You haven't eaten since you woke up. You shift slowly on your perch, one foot lodged in the nook of a branch and the other firm against the fair, splotchy, rough bark of the birch. Strands of your web glimmer between your fingertips, your digits already at work stretching, twisting, and weaving them into a strong net. Your breathing slows down as you crouch, the eastbound breeze carrying your scent away from the elder stag's nose. You focus your attention on the two young stags, timing your breaths to the flicking tails of the fawns.