Runedmoon

He watched his father and especially his mother as they hissed obscenities at the red-snouted rival clan, snapping their jaws in the air and waving their hind claws around, and the Red Snouts always answered in kind. It never erupted into real violence, but it certainly seemed to him that it came close every so often. But that was their way: even if nothing ever came of it, the reminder that it could kept everyone honest and in their own territories.

The brown hen and drake were a solid team, synchronised in their motions as they answered his parents' threats and sent over ones of their own if any of the Blue Snout clan came too close to their own hunting grounds.

The dark hen was a different matter.

She always stood a little aloof from her clanmates, always seemed a little bit more aggressive than her sister and sister's mate, screaming the loudest and jumping the highest. He watched her as she hunted away from them, too. And he loved watching her.

He loved watching the quick darting movement of her head as she scoped out her prey, the low way she snuck up on it, the fast run and the quick dispatch. She hunted in the oldest Wildclaw way, disdaining the arrows that his mother had always taught him to hunt with.

He felt strange things, watching Rusty from the safety of his parents' lair.


One early spring day, he came across the dark hen as she lay apart from her family, her sister the brown hen dozing with her own mate nearby. When she saw him, she stood and growled a low threat.

He answered it with the kill in his mouth, a fine, fat trunker. She seemed taken aback, and rather than sully the moment with words, he began to dance.

Oh, how he bowed and slunk. How he pranced and leapt. How he weaved all around, coming closer, drifting further, and even Rusty the indomitable, Rusty the vicious, Rusty the dragon who could barely stand anyone besides her beloved sister, even she felt her rage and suspicion melting in the face of such beauty. He ended his dance with his head low in front of her, a courtier bowing before a queen.

She ate the trunker and accepted him into her clan, and the Red Snouts and the Blue Snouts have been allies since.