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They will fare better at blending in once the undergrowth withers up and away, and snow claims the forest as its own. When the days are overcast and sunlight is thin, the clear ice of their pelt is a lot less telling. But that is only every other day. Today, it is sunny. Though shadows lay thick and close in the dense knots of trees, and the crisp, autumn air was cold and damp, Quell shuddered still. Wherever the sun caught them, a single ray felt like a broad beam. Each reflective hair felt like a lit flame, screaming their location to any nearby quarry.
Quell let the sneer fall from their profile almost as swiftly as it'd taken root. Frustration will find no outlet in them. They are hardwired to push forward, giving up and the burning shame of defeat means nothing in the wild. They feel that, over the past smattering of days, they've already eked out too much frustration through clipped and snide comments. More of those than ever before, and more of those will only invite hostility—further pain to contend with.
Their paws carry them through the undergrowth, pressed close to the base of a bramble. Leaflitter yields beneath them in crinkled heaps, the clumping mold of wilted leaves, broken, and beaten down by their passing. Quell flicks their bobbed tail as a disenchanted breath sifts through them and clouds the air, bearing down on-
A flicker of movement in their peripheral had their breath catch, their pace stilling and their weight sinking on their haunches.
To their right, they zero in on a plump dove. The bird's pearled grey body is stippled with black and white, though the majority of its pattern turns to a blur once Quell tears into the undergrowth, neck craned forward with all the weight they had committed to their mark.
It tries to take wing, yet panic is the thief of a quick and orderly retreat. All grace is stolen away, and left in its wake is a whirlwind of discarded feathers and frantically beating wings. Teeth shred its flight into a pitiful ruin. A torrent of adrenaline is pumped into both the bird and its hunter—but the former is soon relegated to the dredges of what was, and now hangs limp in Quell's jaws.
When he is certain the bird is dead, his teeth untangle from the ragged, mottled plumage of the dove. They find themselves spitting out feathers, flicking a pinion away with a dismissive curl of their tongue.
