I'm thinking moose, but she'll need help, probably, lol, if you're game for them to get the moose. I sent it into the oasis to get a drink. PS: I'm going to write her joiner now, dated ahead till day after tomorrow, and considering this to happen on 5/3, so if you want to act as though she is an AniWayan member, but doesn't smell very strongly of it yet, that's fine.

Désirée grimaced as, for the fifth time in the past ten minutes, she kicked yet another pile of ash. The grit rose up and covered her formerly white fur, where she had neglected to put her clothing on before she left the shack on the outskirts of Yarmouth where she had stashed her satchel, which still contained glass bottles of various types of booze. Her original plan had been to hunt, not only for herself, but preferably to leave in Cour des Miracles to hopefully pay for the room and board for her time there. It only seemed right to try to repay the pack for being so helpful to her before she went back to AniWaya.

Thus far, however, she had only managed to scare rabbits. Any other time, had she not been trying, she could probably have startled at least a deer, but no such luck. But, at least when she did scare a rabbit, she shifted down, shed her weaponry (knife, bow and arrows), and tracked the buggers down. She had three, killed as cleanly as possible and tied by their hind legs, product of this method.

She had set out from Cour des Miracles late the night before, wending her way around Crimson Dreams and AniWaya, and come into the swamp from a point relatively close to the Ashlands a while before midday. But she had still pressed on, hopeful that this new area would prove more fruitful in game than the last.

Finally, a light shone at the end of the proverbial tunnel, as a flicker of movement crossed in front of her, from left to right, several hundred feet ahead. The girl was giddy, but she quickly caged the glee and crouched, fitting an arrow to her bow and holding it down so she could quickly shoot when she came up to what had caused the movement. Her nose told her nothing, filled as it was with the scent of ash, but she guessed it was probably a white-tailed deer.

Slowly, carefully, taking special care not to step on anything that would clue the prey animal in, Desi approached. As she went on, she became more aware of an area that was not all ashes and decay, and she angled toward it, torn between her quarry and the little oasis. But, she reasoned with herself, perhaps the hunted was in that stand of trees? So toward the green she went. When she got there, she discovered that there was a slight rise within the trees. What lay beyond that rise?

.

As she crept up the rise, then crested it, Desi saw that what she had come upon was a pretty little gem in the midst of ruin, a safe haven of sorts. The deer had approached a small pool of water and had its head down, drinking thirstily of the liquid. This was perfect. Maneuvering slightly around to where the deer was nearly exactly perpendicular, Desi pulled the string of her bow back smoothly and sighted down the arrow. She aimed for a vital spot, waited one beat, then another, then with a silent, swift prayer to Luna, released the arrow.

Desi almost closed her eyes when the arrow flew, but she forced herself to watch and, wonder of wonders, the arrow flew straight and true to bury itself in the deer's side, just behind the shoulder. Due to the close distance she had achieved, it also buried deep, at least one third of the way down the shaft if not closer to one half. She froze as the deer bucked once, ran about twenty yards away, stumbled, and went down. Then and only then did she rise up and head in the direction her quarry had run.

Another motion stilled her feet for a moment. Was there someone there? Quickly she retrieved the deer, then went back to the pool that she had shot him by. She placed the body on the ground, then turned and walked toward the movement she thought she had seen. She stopped after a few steps, ears pricked to try to catch any sound, but she soon wrote it off as nothing and turned to dress her kill.

She slit the body up the center, removed the heart, and raised it to the sky, offering a prayer of thanksgiving for the life of the deer, then, her white fur stained red, dug a hole in the earth near the pool and buried it. Then she washed her hands in the pool. Now, how was she going to get the remainder of the carcass to Cour des Miracles?.