WotD: Portentous, adjective - Foreboding; foreshadowing, especially foreshadowing ill
WC 613
It was that funny time of day between evening and night time when the critters of the day were not quite ready to slumber, and the night dwelling creatures were not yet prepared to face consciousness. This was when you could find the most interesting of creatures crawling about on their way to or from their dens with so much promise awaiting them, and these were the creatures that Orin had been so interested in throughout the dusk. Curiosity was her dear old friend, and she let it take the reigns today. She had spent the whole day out and about, drifting about the territories of Cour des Miracles and quickly becoming more familiar with this place that she is proud to call home.
The weather today had been decent, the portentous clouds overhead had only drizzled down a bit of mist once, but had mostly let her be. Now it seemed, as the night approached, that they had given away here or there to let small patches of early stars peer through. The glow of dusk had found her at the stables, drawn to this place by the scent of the domesticated steeds. When she first arrived she had peered inside at the animals that lazed about in her stalls, but for some reason peeking in on the beasts without their master’s permission felt terribly rude, so she ducked back out without trying to stir up too much attention. It was unfortunate, for she found these creatures terribly intriguing and they seemed to be mentioned in over half of the stories she read, but she had never seen one up close before. Well, that could wait for another time, she supposed.
Splat! She dodged aside just as a white paste splattered to the ground beside her. She pursed her eyebrows and glared up into the eaves to spy a shuffling pigeon. ‘Wonder if he was aiming for me. . .’ she mused to herself, then suddenly realized just how good squab sounded for a late evening snack.
Stealth came naturally to the small Luperci, more naturally than she had ever realized. Grinning to herself, she slipped around the side of the stables and quickly scaled the old trellis with ease, managing not to make the wood utter a single groan. Once atop the roof, she spread herself out on the four humanlike limbs of her Optime form and evenly distributed her weight, unsure of how old this building was or how well the roof had been built. Without hesitating, she crept closer to the unsuspecting poultry and its comrades until she was upon them. Just as one turned to peer over its shoulder and squawk its surprise, she lunged forward and snatched one of the birds off of its perch as the others took flight.
She landed delicately on the ground with bent knees, pigeon neck already snapped. She looked at the sad, limp little feathered creature in her hands and shook her head. “Well, that was over too fast.” The kill she felt indifferent about, but the stalking she loved. She looked back up to the stable rooftop, but no fowl was daft enough to return just yet. She wasn’t sure that she felt like eating this thing raw, nor that she knew how to cook it. Her life here in the Court was already beginning to spoil her, she’d eaten far less fresh delicacies in her days in the southern slums.
Sighing, she returned to the entrance of the stables. She poked her head inside one more time, and held up the catch. “Does anyone eat these?” She did not understand the snorts and whinnies that were returned to her.