A large meadow grassland surrounded by forests. Rolling hills are covered most of the year in tall grasses and flowers of every color. Large herds of buffalo can be found migrating most of the year.
Dos sprung from the brush with a determined arc, landing squarely on the back of the rabbit that had been furiously attempting to evade her for the better part of the morning. It had simultaneously been one of the most existing and most frustrating hunts she’d been on in a while given rabbits were usually easy prey for her. But she’d woken up this morning and decided ‘alright, I’m gonna catch something without shifting once!” and once she’d decided on something, it was rare of the twin-tailed vixen not to go through with it.
Catching rabbits, she’d discovered, was a lot harder was a lot harder without wings to catch a constantly alert creature off-guard. Worse, it was downright frustrating when that alert creature had a seemingly endless array of escape routes she was being forced to compensate for.
But whatever, because she did it! She caught it!
“I am the best rabbit hunter ever!” she declared immediately, proudly dropping her catch at her own paws. She gave a delighted little dance, one of her large ears twisting in the direction of someone approaching but didn’t bother double-checking them. What mattered was sharing her accomplishment! “Did you see that? I practically flew! Without even having wings, ha!”
Keeping tabs on the terrain around the Kingdom's territory was just as important as the territory inside the Kingdom itself, he believes, so it isn't unusual for him to stumble upon the scent of another Verdantis member. Always eager to get to know his packmates, the brown wolf followed the scent trail carefully until he realized that the source of the scent seemed to be busy with a task. Gabriel kept a distance, not wanting to disturb their hunt, able to witness only the tail end of the entire ordeal before he began to get closer and make his presence known if it hadn't been discovered already.
Rounding the bend of a group of trees, Gabriel stops a few feet away as the red and black fox excitedly declares themself the best rabbit hunter ever, which earns them an immediate smile and a small chuckle, "I did see a bit, yes - it vas an incredible display. Vings are overrated anyway," a German accent laces every word.
"My name is Gabriel Richter. Vould you like help skinning it? Rabbit fur could make great vur vor a pillow or pouch," he turns so his back faces the nearest tree, and with his magic one of the bone spikes upon his neck juts out at rapid speed towards the tree, the sharp end imbedding itself an inch or two into the bark. Then he would grab the thicker end of the spike with his teeth, taking it out of the bark. The spike would be placed in front of the fox as an offer.
Dos puffed herself up with pride that someone else had seen her epic catch. She put her dark paw on the creature's body with pride, her twin tails wagging happily and curled lightly over her back. She tilted her head, large ears flopping curiously to the side - skin the rabbit? She hadn't even considered that when she hunted the creature - usually she'd just eat what she caught as it was, or gave to someone else who did.
She had planned to ask him about it, only to release a quick 'eep!' when the sharp, edged spine launched itself from his back. The vixen stared wide-eyed and for a brief moment, startled before the mildly bristled fur smoothed itself back down in the face of her curiosity.
"Yeah!" Dos chirped at him, happily accepting the spike. She stared at the rabbit for a moment before looking up at the wolf. "…how do I skin it?"
Did she just… try to cut the skin off?
She stabbed the rabbit lightly, trying to catch the coarse fur of the prey with the edge of the spike. Her movements were kinda jerky - she couldn't possibly be doing this right.
It was perhaps rude of him to assume that people would just know how to skin an animal, especially considering the wide array of backgrounds other creatures had. Gabriel would watch for a moment to see how the fox was doing it. He would take a seat in front of them, a smile still upon his face as he says, "Place it between your canine and molars so it sticks out from the side of your jaws. Then -- uh, may I?" he would gesture his paw towards the rabbit and, if allowed, twist its head so that it laid as much on its back as it could.
Regardless of if he was allowed to touch the rabbit, he would next say, "Start to cut from the base of the neck to as far down as you can go, but don't cut too deep. Make two horizontal cuts, one at the base of the neck and the other at the bottom of the stomach," as he gave these instructions, his twin tails would sway slightly in the earth behind him in content. Ears swiveling to take in the sound of their surroundings, always on alert.
Dos listened intently, the twin tailed vixen trying to replicate what the wolf was describing. Hold the spike in her mouth out to the side? She nudged it a couple times, gripping it awkwardly in her paws for a moment before she managed to get a decent grip on it in her teeth. It was even harder than hunting the rabbit really. She wasn't used to manipulating objects in such a complex way with her mouth.
She moved slightly away at first when he tried to take the spike from her - she wanted to try it for herself! - and tried to cut the way her was talking about. After the second time she nicked her own paw, trying to see where she was cutting while she was cutting, the cross fox was forced to surrender.
Not that she seemed too bothered by it.
"That's hard," she declared, passing the spine over with a little huff.
As the fox tried their paws at getting the angle and making the cut, Gabriel would lower himself into a more relaxed position. A sit turns into a lie down, belly touching the earth and height more at level with their comrade. He didn't say anything as she tried to skin the rabbit, giving them space and avoiding becoming a distraction, until they eventually surrendered and passed the bone spike over. He wasn't going to condescend her with menial statements like "not everyone's perfect" or "you'll get better over time," so he opted instead to stay silent.
Without lifting up too much, he would grab at the spike just the way he had mentioned, and begin to cut at the rabbit, showing the fox what it looked like to do it.
Dropping the bloodied spike back onto the ground, he begins to carefully rip away the fur from the rabbit's body with his teeth, holding the corpse down with foreclaws ourstretched, and between grabs he states, "I never got your name," he assumed they were just too excited at catching the rabbit to have thought about it, but he remembers now the effects of assuming things.
Dos watched through curious, molten orange eyes with amazement as the wolf demonstrated what he'd meant. She was kind of impressed he could do all that with his teeth - her jaws were admittedly, not very strong. Her body was slender and all aspects of her built for maneuverability and agility. She lowered her head curiously, careful to keep her whiskers away from the bone spike so she wouldn't be cut up too but she liked having an up-close look. She flinched back a little in surprise when he started tugging on the rabbit's skin, tongue flicking out reflexively across her muzzle at the scent of blood.
Big ears perked up in response to the question and she drew her gaze away from the rabbit, "Oh! I'm Dos!"
She almost added that she lived not too far away but her mother's steadfast determination in convincing her not to blurt that out the first chance she got each time kicked in. She had to deliberate for a moment - after all, Mr. Gabriel smelled like Verdantis so it was probably safe to tell him but her mom had said not to tell unless she was sure it was okay. Just to be certain that it wasn't a trickster of some sort.
"How do you make all that into a pouch?" she asked curiously. She'd always wondered how bags and stuff were made. But this fur didn't look anything like the braided leather cord holding her stormbead around her neck nor did it look like the leather mat her mom had spread around their den's floor to keep them warm when the snow came.
---
not me forgetting to put his accent into the last post smh
"Nice to meet you, Dos," he says, both tails wagging briefly, "It takes a while if you don't use magic, but magicless is ze way I learned how to do it." he purposefully neglects to mention it was his sister who'd taught him that, sending a brief pang of sadness he kept inside, " You Cut away ze meat and vat off ze skin, clean it, let it dry, dip it in a... pre-ser-va-tive, dry it again, stretch it, and smoke it. you don't have to smoke it if you don't intend to get it wet. ze process becomes quite easy after a vhile, and it's vorth it for a vur zat can last you years," when he'd finished explaining it, he got back to work on cutting away the skin from the rabbit, occasionally using his claws to cut skin from meat. the result was a deskinned rabbit, it's meat and muscle perfectly exposed, the only remaining fur being that on its head and extremities. Gabriel lays the pelt fur-down, and re-positions himself back into a sit. He licks his lips of the taste of blood on his teeth, simultaneously looking around the area casually. Then, he begins to clean his claws of the rabbit's blood, "I vill make a gift vor you. is zere something you vant made vrom zis, or shall I surprise you?" it was the least he could do for making dos wait even longer to eat, and he figures a gift would be a good way to foster a bond between the two verdantis members.
Her tails wagged merrily when she received a friendly greeting back, eyes curiously fixed on Mr. Gabriel's own wagging tails. She'd never met a two-tailed wolf before! How exciting! The cross fox wondered if he'd been born with his tails, like Dos had been, or if they were earned through hard-work and training. Well, the description he gave of creating pouches and stuff from her rabbit's skin had her leaning towards the latter of the two - it sounded so complicated. No wonder most creatures just used magic if this was the standard process! But Dos didn't have any powers that would make all the stuff he'd talked about easier, so she would be working with the 'paws-on' method that the wolf claimed to be more familiar with.
"Really?" Dos chirped with delight. A gift? After already being shown this new, cool thing? Mr. Gabriel was, officially, the second coolest grown up wolf she'd ever met. Granted, he was literally just the second grown-up wolf she'd ever met up close, but that was beside the point. "It can be a surprise! I like surprises!"
Good ones anyway, and this was a good surprise, she thinks.
It was nice getting to talk to Dos. They still had much to learn about each other but there was no rush to do it all in one sitting. Which is why, after he'd finished cleaning most of the blood of his paws, he rose from his seat in preparation to leave, "a surprise. Okay, I can do that," he looked over dogs' frame and then at the rabbit fur, silently wondering if there was any part of dogs' body that it could reasonably fit on. Dos was small, but rabbits are really small - it would probably be better to have more than one pelt.
He decided to think over it more. Plenty of time between now and when the pelt will be ready, "I'm going to start working on the fur. If you ever need me vor anything - training, work, even just a mouth vor conversation, you can call me," after waiting for dogs' response, he would dip his head in goodbye before turning away, the pelt resting carefully on his haunches.
