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[color=silver]
For a hunter, every moment spent waiting was both a heartbeat and a lifetime, any attempt to distinguish between the two futile and unfounded. So when the smoke of the skies parted and an enormous avian descended upon them, she could not tell how much time had passed since it had first made itself known — though she [i]could [/i]tell exactly how many wingbeats it had been, could still feel each one linger. They'd tugged at her tense form like irksome cubs, looking to get a rise out of her, to lure her into action before it was time.

She had resisted. Continued to resist now, as the creature threw itself at the barrier that had engulfed them; wind, having once again bent to a humoid's will. A peculiarity. 

Peculiar, too, was the substance that dripped from the bird's feathers, and the odour that soon filled the air. She was no stranger to foul smells, had not been since the humoids came — [i]came where, whence, and why?[/i] — but this was not anything she recognized. Even so, it sparked something within her. Not quite a memory, but a feeling that a memory [i]should've [/i]been right there, in that very corner of her mind. It was an afterimage of something lost, a memory forgotten, or maybe one never formed in the first place. A smell so foul it was an insult, to her nose and to all she knew to be right — [i]to Mother;[/i] the gravest insult of all. 

Her fur stood on end, claws digging upon her perch.

Then feathers sprouted where they ought not; from carcasses — [i]corpses[/i], the humoids called them, a deliberate distinction — that had yet to begin reeking of death. 

The humoids inside the barrier stirred, some spurred to action, some to preparation, while others chose inaction; rabbits standing still, breathless, waiting for the fox to pass. They were the smart ones, she thought, prey who knew their place. 

The same could not be said of all of them. One tried to welcome the peculiar substance to her body, another to thwart her efforts, another to collect that very same not-quite-liquid. How drawn they were to this foul thing. How driven by curiosity, even in the face of death. 

When her gaze returned to the skies, she noticed it; the barrier, if ever so slightly, had started to come undone. Were it to break, there would be no quarter given to her and hers. ... That thought gave her pause. [i]Hers [/i]these humoids were [i]not[/i], yet she felt as though something may have connected them, a feeble thread, an idea, or some other abstract thing she couldn't describe. An unnatural thought, that. Unpleasant, yet persistent.

She lowered herself further, eyes on the wind that swept above them. One humoid had thrown a rock and a humoid made stick at it, yet only one had made it through.

[i]Fist or timber.[/i]

She could lay claim to neither, but if she knew anything of wind, it would not rebut fang or claw either.

She poised, low, watching, intending to strike first, to draw first blood. All the while, that something within her, a foreign thing, stirred and thrashed about, threatened to drive her to thoughtlessness. She fought it, much like soon she'd fight the monster.

And so if, [i]when[/i], the avian dove for another strike at the barrier, it would not be met with wind, but her roar and claw and fang as she pounced for its back, and went for its throat. [/color]