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[color=silver]
To her surprise, she needed not fight alone. 

In her peripheral vision, she registered movement. A solitary being running about; a distraction, stealing the avian's attention. A great and mighty thing, the avian must've thought itself without match to be caught so unawares — proof the bird was not of nature at all. Ask the cub of any mighty beast, and they could tell you so, could recite what their mothers taught them: that should the stars so align, even the mightiest predator could fall prey to another, matched, beaten, by her kin — or by something else. What else? She could not remember.

Her claws found purchase, her fangs sunk in. [i]This[/i], this if nothing else, she remembered. The sensation of something giving way under the pressure of her bite, the tearing of skin. But there was no snap, the telltale sign of a painless end. She would need to hold on then, hold, and bite, and wait, until there was movement no more.

Then [i]it[/i] touched her tongue. Blood, she thought, except not — not the way she remembered it. It [i]burned[/i]; a formless fire, filling her mouth, steaming out past clenched teeth, scorching her throat. The pain told her to let go, to draw in a breath of fresher air, yet she was not a beast who let go, when her prey still drew breath.

And so, she held on. She held on, as a burst of something bright collided with the bird, held on as it dove, focused, towards the erratically moving distraction from before. Held on as they [i]landed[/i], a second mistake on the bird's part. Monstrous as though it was, it was made for the sky; there someone like her, a being made to prowl upon earth, held less sway. She was dragged, now, as it struggled forth and consumed its target with magic both unknown and unnatural.

She would be dragged no longer. 

Humoids rushed close, her eyes narrow with suspicion, an instinct from somewhere long ago. Part of her wanted to leap at them, too, the second wave, companions to the first evil, yet reason told her that this time alone, it would be foolish to do so. Their target, their [i]prey [/i]was one and the same, the monster from up above, now ground-bound. They angled their pointed sticks and sought to skewer the beast's head, eager to take part in the kill, and so she too straightened, finding her form once more.

She let the claws of her hind paws dig into soil, relishing in its support, the shoulders of Mother, ever steady. Her front claws she sought to lift and shove down again, to pin the bird where it lay, claws readjusted in its flesh. She adjusted her bite, too, gathered into her mouth as much as she could of flesh and skin and whatever lay beyond, then pulled back with her entire being, muscle upon muscle tensing, as she sought to tear apart the bird's throat, not to suffocate as was customary, but to to tear asunder, and to leave its face better exposed for those who wanted the eyes.[i] Go for the eyes, [/i]they had said, after all. And perhaps if the avian insisted, if it tried to pry itself free, her grip on its throat would only tighten, its own fanatic struggle ensuring its demise.

Further away she saw corpses twitch, move, rise, be struck down once more, by the Man Whose Face Was Fire. 

[i]Rite. Malachim.[/i] Words she did not know. Words that were for someone else to know, just as the feathered corpses were someone else's to fight. For now. A moment longer, perhaps two, perhaps more, the bird in her grasp insistent.

For now.[/color]