Nighttime Hunting

Even though Ruth has no problems hunting at night, she often finds it easier, there are several reasons why she rarely does ever hunt at night.

Well, one, everything is asleep so it's hard to spot something lurking in the darkness when they don’t move! For all she knows, that pinecone hanging from a tree could be a squirrel! Or a bird!

And two, it’s loud! If she thought the daytime animals' noises were loud, goodness, it’s nowhere near as loud as the nighttime bugs and animals! It can get so loud that she can hardly hear her thoughts sometimes!

For some reason, these noises get louder the deeper she goes into the forest. She’s not sure why that is, maybe these bugs and animals love to nest further into the forest for whatever reason, but she’s not sure.

But whatever it is, it makes hunting at night extremely annoying.

Luckily her cave is nestled along a cliffface pointing directly at the ocean waves, so she doesn’t hear it too much since her home is not deep in the forest. Throughout the night she gets to listen to the ocean waves, and not these annoying noises!!

Even as she stalked along the foliage, she kept grumbling to herself as the noises were getting louder and louder. But, today was a dud. She didn’t catch anything today and she’s hungry, she needs to eat pretty soon here, she could tell. But ugh…why does it have to be at nighttime?!

Ruth swatted at a small brown bug that came jumping at her as if to attack her. Her green eyes glared at the bug as it landed on the ground, and she didn’t waste any time stomping on the poor thing. She growled to the carcass before continuing on her way. This nighttime hunt better be worth it.

Focus, Ruth, the sooner you catch something the sooner you can be out of this hellscape. Okay, what animals are awake at this hour? Hm… owls. Well, that was her first thought since she could hear an owl making a noise not too far away from her.

Her green eyes glanced up the tree, and she spotted the dark figure of an owl hooting in the darkness. She might as well try to catch this sucker since it’s right here. But here comes the fun part about hunting owls…trying to reach them. Alright, here she goes…

She forced her claws to dig into the tree's bark, then her body made its way further up the tree. It hasn’t been her first time climbing and she knows it won’t be the last. It’s certainly not her favorite thing in the world, but if its to get her prey, heck, she’ll do anything for a tasty bite-

And, there it goes.

Just as she was about to reach over to swat at the bird, the owl’s head turned around. The beady eyes of the owl stared at her. Before it let out a hoot, and simply flew away before she could even make a move.

Ruth snarled under her breath, her claws digging even further into the tree. Her long tail whipped back and forth along the leaves.

Okay, now she’s getting really irritated with this.

First, she’s been getting bad luck today with hunting, and now this…

Why can’t some stupid animal just fly into her mouth-

Just as Ruth was making her way further down the tree, she placed her back paw into a hole in the tree. And well, that was a mistake. Cause something was living in that hole, and it was not happy about her being there. Before she knew it, she suddenly had a black flying animal attacking her face. And as she was swatting at the angry hissing thing, she swore she heard tiny squeals coming from the hole in the tree. Oh, so this thing is a mother. Well, she could care less-

And, of course, just to make her day even more great, she lost her footing while trying to snatch this bat out of the air and ended up falling to the ground. Luckily some bushes managed to catch her fall. But, she looked up to see the bat hissing at her again before flying back into the hole.

Ruth sighed, and she quickly got out from the bushes.

She could try to go after that bat again, but…nah… It seems hellbent on defending its babies and she doesn’t want to deal with scratches that could possibly get infected from that bat’s claws.

And she’s learned the hard way that infection from bat’s claws are no joke. It really hurts and is no fun, so…maybe later if she’s desperate enough.

So…here she goes again on her journey to find something to eat. Anything to eat.

So that owl didn’t work out in her favor…what other animals are awake at nighttime?

Hm…raccoons? Wolfs? Hm… wolves will put up one hell of a fight though, she rarely goes after those beasts if she can help it.

But, she paused and her head lifted when she heard another animal call. A coyote. Sure, it also picks a fight but there’s a possibility she could snatch one up that wanders too far from the pack. And she can certainly take down one coyote, that’s no biggie.

Ruth grinned to herself as her slink body ran through the dense foliage. It sounded like one coyote was howling right now if she could make it there before the others come to check out what the problem is maybe she could get a somewhat easy meal-

There it is…

The coyote had a carcass of an owl by its paws. And Ruth recognized that owl, that was the same owl that she had tried to grab previously! Well, that works in her favor cause if she can kill this coyote then she could make off with two prey for the price of one!

Please…have luck be on her side for once-

Shoot, she could hear coyotes howling in the distance. The rest of the pack is coming. If she doesn’t kill this thing here and now she’s doomed!

Ruth wasted no time in jumping out from this foliage. There is no time to be stealthy about this kill! She can’t waste any time!

The coyote was startled by her sudden appearance, but just as it was about to jump into the foliage and call for the rest of its friends…Ruth had snapped her jaw around the coyote's neck. She could taste the blood in her mouth and hear the call die in the coyote's throat.

She now has to leave with her prey, now! The rest of the pack is getting closer, she could hear their howling getting closer and closer!

Ruth rushed over to grab the owl from the ground in her paws, and holding onto the owl while still having the dead coyote hanging from her jaws, she took off into the night.

Her loud paws thundered along the foliage as she zig-zagged through the trees and bushes. No matter how much she ran, it felt like the pack was right behind her, trailing and chasing after her body. Course, even if that was the case and the pack did try to attack her, she could fight them off…but it wouldn’t be pretty on her end either.

One time she foolishly thought she could take on a pack of coyotes or even wolves, and well, it never ended well for her. She always was limping back home, blood trailing behind her. She couldn’t move from her home for weeks without feeling like her body was about to give out under her.

She wasn’t sure what was worse then, the pain of the wounds, or the pain of hunger that ate away at her stomach.

In either case, she wasn’t eager to experience that again.

So, she ran and ran and ran, not even daring herself to pause for a second. She felt stupid running away like this, but it was for the better. After what felt like forever of running, she finally skitted to a halt right in front of her cave. Panting to herself, she glanced backward towards the forest.

Those coyotes won’t be stupid enough to follow her home, no, she doubts it. And…she was right. She couldn’t hear the sounds of the howling animals anymore, it had died out while she was running. And now, there were the normal nighttime forest noises.

Thank goodness, they must have given up on the hunt.

Ruth sighed softly to herself in relief, and she stepped into her cave. Her paws are now sore from all that running, but she managed to accomplish what she went out there for. Food.

Ruth didn’t particularly care about her sore paws, instead, her eyes trailed over to the animal carcasses right beside her. Her mouth started to water. And she didn’t waste any time in digging into the warm delicious flesh.

A loud purr came from her throat as she enjoyed the meat. As she licked her lips, she congratulated herself on a job well done. Maybe she won’t hesitate to do some nighttime hunting anymore… No, that’s a lie, she always will be after her horrible experience. But, for now, she can enjoy some dinner and not have to think about that anymore!