The day had begun as most of Maile's days did: looking for any scraps other predators might have left behind. Not possessing of very good hunter skills, she preferred to just follow her nose to recent kills. Sometimes she'd be lucky and find some nice soul willing to share with her. Usually these were creatures on their own or with smaller families to feed. Sometimes she got chased away when she approached, before she could even say hi. Those were the most rude. It wasn't like she was staring at their meal with her tongue hanging out. At least not every time she was instantly shooed away was it because she was staring at their meal with her tongue hanging out. She tried to keep her manners, to seem impartial to mooching off others. But sometimes the smell of meat was just so tantalizing, she couldn't help it. It wasn't her fault. Why did nature make the herbivores taste so damn good!
But so far today, she couldn't pick up any smells of dinner in any direction. Nor any leftover kills. Not even something decaying! She made a grunting sound in her throat from where she lay in the soft grass, placing her nose back between her paws. Naw, all the greedy vultures would have picked apart anything that had been leftover. And if not them, the hyenas. They could eat anything. Maile wished she could eat anything. Than she wouldn't be hungry so much.
For a moment, she closed her eyes, thinking a nap would be good. By the time she woke up, someone would have a kill, right?
But before she could even start to drift off, something smacked her on the head. With an annoyed growl, she opened her eyes and tossed her head, only to be hit by the unmistaken aroma that was meat! A glance up at the sky showed a vulture beginning to circle down to attempt to steal the morsel from her. She wasn't going to allow that to happen!
Unfortunately, while she was focused on watching the bird in the sky, she wasn't paying attention to anything else nearby. Where there was one vulture, there normally were more. Like a whole flock. So while her eyes watched the one above, another swooped in and grabbed the rabbit leg right from under her nose.
"Hey!" Maile cried out, snapping her jaws at the fleeing bird but only catching air. "Why can't you greedy birds ever learn to share!"
