><Scavengers><

[Stan]

The story so far:
A pair of black vultures -- Sensex and Frons -- dine on a cow carcass when a domestic feline strolls by. The cat, Arson, settles by to wait for his share.
Original Thread

:Sensex sent her mate a querying look, head cocked, cleared her throat with a slight huff when he didn't pay immediate attention to her (not surprising, considering how he was enthusiastically ripping into the cow's corpse). Frons jerked his head up in surprise, looking around for a threat or something interesting; and when nothing presented itself, he tilted his head towards the female vulture to give her a confused stare. Sensex responded with a grin, gesturing towards the cow's head in a questioning manner- did he want to get at the eyes and such? Frons looked down at the sizable slit in the cow's stomach that he had made, then back up at his mate: no, no, he had everything under control here, she should feel free to get at the good bits.
: Sensex sent a conspiratorial look at the cat, then made her way to the cow's head (feet placed carefully on each rib in turn) with characteristic long, languid strides. Once there, she dipped her sharp beak into to cow's eye with a squelch. Really, she should have alit here, first- it was the easiest place to get at the tastiest bits, after all. She had simply assumed that Frons, with his enthusiasm for food, would have gotten there first. He was quite fond of her, yes, but some things trump even mates. The vulture watched the tom out of the corner of her eye, ready to tell Frons off if he so much as looked wrong at the cat; after all, there was plenty for all of them, particularly considering that there didn't seem to be any other scavengers on the horizons.:


How funny it was that these grotesque creatures before him were from the family of birds. They wore feathers and traveled the sky, but that was where the similarities ended, at least in his mind. They smelled of warm dust and cool flesh, with a rusty undercurrent of decay...and they were remarkably large. The bluebirds and sparrows of the field had nothing on these monsters.

These were the thoughts that were ambling through the old tom's mind as he watched the rangy vulture step across the carcass with an eerie grace. The size of the she-bird, though not nearly as impressive perhaps as others of her kind, was still enough for the cat to admire as she drew closer. He decided then that, yes...he thought well of this species. If there was ever to be a bird-kind that he could imagine a cat finding common ground with, it would be these hoary things.

One wouldn't guess that he was thinking thoughts like these, though, from his expression alone. His sunward eye was squinted against the light, giving him a sleepy and uncaring look, and the tip of his tail twitched in that abstract emotion that only cats can show...somewhere between agitation, indifference, and deep thought.

In truth, the rupturing of the cow's eye was the only thing that struck an off chord with him. He couldn't see the benefit in something like that, and he could swear that the she-bird was doing it solely for fun. What was in a dead cow's skull that was so desirable? Brains? Ugh. No thank you.

After a few minutes of trying his best to ignore the gore going on at the cow's head, he rose to his feet and stretched his limbs, which had irritatingly begun to fall asleep. He began to test the waters and meander along the length of the carcass, gazing up in half-interest as he went, casually looking for an opportunity to grab a bite to eat. Now that the vultures were a little more separated from each other, he didn't feel so small in comparison. He would watch their reactions to him moving around and getting a little closer, carefully judging his chances.

[Frons and Sensex and Gutxi]

– Frons gave the cat an uncertain look as the mammal came closer, then cast a questioning glance at his mate. Sensex gave him an intense stare right back, protective, and of the cat. A bit of indulgence towards the beast -- for its appearance, perhaps, or some other ineffable quality Frons couldn’t hope to determine. Frons made a questioning noise, thoroughly puzzled, and his mate responded with a maddeningly opaque stare -- quite easy for a bird to manage, in fact, but not something he was used to having turned on him. The male huffed, ruffled his feathers, and turned back to his meal -- as long as the cat did not come too close, it was no worry of his.
– Sensex winked at the tom, and then suddenly straightened up and locked her gaze on him. “You’re not our usual dining companion,” she observed, then leaned forward. “In fact, I don’t normally see your kind close to us at all.”
– Frons preened a bit of gore from his belly feathers and wondered if Sensex thought he should do something. She might, after all, have sent some subtle signal he hadn’t responded to. After a moment of thought, he decided he didn’t care. He trusted that there was nothing Sensex couldn’t deal with herself, in this situation, and she wasn’t such a vapid creature she’d fault him for not reading her mind. He hoped. Apparently indifferent, Frons went back to his feeding.
– Just as quickly as he’d dismissed the thought of other creatures from his mind, a sound drew him away from the carcass, a drawn-out thoughtful hum. The vulture straightened, weary and wary and ready to pounce at the thing if it proved even halfway edible, only to meet the lambent yellow stare of a small ground owl. It sat atop a pole and stared down at them all, its permanent scowl seeming very deliberate at the moment. Frons cleared his throat, searched for something to say, and finally shrugged.
– “That cow,” said the owl. “Is laying on one of my burrows. Eat faster.”
– Frons blinked, and blinked again. He turned to his mate, who had turned her attention from the cat to her mate and the burrowing owl. She chuckled at him, which made him consider the way he had gone back on his heels, wings half-mantled -- not exactly dignified, that reaction. He cleared his throat and bent his head back to the cow -- wasn’t that what everyone wanted, here?
– On the post, Gutxi watched as the male vulture resumed eating with considerable satisfaction -- now if only the female would start. Perhaps the tomcat, as well -- although the owl kept extra attention on the mammal for reasons pertaining to eating but not the carcass.

[Arson]

"Their loss, I guess." Came the cat's lazy reply to the she-bird's comment. If he had any thoughts on the vulture-pair's subtle wordless communication with each other, he didn't show it. In truth, even as he shifted and stretched out a lanky hind leg to clean, he was still finding some amount of amusement at their every interaction.

Nothing at all really seemed to rise any visible reaction from him, as he casually cleaned himself in the presence of the large birds...until a peculiar hum interrupted the still morning air. Ears perking suddenly and instinctually, he raised his head more quickly and eagerly than he meant to.

Oh, interesting. A burrowing owl was not something that he had seen often, and wasn't quite sure what he thought of. Though, it's predicament certainly entertained the hell out of him. Another soundless chuckle moved through him, and his eyes squinted in a pleased manner. Though, the exact object of this pleasure was a little up in the air.

Whether he was simply amused by the owl and the 'situation' of its burrow, or some had some other interest in mind, he kept his eyes coolly locked on the bird either way...the tip of his tail twitching in a slow rhythm.

- Meet Arson -

[Vulture Pair and Gutxi]

The cat puzzled Frons more as each minute passed; did it mean to be charming, with a comment like that? Then it began to preen, however, which could have meant it was comfortable or nervous or just dirty. As a bird, and even further as a vulture, Frons considered preening to be a gesture weighted with many meanings, tempered by context. Thrown against the backdrop of the cat’s nonchalance, the gesture meant – well, nothing. The vulture gave a disgusted snort and might have pursued the matter if not for the owl’s interruption, and his subsequent focus on his meal. He was quickly coming to remember why he preferred to interact with his mate, foremost, other vultures occasionally, and never individuals of other species.

The flicking of the cat’s tail briefly caught his attention, but it meant nothing to Frons; he glanced aside to his mate, once, and found her occupied with tugging loose a bit of entrails with her relatively weak beak. She had a bit more experience with the animals of man than he, and might have known what to make of the gesture. As it was, he shrugged and turned back to the cow.

Gutxi, on the other hand, lived near enough to farms to understand a cat’s behavior. A survivor foremost, first of his own cannibalistic siblings and then of the harsh human-polluted fields, he felt he had reason to sneer down at this cat who seemed to think it could kill him. He didn’t turn a feather in the face of the danger, and instead hissed, “That’s one of my burrows. There’s another just below me. So don’t get your hopes up, cat.” He ruffled his feathers and stuck his sharp little beak in the air. “I’d expect you to have more respect for a fellow predator.”

Sensex couldn’t help herself; the sound muffled by the sticky, stinking chunk of innards in her beak, she giggled. The word ‘predator’ brought to mind the wolves and pumas and the metal human-things that provided her with her daily carcass, not such small beasts as the cat, and definitely not the burrowing owl. She doubted the latter had ever brought down real prey in its life, the sort that a predator could share with scavengers. “Sorry, dear,” she said when he turned an affronted look on her, because it seemed rude not to.

His feathers ruffled up around his face and he turned his attention back to the cat with a huff – pride not the least bit soothed. Sensex muffled another fit of mirth only via the expedient of shoving her naked head into the cow’s abdominal cavity.