Epicness in a Tree

With blurry eyes and wobbling legs, Kiri dragged herself into a low-hanging bough of the tree she had been sleeping near. Her throat and eyes burned and the air held an acrid scent. She wasn't quite sure why but she was sure it wasn't safe to stay on the ground. Closing her eyes, she briefly registered the sound of something rustling in the bushes before she dozed off.

Dusty stumbled through the bushes as she searched for something to drink. Her throat was sore and dry and she knew by instinct that drinking should fix it somewhat. Being the young cub she was though, she had yet to appreciate how to stay quiet and was practically crashing through the undergrowth, tripping over this and that. She sighed as she ended up lay on her belly near the trunk of a tree.

Kiri made small whimpering noises as she slept, paws twitching. She rustled the leaves on the tree with her tail, creating quite the racket

Dusty looked up as she heard the whimpering noises and realized that there was another grey fox in the tree above her. She scrambled up onto her paws, not entirely knowing how to react, apart from she knew to be on her guard.... just in case.

With one last whine and the flail of a paw, Kiri fell straight off of her branch. The shock of colliding with the hard ground woke up the young grey fox. Her curved claws tucked in and she turned to the right. "Eep!" she squealed, scooching backwards. Noticing the other fox was just a pup, she calmed down. "Oh. Hello. I'm Kiri!" Kiri was quite sociable so it was no wonder that she wasn't as afraid as she should be, meeting a random fox.

Dusty leaped backwards a few steps as the other fox fell off of her branch. She was a bit wary of her, until she introduced herself. Kiri seemed friendly enough... but was it enough to trust her.
"I-I'm Dusty..." she replied quietly.

"Hmm... Interesting name!" Kiri was already warmed up to this fox pup and was grinning. "I'm starving. And thirsty" she woofed quietly after some time.

"Me... too..." she replied, still fairly quiet. "I.. I guess it wouldn't hurt if we could look together? I mean.... at least we'd be safer with the two of us... Safer than being on our own of course."

Dusty was almost yelling at herself to stop stuttering and be confident like her mother always told her she should be.

Kiri smiled in a Foxy way. "Alright! Nobody can say no to a pair of cute, starving fox pups. Let's go for it!" the gray fox was raring to go, being starving only intensified this passion.

Dusty smiled slightly. She hadn't expected Kiri to accept so easily... but maybe it was just her low self-esteem that made her think the other cub would say no. The gray furred fox scented the air, the scents of the forest washing over her untrained nose as she sought out anything that smelt like food or water.

"Weeeell... It smells kinda musty over there" Kiri pointed her nose south "So i doubt there's any water that way.." she took another whiff "But, it smells kinda fresh over there.. So let's go that way?"

Dusty nodded, having got the same impression from her own deductions. "Sounds like a plan..." she replied quietly, flicking her tail before gently picking her way through the undergrowth, heading towards the area that smelled 'fresh'.

Kiri trotted along behind Dusty, trying to remember what her mother had looked like when she was on the hunt. She quieted her footfalls and tried to look sneaky but just ended up walking slightly lopsided and squinching up her eyes as if that would make her appear sneakier.

Dusty glanced back at Kiri as she heard her footsteps get quieter. The young gray fox nearly burst out laughing when she saw the other young fox's lopsided movements and squinted eyes.
"What are you doing?" she laughed, all her shyness seemed to disappear in the hilarity of the moment.

Kiri, eyes still squinted, looked up at Dusty's face. "Whaddya mean?" spotting her reflection in a nearby puddle that was-unfortunately- too small to drink out of, the gray fox started snorting with laughter.

Dusty laughed even harder as Kiri observed her own facial expression in the puddle. It took her a few minutes to finally calm down and think logically.
She sighed, "Well.. I don't think we can drink out of a puddle that small..."
Dusty knew she was stating the obvious, but she didn't mind. The young gray fox was beginning to warm up to Kiri. Just slightly.

"Yea, i agree. Plus, it smells awful" she took another sniff and wrinkled up her nose. As well as a fox could XD "Lets keep going forward then. Maybe we'll find some food there too." Kiri thought for a moment and then nodded.

Dusty chuckled as Kiri wrinkled her nose up.
"Y-yea..."
She smiled before moving on again, making sure to skip over little twigs that could give away their position to any predators nearby.

After taking a few silent steps, Kiri lifted her nose up again. She smelled something peculiar. "Hey, Dusty. What's that?" the smell was metallic but warm. it was peculiar indeed. "Food?"

Dusty foolishly hadn't scented the air for a short while now so she paused and did so,to make up for her earlier mistake. Blinking at the odd smell, she turned to Kiri, "I..I don't know..."
The young gray fox, her curiosity now piqued, started moving again, silently padding towards the source of the scent.

Coming to a break in the undergrowth, Kiri peered out. Her eyes widened in astonishment. There, in the center of the open field was a rather old female wolf, digging hungrily into a rabbit. "Hey Dusty... How about we work our cute pup charm?" she flashed a toothy grin at her companion.

Dusty blinked at her companion. She wasn't quite sure about exactly what Kiri meant. But the rabbit did look rather tasty to a pup that had been deprived of food for the last few days...
"Uhhm.. Sure.. I guess..?"

"Do as i do" were the simple instructions Kiri gave. The fox pup slid to the ground in a grovelling manner, pulling her ears back and making her eyes big. She whimpered and crawled over to the mangy wolf.

"Eh?" the wolf stared down at the young pup. "What do you want?"

Kiri whimpered and whined, casting her gaze from the rabbit to the wolf with a hopeful look in her eyes.

Dusty tumbled out of the bushes, attempting, but failing, to follow Kiri's lead. Instead she just got her fur covered in dust and landed awkwardly on her stomach. She tried to hold in a small sneeze as the dust got up her nose but it didn't work. Instead of being loud and booming, the sneeze was only tiny and actually sounded rather cute. Her ears were pinned to her head as she glanced from the wolf to Kiri. She half tried to silently apologize for ruining everything, and was half just terrified of what the wolf might do.

The old wolf had jet black fur, but because of her age, there were gray streaks throughout it. Her eyes, despite being old and wise through seeing many past events and maybe even a tragedy or two, they were full of a pup-like curiosity as she glanced from the pitiful looking fox cub in front of her, to the one that had just tumbled into the clearing.

Kiri looked to Dusty as if saying 'It's alright' then went back to her grovelling around in the dirt. "S...s..so..hun...hungry" she whimpered pitifully.

The wolf looked down at the two foxes. She couldn't help but feel bad for them. After all, they were parentless and starving. They couldn't fend for themselves. She, on the other paw, could go hunt for more. Of course, just sympathy wasn't going to make her give up her food.