(AAAAHHH DUCKIE IS SO FREAKING CUTEEEEE!!)
It took Duckpaw a minute to get going, but once her apprentice got her paws in a decent position and began creeping around more quickly, Deadmoon paused her own demonstrative sneaking to watch. It was a work in progress, but that was fine. Nothing was tooooo out of line with her positioning, and Deadmoon was a great believer in letting the kinks work themselves out rather than forcing everything into place too soon. Better to let the kid have a go at actually catching something and adjust from there, with a bit of confidence and, ideally, a catch under her paw.
Then Duckpaw began creeping towards her, and Deadmoon was only slightly alarmed by the fact that she was about to get jumped. Only slightly. She turned resolutely away, to better play the part of unsuspecting prey. But no sooner had she averted her gaze than it was drawn, somewhat unwillingly, back to Duckpaw. The snap of a stick was a rare thing in the meadow, but Duckpaw had evidently managed not only to find a stick, but to step on it. It was highly likely that the rabbit previously in their area had gone, and Deadmoon the 'prey' had been thoroughly alerted. Although, this did provide an opportunity to correct the one folly of this exercise. Duckpaw would not be stalking all the way up to the rabbit. Rather, she would be approaching within a few foxlengths, ideally between the critter and it's burrow, and then running it down.
Once she had gotten her VERY strong urge to laugh under control (occurrences of Murphy's Law would never not amuse her) and let out a singular snort, Deadmoon opened her maw to give meaningful direction.
This is the point at which you run at me as fast as you possibly can and hope you're faster. she mewed with a bit of a teasing tone. Though Duckpaw WAS probably faster than her already. Ugh, such a fun thought. Well, at least she could always argue that she had handicapped herself to make things a bit easier for the apprentice this time? Knowing the prey in the area had already gone, Deadmoon had no qualms about taking off running almost as fast as she could (still an attainable speed for Duckpaw to overhaul) in a random direction, tail streaming out behind her as her uneven gait beat it's way along the grass. @
Marycat006