ORIGIN

On he went, pausing to land and rest awhile, eyes half-closed against the cold. He was shivering now, the bitterness eating at his bones, and he resolved that if he found nothing in the next half an hour, to leave this cave and search somewhere else entirely.

When he took wing again, it was once more fruitless: a long, meandering sweep across hundreds of yards of barren snowscape, empty of movement bar the drifting flakes, void of life entirely.

Again he found himself laboring for breath, gasping against the icy chill. "I fucking hate this place," he murmured.

The minutes stretched on, the cold biting deeper and deeper into him, until his teeth clattered in half-clenched jaws. He could barely see, now, and recognized that before long he truly would need to abandon this search.

Just as he was about to turn back: movement. Faint, distant, but... there, he thought. His eyes narrowed, wings scooping back to plunge him toward it. Yes: the dirty off-white of a woolly deer. Luckily for Onyx-Two, it was the smaller variety, more viable prey for him than a beast that was far larger.

Now--how to go about this? he wondered. He knew how to hunt, of course, but he'd never done it from the sky, and without real natural weaponry his prey had generally been rabbits and the like. This was larger, faster--not enormous, no. Easily subdued, he gauged, but fast. Jaw tightening again he rose up, preparing to simply sweep down and strike.

He took a breath. (It was cold.) He then dove, wings pumping hard, the sudden shift in pitch disorienting. His hand stretched out before him.

Onyx-Two had no real plan. He intended to hit the deer hard and fast, cut away as much wool with his claws as he could, then kick free. He had no need to kill it, so he wouldn't--he only needed that wool.

The thud-thump of his wings alerted the creature right before he would have impacted. Instead of a neat snare, V-Onyx-Two found himself plunging face-first into the bitter snowbank as the creature sprang away: tumbling, smashing through cold, coughing, choking-

He came upright shivering hard, wings struggling frantically to free him from the bank. White caked his skin, his hair, and he hated how he must look--what his father, far behind him, must be seeing. At once he struggled up, intent on giving chase, even if his entire body now shook with cold.

He couldn't give up now.

His lungs labored, chest heaving for air as he shoved himself back skyward, struggling to catch back up with the woolly deer. Were it not for the depth of snow, it would have easily outpaced him--as it was, he found it floundering a little ways up the slope, panting and struggling to ascend in the deep snow. Only the fact that it was slowed gave him any chance: his lunge from the air was still poorly timed and clumsy, landing him half-atop its back in a tangle of limbs, its strangled and frantic bleat muffled by the arm he hooked confusedly around its neck. The quick strike he'd planned--noosing it in one arm, tearing at loose wool with the other--instead became a clumsy flailing.

His claws swiped at wool; a hoof glanced across his ribs. He was shivering, the deer panting, both of them scrambling: the beast to escape, him to cut free as much wool as he could.

It did not come easily, and he realized far too late that he should have brought a blade. But the deer was far smaller than he was, so once he'd managed to straddle the thing it wasn't any worse than fighting with a sheep might have been--though this sheep was wilder, fiercer, and managed to kick him time and time again.

By the time V-Onyx-Two broke free--still slicked by snow, shivering and gasping for breath--the deer was missing a few handfuls of wool, but still was far less exhausted than he was. It sprang up and away, bounding through the snow, while Onyx-Two felt that he could barely stand. Distantly he registered the slow steps of his father finally approaching, and he half-turned, holding up the wool.

"Got it," he choked out, then leaned down, holding his knees so as not to pass out. He stared at the wool piled at his feet, and nodded. "Got it," he said again, this time to himself. Now to bring it back.