ORIGIN

Hunter waved his hands, calling as the remainder crossed the finish line. "That's right!! You can do it!! Come on, everyone! You're almost there!" He laughed, delighted, until the last one seemed to reach the end. Yeah, the race was "over", but not for everyone.

Actually, he waited at the end, expecting more gembound to come through. Did... did some of them not get through until the end? A worried frown settled across his face. "Hang on, did the medics come get some of the racers? We're forgetting some of them."

He frowned, realizing a lot of people had already left. Okay, okay, that was fine. He started picking his way back through the race track, stumbling a bit over rocks. Mostly, he wanted to make sure everyone was okay, but he also noticed bits of his own fur and others littering the tunnel where gembound had tripped or got caught on stuff.

Maybe he could find something!

As Hunter picked his way through, he eventually reached where Madukhar's electrified hairballs were-- gross-- but he was having trouble finding anything besides charred bits of gembound and scraps of fur. "Hello?" He called, "No one's still this far back, right? Hey, they called the race done and over, but if you still want to complete it, I'd be happy to watch!" Maybe he was just talking to himself, just a young lady out on an adventure.

Ah well. It was still pretty fun! There had been quite a few birds, so he had really thought he could find a feather or five. Was it weird to be taking feathers from people after a friendly competition? Well, they weren't using them anyway, so what was the harm?

FINALLY, Hunter managed to find a black feather-- at least, he thought he did. But when he reached down to pick it up, he realized a moment too late it was burnt to a crisp. As he touched it, it turned to ash in his fingers.

... maybe it was a bit of a lost cause. Oh well. He shrugged, and continued the rest of the way through the tunnel, before he decided he should go find his family. (Had they already gone home? Maybe.)