"More Jaebos? Again?" Sharkbait groaned at the tsabhua. He was a shaman, and maybe a gatherer if he had to be–just because he knew all the herbs that he was looking for already. But he wasn't a hunter, and neither was Akira–the scholar tark'ee sitting tactly and awkwardly. Indeed, he had quite a violent streak when it came to students nodding off in class, but killing prey? Well… He'd rather not get his beak bloody like that. Shenzi narrowed her eyes on the two, giving a huff of a sigh. "It can't be helped, really," she said, "Skritch is still injured, and the other two are–"

"They're kids!" Sharkbait blurted, shocked. "Yes, exactly," Shenzi replied, almost growling. Then again, Crushclaw wanted to be raised into being the pack's hunter, which would've eased her burden. Then, Shenzi could've become a miner full time, and left the chasing to someone much younger and leaner than she was.

But the Rekes region was creepy. An archeologist would've gone wild for the large fossils carved into the cliffsides, and the occasional giant rib-cages poking from the ground. But the crystal daggers and the looming darkness made it all the more terrifying–even if little blue specks fluttered easily through the sky. Shenzi tried to swipe one out of the air and onto her paw, but it disappeared into only a pinpoint of blue powder.

Still, this was where they had to travel, quite often, for hunts of a particular nature. While the giant beasts no doubt lurking were of some terror, this was one of the few places you could find many species of prey–including the jaebos, of course. Except… "Just where do we find it, exactly?" Sharkbait asked nervously. A simple glance-around hadn't ushered any prey to leap from the dark mountains out of him. "Well of course," Akira broke into lecture, "The jaebo is found in Mireh, Rekes, and Issique, favoring life in burrows. The spines on their back, however, are poisonous, and must be avoided. But if allowed to breed, they can produce prolific–"

Shenzi cut him off. "This way–droppings." Her nose winkled unpleasantly at the scent. "Droppings?" Akira's face soured. "I quite prefer flowers," Sharkbait thought unpleasantly. The work of a hunter was often more gross and degrading than you might expect, but it was still essential work to keeping a colony alive, if you could even call the group of trapped tark'ees that. She merely hissed at them both. "Stay low, follow closely after me, and stop with the comments," she directed.

Akira and Sharkbait glanced between each other, clearly with more questions. I'm a giant draconic tark'ee, how do you expect me to hide myself? The former thought. But what do we do when we find them anyways? The later considered, thinking–You wouldn't have me actually kill them, would you? Shenzi thought they were both funny and a bit useless, even if Akira did have an open crush on her. They were remarkably bad survivalists, with Akira more interested in books than food, and Sharkbait only able to patch himself when he got injured.

"Don't mind them." A deep, smooth voice appeared to come from her mind itself–yet that had not been her thought. No, this was–Zharynth'kai. A voice far deeper and older than even the world of Xiunus itself, at least as far as she knew. "Survive," the leviathan's icy voice commanded, "If the others do not, leave them." She smiled smugly at the approval, but then resisted–leave her friends to die? Could she ever do that, just because they didn't know how to track prey?

The grass here was long and overgrown, at least, which made it easy to obscure even her large, muscular body. Sharkbait tucked himself politely into the tightest crouch she'd seen any xiunari made, a bit more comical due to his long, ungainly limbs. Akira was obviously more awkward, with him only figuring so-far as to slither as low as he could, his teal-blue head peeking around into holes for sight of the rabbit-like creatures. Shenzi raised her tail, signalling that she saw something ahead. And there it was, twitching in the grass, a brown jaebo with long whiskers and a sharp-spined back.