Heron Lake Plateau Rock and a hard place.

How had Raven not known about a cougar attack until now?

Oh right. Kids.

Her newborns kept her occupied and sequestered enough now that she had trouble maintaining a full awareness of what was going on outside of her den walls. She understood the context of the wound on Niamh's face now. She nodded in understanding at the gamma's signing, and signed back quickly, -I thought about letting her stay, but I don't know. She's rude.- Ptero was so handy sometimes. She was glad Niamh had taken the time to learn it.

Returning her attention to Ikkuma, she considered the woman's words. It made no sense to send her away to gather the plants needed herself. She'd simply be gathering them from the lands immediately surrounding the plateau, and that was no different from using the pack's own stores because that was exactly where Raven gathered her supplies. Though she offered to provide food for the pack, the healer didn't foresee her doing any hunting anytime soon with that shoulder looking so bad. "It's probably getting infected," she replied to Ikkuma's comment that her shoulder was hot. "I appreciate your offer to work in return for my help. But you won't be hunting much until that shoulder has healed up some. How do I know you won't just ditch us in the night after I treat you, like the last outsider I helped did?"