The successful killing of a rabbit in the deeper heart of Ouroboros Spine put Sialuk in a good mood despite the cold rain driving down between the trees. She'd consumed what she was capable of eating, having been taught all her life to gorge herself for food would soon be scarce, and deposited what was left—a little less than a third of the meat, most of it skeletal muscle—into a cache which she'd drenched in urine.
Sialuk now padded quietly between the massive, spindly trunks of lodgepoles, licking her jowls with alternate swipes of her tongue across the left and right side of her mouth. Only a bath or hours in the present downpour would clean the dried blood from her short, white snout fur, but she tried anyway.
Seemingly without warning, the Arctic warshaman let herself fall to her side on the needle-laden ground and lifted one of her forepaws to her mouth. Her lips peeled back as she began to nibble at the hair between her toes, which were also covered in blood from holding down the rabbit as she ripped at its flesh. Soft, purr-like growls tumbled from her throat every once in a while when she hit a particularly satisfactory spot on her paw pads, but otherwise her cleaning was done in silence.
It seemed their efforts in recruitments had been paid off, for now they were double their former size. Kaname, now a bit relieved of his scouting duties, focused his energies again on hunting and restoring caches, now that they had more mouths to feed.
Hunting in the rain was challenging, but the Beta made the most of it, following trails he knew had prey skittering over not too long ago. The assassin paused in his efforts, smelling the iron-like scent of blood in the crisp air. Kaname followed the scent trail almost immediately, but was a bit disappointed to see that the meal was already finished.
A white female, an arctic wolf, sat there, grooming herself after feeding, rabbit it smelled like. Approaching the subordinate, who he had not seen before, his voice rumbled in his throat. "Greetings."
She was lucky to have her eyes upturned when Kaname's approaching figure became apparent through the trees, for he moved rather quietly, and Sialuk rarely took kindly to being surprised. She continued to lick and nip her toes, but her deep blue eyes remained fixed on him. She didn't dare meet his eyes, but she looked him over thoroughly: a Mackenzie Valley wolf, he was surely taller than her even without her rising to compare herself to him. His eyes were a glassy blue, almost lighter than the sky itself on a good day, and his coat was burnished bronze, nearly black in the rainy gloom.
Sialuk set her foot back beneath her, but didn't rise; it was better for her if she remained lower than him and didn't present any challenge. "There's more in a cache not far from here," she rumbled softly in response, "if you'd like it." Why else would a fit male wolf find her by chance and approach her post-feeding but that he'd been drawn by the blood? It was, perhaps, a primal way of thinking, but it was how the wolves in Alaska operated, and so she assumed it was the same for all.
She responded respectfully, not daring to rise or meet her eyes. There was another cache nearby apparently, which he presumed that she filled herself. "Thank you for the offer." he circled around her, eyes taking in her form, though not in a lustful manner. "You are new to the pack correct? What's your name?
Sialuk began to get to her feet, but when she was halfway risen, Kaname began to circle her. She twisted one ear back and held one cupped forward, made wary by his behaviour. The Arctic female knew such things were well within his right as a senior member of the pack, but that didn't mean she wasn't made uncomfortable by displays. Her face was fixed into a stony expression, revealing nothing of the inner uncertainty she harboured.
"Yes," she confirmed, refusing to let herself make any further comments about her usefulness. As much as the warshaman wanted to be a part of this group, she didn't feel she had to explain herself to the icy-eyed male. "I can show you that cache if you'd like," she said, trying to ease the uncomfortable tension building between her shoulders.
His head cocked slightly as she avoided his question concerning her name. It wasn't that prying or even that personal. Why was she so introverted? "I'd rather know your name first before I see that cache. We are packmates after all." He tried not to make it seem too invasive, but at this point, it might be to her.
It was, perhaps, due to her discomfort that Sialuk hadn't noticed Kaname's direct question. She had been too focused on his predatory circle to really focus on what he'd said, but now that he prompted her again, she realized she hadn't answered him. It didn't necessarily reflect poorly on her, so she merely folded back her ears, still half-standing and ready to move when he stopped his prowling, and said, "Sialuk."
She leveled a questioning gaze on him then, avoiding direct eye contact but otherwise allowing the pressure of her stare to come across fully. She meant no disrespect by it, but intended to make known that she wanted him to back off somewhat, for the circling made her wary still... and though she did nothing out of line for her station, Sialuk carried the air of a woman who tolerated only so much.
This female, Sialuk, was a distant one. Not that he minded, but he would enjoy some direct answers. Did he scare her somehow? Or was she not prone to speaking much? Regardless, the Beta paused in his movements, watching the pale female's face for a moment, noticing the position and look of her eyes before he spoke again. "Let's see this cache of yours then. I want to see how well you've been hunting."
Just fading this. Thanks for the thread!
There were a few sharp retorts that jumped to the tip of her tongue at the way Kaname phrased his answer, but Sialuk was wise to keep them to herself. She got the sense that this wolf was much too full of himself, and no matter how wrong that opinion may or may not have been, it inevitably tainted her opinion of her new pack.
"This way," she said shortly, brushing by to lead him back in the direction of the cache she'd dug. Though there was little more than muscle and bones in it, it was certainly a good enough meal for a wolf who needed it. Thankfully, she didn't need to be offended, for Kaname's indifference could only persist until they parted ways, she with a somewhat different feeling about Ouroboros Spine.