Up in the higher climes of the Plateau, Mordecai had stumbled across a sight he had not anticipated.  Somehow or someway, a mother doe and her aging fawn had become separated from the rest of their herd in a big way.  It was not very often that Mordecai anticipated encountering game along what was quickly becoming a muddy, wooded slope, but the opportunity was something he was hard pressed to pass up.

Hastily and downwind of the pair, he rose a call for nearby wolves.  It came instinctually, almost boldly as he felt back into a lingering habit.  There was no guarantee someone would answer him, even less guarantee they would answer the call of a newer pack-mate.  But the message was clear enough, crisp on the sunny late winter day, speaking of the meal they could have if they'd only rally together.  As the call faded away, the Ostrega turned his keen focus back to the obscured shapes of the duo as they tried to plod a safe pathway downward.

From his slanted rocky perch, he could not help but salivate at the thought.

The howl that roused Saena from her nap didn't belong to anyone she knew, so it was with a surge of protectiveness that she quickly found her feet and trotted in Mordecai's general direction. She wore a troubled expression that deepened the further she went into Blacktail territory, for although the howl was an excited one, a rallying one, she couldn't help being suspicious. Ever since she found Calipso hiding out in their territory, Saena was suspicious of everyone that so much as made a peep in her home.

The bitch soon located the caller and was surprised to find a large, rather imposing tawny male. Nearly all of the wolves in this particular pack were some shade of black or grey, with her and Pura being remarkable because of their white fur. To see a creature spun in gold and rich mahogany was rare indeed... and suspicious. Flaring her ears and tipping her chin up, the light-haired bitch strode boldly toward him, for once unfaltering in her grasp for dominance.

As confident Delta, she punctured his personal bubble easily—what was he gonna do about it?—and, when she could nearly brush her nose through his fur, she inhaled deeply. His coat carried many scents that were unfamiliar, overall composing an almost smoky odour mixed with a hundred types of wood or dirt, but laced throughout in thin tendrils, Saena detected Dante's unique aroma. That was enough to make her relax and step back from him.

Resetting her posture to mostly-neutral-with-a-little-hint-of-superiority, since she so craved respect, the young Gamekeeper tilted her head ever so slightly and said, "what now?"

For the moments that followed afterward, the only one who answered the call promptly was a small, light-colored female. From the looks of her as she approached, she may have been a yearling. One that most certainly held a rank higher than he. Mordecai regarded her with neutrality as she made her approach, only averting his gaze as she drew in close. The boldness of her walk he thought was in response to the premise of a hunt; it turned out he was mistaken. She came in close, close enough that if she had wanted to, she could have easily had him by the scruff and he would have been caught otherwise. Instead he felt her touch firmly, picking up on the way she sussed out where he had been and from where he had came.

A low growl slid uneasily from him, though not in warning. It was a nonverbal awareness that he was uncomfortable with her probing, but nonetheless allowed it. She demanded the obedience, the submission, and most of all, she aimed for dominance. And like her, he too was a dominant creature. But the actions were over as soon as they had begun and Mordecai dared a willing study of her once again. Her face almost seemed pinched with that air of superiority, but it was something he felt she would maybe grow into. "Have a look for yourself," he said softly, gesturing up through the thin veils of the forest ahead of them. "Take in the air, there's some deer loose from their herd up ahead."

Allowing her the time to make her own judgments, hoping that she would pick up on the duo's scent through the woodland, Mordecai moved to offer and introduction briefly. "I'm Mordecai, by the way." She seemed like a hunting type, unquestionable built for it. Even with her instinctual desire to find herself a top dog spot, he knew a good asset when he saw one. "What do you know about the terrain further up the slope?"

His growl wasn't missed. Saena interpreted it correctly for once, finding no personal hint of aggression in it, but nonetheless tilted her nose toward him to explain. "I had to be sure of your allegiance. We've had trouble lately with... well, dumb fucks." That was about as simply as she could put it. With a flash of anger she remembered Calipso and how she'd smirked as she tried to stroll right by the Blacktail wolves who discovered her, as if she was somehow a superior being for completely lacking intelligence and etiquette.

Shaking the memory from her head, Saena moved to stand alongside her newest pack mate, and from there she could smell the game-y scent of deer on the wind. It wasn't uncommon to smell them in the forest, though; the plateau was aptly named for its herd of blacktail deer. Still, she could tell that there were only a few, rather than the usual musty smell of the entire herd. She licked her lips.

"It gets steeper going up. I'm pretty sure it basically becomes a wall up there. It would be easier to flush them down than to chase them up." Saena still had a lot to learn about strategies—chasing the deer across the slope never really crossed her mind, it was either up or down—and so she turned her eyes back to Mordecai, awaiting his thoughts.

To her explanation, he nodded. "So I've heard." Dante had eluded to some of their troubles, but it had mostly been over the coyotes and their caches. The episode where a wolf had actually tried to infiltrate the Plateau was another matter altogether, but also fell under his consideration. Winter caused them to do strange things and no doubt the mildness of the present one had invoked even more bizarre encounters.

But the topic was left to drop and dissolve as Saena's attentions were brought to the deer. His bet that she knew the terrain was right and the descriptions that she provided him began to string together into many ideas. "Which way has less trees?" he opted to ask, not entirely outruling her up or down thought. He wouldn't have minded chasing them across the slope, but balked at the idea if only for the fact that he didn't know the terrain well enough not to go tripping and stumbling about. Any sudden dip or rise was liable to ruin his pace.

"If we can push them to more open ground, we'd probably get the advantage. The mother deer will want to protect her fawn. She'll probably send it into hiding if she thinks we're getting too close." And he didn't particular care which animal they took down. Even if the doe went into hiding and left her fawn alone, eventually the wolves of the plateau would dispatch of it. A fawn would not survive long on its own.

Saena had to survey the slope and think about it for a minute. Despite living on the plateau her entire life, she was only newly a Gamekeeper. Her attention was always focused on other things growing up, and now that she thought about it, she didn't really know where the trees thinned and where they were thickest. She could make a 50/50 guess on it, but knew that had the potential to make her look like a moron, something she didn't want to risk in the eyes of a newcomer. So she pursed her lips, thinking...

...and then, a memory surfaced, and she angled her snout to the left.

"That way," she said, twisting an ear to lock onto Mordecai. "There's a spring and a large clearing that way. I don't think it's thinner to the right." She jotted down a mental note to explore the plateau again with forest growth in mind, but for right now, she had to defer to Mordecai on how to proceed.

He watched as in her silence she delved into thought. And in that brief bout of silence, his eyes were scanning the lay of the land ahead of them, and also of the deer. When she spoke again, he drew his attention to the direction she had pointed her svelte muzzle and set to the barebones creation of his own plans. It would not have surprised him if things weren't any thinner to the right, because it was the direction of the incline. While there may have been an eventual clearing, it wasn't worth the risk.

So, downhill it was. Mordecai let out a breath. "Any suggestions how we could get the deer to go in that direction with just the two of us?" And behind that was the unspoken wonder of how far she was willing to pursue a corraling of them. The fact that nary another had come to his call was a little disheartening, but Mordecai wasn't about to let it bother him. He knew his place unquestionably. "I think we could take the doe in the clearing, but we'd probably have to come back for the fawn later." With just the two of them, he knew it would be a swift action for the doe to put her babe into hiding.

Even after Mordecai voiced his question, Saena was quiet for a long time. She took a stride or two forward, straining to better map out the area in her mind, but said nothing for a long stretch. It was almost long enough that one might wonder if she'd even heard Mordecai's question. The answer was yes, but how best to trap the deer eluded her. She knew a few maneuvers, but couldn't think of anything more effective than...

"Pincer," she answered at last, though her ears airplaned uncertainly. "It's really risky and maybe dangerous, and we might miss out on the fawn entirely, but the only way I can think is to flank her and lead her down." Both wolves would be running full-tilt along with the deer; there would be no chance to redirect their momentum should she somehow break away. It also meant that both predators and prey would hurtle into the forest at breakneck speed, which came with its own dangers.

His question hung in the air unanswered for lengthy moments, but Mordecai let her work things out. But he found the silence cumbersome to handle, suggestions dancing across his tongue as he worked out the same thoughts himself. He was an experienced hunter, but felt in that moment that he was not in the position to be rattling out prompts. And in a way, in spite of her youth, he felt it best that she learn. Success or failure, it was a lesson for them both and he did not consider himself master of the trade in any sense.

So when Saena did come to her conclusion, he listened. And before he could catch himself, he found himself considering what she had decided with a furrowed brow. "It's doable," he surmised after a moment. "It's too bad we don't have a couple more bodies to help, that way one of us could trail behind and another could be waiting further along to spring an ambush." His voice carried a certain distance to it — this he caught — and he waved the gameplans away.

Bringing his gaze to the paler figure that was hers, Mordecai gave a wave of his tail.

"But I guess we won't know how it goes until we try. Shall we?"

The jealous, impulsive side of her jerked slightly when he said her plan was merely doable. She frowned, contemplated telling him it was one of their only options, but before she could, he waved that concern away with the suggestion that they try. Determined to prove that her method had some merit, the Blacktail nodded firmly and began to move without instruction.

They would need to get up and around the doe without raising suspicion, so Saena cut a diagonal path away from her and the fawn, up and to the right. Only when she'd gone high enough to nearly lose sight of the doe did she turn back and creep lower whilst scanning the mountainside for any sign of the tawny Ostrega.

As Saena slipped off into the underbrush, Mordecai lingered for a few moments to give the deer a scrutinizing study. Once he was certain that she would make it past them without giving them an idea of what she was doing, he moved to flank them from the other side, thinking their plan to be something of a funneling action. He moved quietly and quickly, skirting much lower on the grade where Saena had gone higher, before coming back up to level himself off.

From the angle he paused at, he did not readily ascertain where Saena had gone until he saw a moment of sterling in the wintry foliage. He almost missed it, if not for the fact that it moved spry and swift. He fell into position at once to match her own, his body held low to the ground as they began to zero in on the roaming ungulates. Continuing to let her have the lead, he waited for her to spring into action and to put their plan to the test.

She wasn't able to see Mordecai clearly against the backdrop of trees as she descended, his coat so naturally camouflaged, but she trusted he was there. Only when she caught sight of the ripple of his fur past a trunk did she truly locate him. They were closing in on the deer, and both were still unaware that they were being hunted. Saena grinned.

The fawn's head came up, and at the same second, Saena broke her cover and rushed down the mountainside, narrowing the swath between herself and Mordecai with every step and sending the two deer scrambling. As she'd described, she meant to pinch them off so that the only way they could go was down. Perhaps they would lose sight of the doe or lose the hunt altogether—they would be hurtling down the slope at a dangerous pace, after all—but already the exhilaration had taken hold of her and she whooped.

Saena burst from the cover of foliage to startle the deer, leaving Mordecai to start off from the other side just a step or two behind her.  He was quick to correct this, trying to keep himself even with her pace and to keep the deer between them.  The slope allowed him to gain speed he did not formerly have and for a moment, it was truly interesting to be keeping pace with the deer beat for beat too.  They had them between them, with nothing more than a gradual push inward towards them.

And he felt the deer slowing, as though they were aware of what it was that they were doing, though in reality it was to try and get the advantage over the hunting duo.  The mother deer was no fool and it became evident to him that she had been able to stay alive on her own purely to try and outlast and trick them with evasive tactics.  And so he decided to cut things short, aiming to reach for her and give her encouragement to stay the course they had determined for her.

The doe proved herself to be a crafty adversary, for she was slowing while the wolves maintained their speed. The fawn, on the other hand, was much less wise when it came to avoiding hungry predators and kept right on running. Had the young one been their primary target, it would've been a prime opportunity to cut the mother off completely, but that wasn't the case, and so Saena angled her body to sweep in toward the doe. Their task was to prevent her from succeeding in changing direction and getting away.

Good fortune seemed to smile on both wolves, for even as they closed in on the female, an acute snap sounded and the doe went down. Evidently, her slim foot had fallen victim to a well-hidden hole in the ground—and Saena shuddered to think that it could easily have been one of them rather than their prey—and her ankle had snapped like a twig. The velocity coupled with the heavy impact was enough to practically kill her on the spot; when she slid to a stop against a tree trunk several feet down the hill, blood leaked from her nostrils and she was scarcely breathing.

Saena's gallop slowed, but even then, her momentum carried her past the fallen doe until she could comfortably wheel in the trees and trot back. By then, she'd lost sight of Mordecai and hoped to rendezvous with him over their prize.

As Saena honed in on the doe, Mordecai gave the fawn a rough chase. But it was the audible snap of something lurking from behind him that allowed him to conclude his pursuit of the smaller ungulate. He wheeled around much in the same fashion as his counterpart had done, only finding that they had gone in a completely different direction than he had anticipated. It was a short search — finding Saena's much paler and vivid coat was easy against the rough foliage and bare trees. And with her, he found the doe and its labored breathing with nary a wolfish mark on it.

He drew in close to the doe, appraising their situation idly. For as much as he desired to make the kill, it wasn't entirely his place and this he comprehended. It would not have taken a rocket scientist to know who was the higher ranking individual and with that knowledge, he left it up to her. All his intentions were at that point was to make sure that doe didn't have the strength to come clambering back up with a fight.

The doe lay on her side, breathing hard through a thin layer of laboured froth on her lips. Saena stood imperiously over her with a critical eye, keeping her ears tilted for any audible sign of Mordecai's return. When she heard motion through the trees, she prickled her hackles, ready to fend off any pack mate who hadn't contributed to the kill until the pair of hunters ate their fill, but it was the male who strode into sight and she relaxed.

Having expected a brief tussle over killing rights, she was pleasantly surprised when Mordecai hung back and allowed her the honours. Saena had completely forgot about their rank difference, and so she stepped forward as though it was a sacred duty, and with expert jaws, tore the deer's throat. Within seconds she was dead. Motioning for the Ostrega to join her, the young Blacktail went immediately for the doe's belly, where the choicest organs hid.

She ate quickly, and in the end, managed to pull the doe's intestine, nearly intact, from the cavity of her gut. Growling playfully, she whipped her head to the side, making a lame effort to hit Mordecai with it and encourage a morbid game of tug-of-war.

They tore into the doe easily and within a few moments, Mordecai had forgotten about the fawn entirely. Chances were it would not survive long unattended with the plateau, so their choice of the doe was more than wise — someone else would benefit from the young ungulate wandering and bleating about for its lost matron. While he did not eat as quickly as his light-haired counterpart, the urge to feast well was one that he answered swiftly as soon as she had given the permission.

And there his focus remained, until the wet slap of intenstine met him squarely at the side of his head. Mordecai needed no second swing to snap after it, the motion far more vicious than he intended as he grasped ahold of it and pulled roughly. It was stringy and stretchy, the perfect play toy after a successful hunt. A low growl slipped out from within him as he backpedaled, now intrigued as to how far Saena would respond in their bloody play.

With the weight of food in her belly, Saena wouldn't last long without a good nap, but she was insistent on this game to work off some of what they'd consumed. Mordecai spared no complaints for her boisterous actions and reached immediately for the intestine, similarly compelled. He caught it easily and immediately gave it a hard tug that briefly unseated Saena and made her stumble forward.

Unwilling to lose so easily on account of her smaller size, the Blacktail planted her paws in a wide stance and pulled back. The intestine stretched between them, a fleshy bungee cord, but neither wolf gave. When Mordecai began to step backward, Saena arched her head and gave the intestine a sharp tug, then shook her head viciously side to side with bubbled growls, sending vibrations along the length of the poor does' extracted gut.

If there was anything at all to be extracted from their play, it was most definitely the feisty side of Saena. He found his humorous, her smaller frame putting up just as much effort as his own in pulling out the fleshy rope further and further. He heard her growls as he gave it an equally vicious shake, snorting in response before rumbling back his own. Though it was more than willing to snap with just a bit more effort between them, his interest in tempting that feisty, playful behavior was hard not to let go of.

However, the intestine rope was.

And so Mordecai let go the moment he felt the tension in it reach what he thought to be its height, a smirk planted keenly on his features briefly as it flew away from his jaws towards her.

Saena felt the same vibrations whipping back along the length of their gory rope as Mordecai responded in time. She moved her hind foot back, pressed it firmly to the dirt. Squaring her petite shoulders, the small Blacktail yanked on the intestine, using every last muscle in her neck to try to make Mordecai stumble... but Mordecai was no longer attached to their mutual toy.

Instead of pulling the male wolf forward, she whipped the entire length of the intestine toward herself, and the momentum carried through just as Mordecai planned. She tumbled backward and lost her footing. The intestine, still tightly gripped in her mouth, swung back and slapped right against the broad top of her muzzle, leaving a smear of red against her white fur.

For a moment, Saena was stunned, but then she was slowly clambering to her feet and shaking the intestine away from herself. It still drooped from her lips. She stared at Mordecai for a long while, doing nothing more than holding the limp intestine, and then with a chuff around it, she turned and bounded into the trees, waving it behind her like some morbid flag for him to chase. Whether he did or not was his call; the two would eventually return to the doe and cache whatever valuable pieces were left, even if they frolicked for a few miles before doing so.

Even in light of a full belly from a good meal, Mordecai could not help but give her chase. There was bloodlust still lurking deep within from that kill alone, and there would not be a piece of it wasted by either of them. A little play couldn't be helped and he reveled in it briefly; it had been far too long since someone enticed him to take flight after them. And so, he gave Saena a hearty chase.