@Magpie set before the birthing thread
Keeping his mind tasked on his trades had kept the coywolf's anxiety down, allowing him to better ease into pack life. So far his day to day business was much the same as it had been before, except he was now hunting more often to stock the caches and instead of browsing numerous territories he was making a detailed exploration of one.
Jaws' gaze flicked around the trees, searching. Something was missing this morning as he began his trek around the pack's land - he was not being followed by his gray jay. It was not in the log when he awoke that morning and had not showed up as he walked along. The bird had been sticking close to him since he joined the pack, not venturing too far as it had when he was roaming more. Not one to worry, Jaws simply continued on his way, figuring the little bird would show up when it was done whatever it was doing.
She awoke, her head throbbing and body aching, when dawn's bright light filtered into her den. Magpie usually slept in a way that avoided such things, but she had either moved in the night or was simply incapable of posturing the way she usually did in her sleep, thanks to her injuries. The feverfew she had taken the night before had worn off, and she was out of the plant— it was hard to find in the winter months, but this year had been warmer than she had been taught to expect. Slowly, she pulled herself from the small hovel, careful not to jar her sprained ankle.
Magpie then limped beneath the pine trees, scanning the forest floor for more of the plant with the eye that wasn't still swollen shut.
Although he had been glancing around for his gray jay, it was a different 'bird' that he spotted: the black and white female whom he saw for the first time at the pack gathering. For her contrasting coat Jaws would guess her to be the one named Magpie; she certainly bore a strong resemblance to one. He watched her for a few moments as she limped about beneath the canopy of pines, idly wondering the reason behind her injuries.
Deciding that he could not very well pass on a packmate that seemed to be searching for something specific, Jaws stole down toward her. Approaching her side he offered not a typical greeting but a question, "What are you looking for?"
She glanced up, her good eye sizing up the male. A hybrid— that, she was used to in her time amongst the Corvidae, though she carried no coyote blood herself. It seemed the mixing of breeds had not been kind to him, for the enlarged canines and mismatched eyes. Still, it wasn't as if he were overly uncomfortable to look upon, and he smelled of the Caldera... and she likely looked pretty unattractive herself.
"Feverfew," she responded, a bit glum. Every headache, every twinge, was a reminder of her idiot decision to fall off a cliff just to get a goat. "You're Jaws, right?" Magpie questioned slowly, thinking back to the (awkward) trust exercise Fox had forced on them.
"Feverfew," Jaws echoed, glancing around him, but for no purpose other than it was a reflex of sorts. He had no idea what feverfew or what it looked like. The coywolf had never needed to know about herbs, and to him almost everything was simply a grass, a weed or a flower, or fit in some other broad category of things.
"You're Jaws, right?" Magpie asked, and he nodded. "Yeah. And you're Magpie?" he was certain she was but it seemed like the appropriate thing to ask. "This Feverfew - will it fix you up?" he questioned, looking her over with a close eye, leaning into her personal space without a second thought. His packmate was in rough shape and he chuffed a bit at her. "You've seen better days."
She smirked, quickly picking up on the fact that he had no idea what she was talking about. After a startled, if confused glance, he confirmed his identity and made a guess at her own. "How could you tell?" the yearling grinned, shrugging her shoulders.
"It'll help with the pain, at least," Magpie told him, the melancholy leaking back into her voice. "I followed a mountain goat up a cliff," she explained, "but I can't defy gravity like they can. I fell." She could feel her ears growing hot, wondering what possessed her to admit all of this. "I brought it with me, though, and ate it." In fact, Jaws probably had eaten some of it himself.
Jaws gave her a grin back, and then found himself pursing his lips against laughter at the unfortunate tale she told. Although a fall from a cliff was serious, and her wounds were a testament to it, he could not help but have this comic image in mind of her chasing a goat on its home turf. But he did not let the amusing image linger too long, he cleared his throat and offered a reply. "Well that's hardcore," he said. "Not everyone jumps off a cliff just to bring home the mutton," he winked.