When the weather warmed and the scents of estrus were no longer such an urgent matter in his life, he'd gradually returned to a far more normal routine with all the patrol the wintery conditions would allow.

Leading up to this, he had shamelessly taken advantage of the bad weather to be with Portia far more than before. A part of him would certainly miss it, from the privacy to everything they could do with it; he was so disgustingly in love with her, he'd learned. His head and heart hurt so badly that all he wanted to do was lounge around cozily with her for the rest of his days. But now, it was time to look forward and keep all things moving forward -- especially if he had just potentially fathered two litters within days of each other. Perhaps not his most tactical of maneuvers if it panned out, but nature had called beckoned with need, and he'd been more than willing to oblige and answer. He wouldn't know for sure for a while longer, anyway, although it was easy to have his suspicions because he had a damn good idea how it worked, then played out; he'd been there before.

But very subtly, the daylight hours grew longer and the chill receded even more. He'd been vigorous back on the patrol again and in his travels, all of the fallen prey let him scavenge often -- their caches were well-stocked and his belly full. He smelled more of the redwood forests, musky, and dashed with the undertone of seasalt. Dio thought it suited him. In part, it was the cliffs finally feeling like a home, not only a foreign place they'd sought refuge in.

Here on the backend of an outing just beyond their claim to refresh markings, he carried back with him a frozen deer corpse -- almost intact, not quite, he was keen to share a decent treasure and get someplace even warmer a while. With the cavern in sight, he tried to sense any nearby pack wolves.

With limbs frozen stuck and dangling, the carcass was awkward in many ways all at once so he was relieved to about be where he was headed. Besides this, what did surprise him was all the prey out there for easy pickings. He knew the cold was bad, sure, but he'd never seen it be like this before where creatures just dropped dead so frequently. Almost every trip through the woods could yield him something to stash away, even if it wasn't always something very big. It was all painfully easy food, and his belly and his mate's could stay full without driving him to exhaustion. So Dio was keen to take this as a good sign paired with all the warming days. He had a good feeling that he would greet springtime in good spirits. Dragoncrest would do well for them, he was coming to understand.

Tirgatao caught him before introspection ran too rampant. His posture perked to alertness when he saw her. Alongside an arced tail wave, he let go of the meat to chuff his greeting. "Sure, if you're not busy," he replied, shifting to and from to give his neck a little stretch. "It's almost strange how much there is to find out there lately. At this rate, we'll be fed until summer," he said, realizing that he knew little about her personally. Much of it came vaguely secondhand through Portia, so he guessed she knew a bit here and there about him as well through her. At least he trusted his mate left him with a positive review to build upon. Dio already knew Trigeda wolves could be.. tricky, although ultimately, a relative few had impressed him absolutely.

He was a prideful beast but within the confines and comfort of home, oftentimes posturing loudly enough to say so did not have a place — not that the want to keep the cold off him for good didn't help any. The respect he sought from the wolves was what he received, and within it all, he was comfortable with where he stood. Tirgatao seemed able to understand this enough for his tastes.

Now given the chance, and without winter biting so viciously at him as punishment for leaving the cavern's slight reprieve, the deer was afforded a long look. Tirgatao bringing up illness might have inspired him to take a little more time than he might have normally. She had a sound point. This he couldn't deny. "It's always a chance and hard telling what really did it in.." His mismatched eyes narrowed to a sharp squint. "But.. in its defense, I have eaten a lot sketchier carcasses and lived to tell the tale, so I'll take my odds on the free food gamble." He wasn't about to look this gift horse in the mouth. This could feed him, his wife, and a good handful of others plus leftovers.

"Still, I can't wait for it to not be frozen. Not to be greedy, but, a fresh kill right now? Mmhm." He rumbled happily at the thought and sighed. Soon enough, those days would come. Even if he had to run them down, he'd gladly take that over trudging through the wind and snow just to bring back these frozen chunks of whatever all had dropped dead in the cold before he could fall victim to the same.

He motioned for a little more help in getting this thing stocked away and prepared to finish that next.