She had needed a little time.

She took the cold body of her newly dead daughter further into the mountain, off the borderlands, and away from any trace of a Redhawk's reeking trail. Every piece of that pulled and ached at her heart, so she had to get away, and had to clear her mind to regroup.

Something was wrong here and she had to piece through it. She took Galaxy's corpse to past a hidden grove, somewhere nearing a rocky swatch of mountain where she could.. focus. The others were left to see to that freshly injured yearling, and whatever other domino effect their actions would immediately have. Amekaze had seen it before, she'd be ready to see it again.

Now, later, she breathed deep. She peered down at her poor, fallen daughter sprawled prone upon the rock with a scrunch to her lips. The words from the encounter played over in her head. They killed her. A wolf didn't do it. There wasn't any blood. Some smell never before smelled.. She had to dissociate from the grief, keep it at bay.. and approach with a sound mind; she needed to understand why this light was snuffed from the world so soon. She refused to believe it would be a perfectly clean kill.

She took another deep breath and began to nose through her fur, searching down to the frigid flesh. First across the top of her forehead, then down her cheeks.. 

Painstakingly, she searched. Over her head, down her neck, across her flanks, and even to the tips of her toes. It was difficult to resist the urge to smooth every flyaway fur, and preen the debris from her as she went, all to care for her as she normally would. Yet as acceptance had settled with the stiffening of her dead daughter's muscles, Ame held fast, trying to move on through the burden of her sorrow. The yearning for answers helped, but that was only going to take her so far.

She lifted her head, and accordingly her gaze, when a dark daughter appeared. For a heartbeat, she felt herself tense, yet it eased with the next exhale. Of all wolves, so very few were worthy. She stood among them.. although Amekaze did not outwardly invite her to participate in this, should she not want to see, and neither did she shoo her off, should she be interested in hunting answers too. There was a clinical coldness about it, most moments.. a few others where she could only feel pain as her nose ran through the pale white fur, only to stop when she remembered the strange scent on her--true, unlike anything she knew.

Regarding Lyra once more, and this time, a tad more officially now she had refocused, Ame sunk down to her haunches next to her with a tired sigh. "She has a few bruises, maybe some blisters and other small signs of.. something." she murmured with a frown, still out on the verdict of the scent, and the little hints of trauma here and there that she saw no pattern to yet. "But.. nothing suggesting apparent struggle. Nothing obvious yet," her nose scrunched up before she squeezed her eyes shut, trying to relieve the sting in them before it got any worse.

It was not the answers she wanted, clear cut and raw. These definitely were not battle wounds. More subtle, more questionable—definitely not wounds she would imagine her daughter dying from. She had only seen similar wounds in very dissimilar circumstances, although this did not rule anything out in a world of possibilities. Distrust was running rampant already and none of this helped.

Very neatly, she had kept that anger in check until now, and had been for even longer than this incident—in a different shape, true, but real. It shone in the malice of Lyra's words and she, soothed by its company, didn't want to have to withhold it if only for a second more. Her lips peeled back into a silent snarl, painfully eager to rend Redhawk between her grip. Even if she could not explain how, it barely mattered to her at this point. She had been bothered by them for far too long. This distaste was only compounding through the generations.

Lyra's observation was keen and it brought her lips down over her teeth for a new frown. "He could have, and I wonder how if so." she shot a glare towards the girl's legs, then back towards her mouth, thinking through the possibilities. Poisoning another was a delicate business. She knew of it done through eating contaminated foods, and a few other similar avenues. "It does smell like a poison," she agreed. Or maybe it was just the bitterness of it all that burned her nose like it did. "If it is, I want to know how a Redhawk managed to do it without killing himself in the process.." she growled, floored by the very notion of them ever being smart enough for that. It would mean he had to get here (in winter) with the poison and somehow get it into Galaxy's system without a lot of evidence laying around in the meantime. She simply doubted it still.

She had settled into a quiet, seething rage, although a subtle ridge to her hackles suggested the depths of her ache. Unfair--for a prized daughter of hers, especially one of her most innocent and carefree, this was never the end she deserved. Amekaze looked her over once more, eyes aching each time.

They schemed.. and she nodded, although it was small as her mind churned with the possibilities; who would be able to help. She did not trust Gannet any either. "Another issue all of his own," she growled over the thought of the black-footed captive. "But I worry maybe not the answers we want." she licked her lips and straightened into an upright posture with a deep, heavy sigh. She was exhausted, angry.. this was only starting to break her heart more and more.

"I want to take her up more. It is too frozen for a proper grave, so.. a small cave is next best," she murmured sadly--tiredly--before she nudged against Galaxy's pale ruff one more time. Amekaze had a few spots in mind to look.. but they were not what she wanted and was not a task she wanted either. She gave Lyra one last long look before she moved to lift the fallen girl and haul her off with or without further company.

For her, and for right now.. enough had been said. She would regroup again without her blood's corpse at her paws.