The sun was just rising when she returned to her starting point, but she was up and scouting out the woods while the stars still sung in the sky. It was habit to rise so early, when the deer were just stirring and the birds were still quiet. One could accomplish a lot without a traitorous songbird trilling out in warning; she had found something. Or some things, she amended.

"Chases Crows," she beckoned @Grawlix in a mutter, glancing up as an owl winged home to a nearby tree. "There's a bear. Come on," because it was only a small lone black bear, hunkered over a downed elk in the valley where the rivers met, and she thought they might be able to claim its kill for themselves.

Once she was sure that her traveling companion was following, she turned and picked her way through the trees until the hill sloped sharply down and the glittering river formed a border in the distance. There, near the bend where two halves of the river met and formed one larger body rushing toward the sea, was the bear. A juvenile male, he had his back turned to the pair of wolves and was noisily scarfing down chunks of meat.

Saliva pooled in the hollow under Always Running's tongue, and she swept it over her lips to try to quell her hunger before it complained audibly. "It's young," she noted, twisting one brown ear in Chases Crows' general direction. She left it up to him to decide if they would partake or not, but the shine of her hazel eyes betrayed what she wanted to do.

No words necessary; she knew the second his lips began to curl upward that he was game. Sunday flexed her paws into the soil and gave Grawlix the lead, and he was eager to take it. When he broke from cover with a confident gait, she was quick to follow, true to her name as she sprinted ahead.

Her comrade went for the bear's front as it reared up and attempted to intimidate them, and she did the opposite. As Chases Crows challenged the bear directly, Sunday attempted to loop around and grasp the elk by its opened neck. The bear sensed her and lost its focus on Grawlix just long enough to swing around, falling back to all fours, and and charge for her with a bellow. Wise as any competing predator, Always Running dropped the elk's head and darted away, cackling as she went, because now Grawlix had an opening.

She hooted and hollered as she trotted a wide arc around the livid juvenile, lips spread wide in a wicked smile as Chases Crows swooped low for the ankle. The bruin was having none of it and whipped back around, throwing a heavy paw in Grawlix's direction, but the swift tawny wolf had already pulled away. She weighed her options then as she pranced another couple steps, glancing between the elk and the bear's hind end. But her decision was easily made.

With a surge of speed and her voice falling to silence, Always Running shot in and took a swipe with sharp teeth at the bear's thick thigh. There was too much fur and muscle there for her to do much damage without worrying it away, but that wasn't the objective. The bear was young and lacked confidence; that last move was enough to convince it to seek greener pastures. It attempted one last half-hearted swing for Sunday, bellowing, and then began to lumber off, grumbling, while the cream female snickered and rounded back on the abandoned elk.

With one last chuckle, the female scuffed her hind feet on the grass in the retreating bear's direction, then drew alongside the elk with every intention of tucking in. Chases Crows caught her eye, though, and she growled low in her throat while her lips tugged into a challenging grin. Their lumbering friend had already taken the choice cuts from the elk, but there were still some good morsels left. A complete failure like him, getting first pick? Yeah, right!

"That's what they say about me," she agreed, cocky in her manner as she vaulted over the elk and aimed to shove him aside. The wave of her tail indicated her mood, but even if held rigidly, Grawlix would know her intentions from merely the strength of her push, or lack thereof. Sunday had never been a difficult wolf to read; perhaps that was why she'd been betrothed, since her parents knew her wayward spirit would never settle on its own. Some good that had done, though.

As she reached for her friend's ear with blunted teeth, her eyes snagged on the distant river and specifically the land mass it surrounded, and she gestured. "Lookit that."

She couldn't say she shared Grawlix's exact sentiment, but men, am I right? It was all about how much they could piss on. One track minds, honestly. The island appealed to Always Running for more humble reasons: a large forest dominated it, promising a plenitude of game and shelter alike. What terrain wasn't consumed by the woods rolled away into the distance, promising adventure. From the outside it ticked all of her boxes and she wanted to explore it in its entirety.

"Yeah, yeah," she waved him away with a warm smile as she bent over the elk and helped herself to its meat. "Let's eat, then you can go acquaint yourself."

Sunday was, well, a lot less interesting than Grawlix on the inside. She lived to live, ate to live, and kept her paws moving so she could do all of that while making and following her own rules. Simple as could be. Chases Crows liked to treat every new encounter with everything as a challenge, whereas Sunday just went wherever the wind took her, caring nothing for challenges or difficulties along the way. They were opposites in that way, which is probably why they got along.

But there were some things that Chases Crows did that always just pushed her buttons, and getting up in her space was one of those things. Her lips skimmed back as Grawlix tested his boundies and mid-chews he snapped at his nose, intimidating but with no intent to cause any actual harm... yet.

"It was young," she said again, flickering one ear to dislodge a fly that sought to make a perch of it. "It can always find another meal, and didn't have the confidence to hold its ground." At least, that was her interpretation of it. Who could say with bears? Their dopey little eyes hid their innermost thoughts, and their typical behaviours suggested they were slow to think of anything at all. Perhaps they just weren't worth the trouble it would cause a bear to use its head for a few minutes.

"Bet there's a bear on that island you can wrestle with," she joked, digging in more fervently. Once they finished their meal, surely they would explore the island. She was in no rush. They rarely got to sup on elk like this and it was nice to share a semi-fresh meal of proper game with her companion.