Dawnlark Plains woman king

Sangilak lumbered through the plains slowly, her gait a steady stalk. For two days Sangilak had doggedly followed the creature up ahead. The buck was thick and full, but it moved slowly, tiredly. She had harassed it away from water, and only let the thing eat. Sangilak had managed to separate this one from the herd; it had grayed, significantly, and the vitality of the mammal was lacking. It had lived well past its prime, and she did not doubt the male with the mighty rack sired many children and had a plethora of grandchildren, perhaps more than either of them could count. Its stubborn persistence, she knew, could only be bested by her own. Sangilak did not press her luck with it, however; if it had survived for so long, it must have faced odds like these before.

Well, it would not survive her. Sangilak only felt pleased she could see its last battle, be a part of it, even... but she was not foolish. She did not doubt the creature had reserves of energy even still. One well-placed kick was enough to do any wolf in, and she had not the speed to get away from such a blow that was so swiftly dealt. Sangilak knew that when she charged for the other, it would be when it was at its final moment.

Sangilak herself was able to drink herself. Now and then, @Tatkret would hover nearby to check her progress. At present he had ranged ahead. Some hours had passed, and it was evening. Her eyes deviated from prey to horizon. A lone coyote that had drawn to near had met its fate and provided Sangilak with a snack to tide her over 'til nightfall—

But she would not need to wait so long. A shivering movement in her peripherals summoned her attention, and her eyes roved over to the exhausted animal. Its own head, thanks to its rack, became too much to carry. Few buck remained with racks upon their head at all; she had been lucky enough to find this prize. She watched as its head lowered, and then, ten minutes later, its knees buckled. It breathed in a labored manner, and she watched its dull eyes as they studied her. Sangilak waited no longer as she drifted near. The thing shifted as though it might struggle, and she was given pause... but it let out a final, heavy breath before it died.

Sangilak would not have cared either way, so long as she was away from its legs and thorny tines as she ate. Dead or alive made little difference. And so she gorged, eating her spoils; she grabbed for the liver and swallowed it nearly whole before continuing to eat enough to make her hunger subside. She was a great beast of a wolf herself, and so she had much to eat; but she was wary that she was a lone wolf, all the same, and that she ought not to gorge herself as she might. She had only her tawny companion, after all. She needed all of her faculties to fight, and a full stomach would only tire her and slow her down.

Had Warbone been witnessing the actions of this wolf for the past several days— from the tireless driving of the grandfatherly buck towards his demise, to her quick, purposeful eating— he would have thought that he was hallucinating, watching a shadow of himself return to the condemning life of a loner. He had survived it, of course, and he was confident that he could again, but there was a sense of chaos and unrest in being a lone wolf that he would rather do without. The constant need to move and to assure his survival through a cyclical range of motions. Eat, drink, sleep, eat, drink, sleep. The fact that he still had his own life was more of a testament to his ability to judge a task by the amount of risk it presented him with versus the amount of satisfaction he would earn by doing it.

He did such a thing now, as he followed the scent of blood and was eager to put something on his stomach for the return to Sleeping Dragon. He weighed what he could see ahead of him— a large, pitch wolf eating at a grandfatherly buck— to how hungry he was and how necessary it might be to approach this wolf and its apparent kill. The meat had no scent of rot to it, so either she had an unseen accomplice, or it had collapsed very recently on its own. Warbone wasn't starving, and with a purpose in the back of his head that he should return to his own territory, he didn't see a reason to intrude.

He stood a third of football field away, watching for a while longer (lest an opportunity for something present itself) before he would move on.

Hope you don't mind me!

For the briefest of moments earlier in the hunt as it were, he thought Sangilak would actually attempt to bring down the beast on her own after several days tracking it. Tatkret wanted no part in the suicide mission if it was, but turned out she was content to simply follow the elder until he simply ran out of energy. The wisest move, and his companion wasn't particularly known for her smarts.

Tatkret kept watch from a distance, keeping a leisurely pace and occasionally lagging behind or roaming far ahead. Seeing as they had no real intention of launching an attack on the buck, he was comfortable wandering away and finding her again via scent trails. It was only when he scented blood and a foreign wolf in the air that he headed back with a quickness in his step.

He approached the finally fallen buck, seeing first the giant form of Sangilak feasting upon it before he peered further. From a distance was the figure of another, keeping his distance. Immediately Tatkret's hackles raised, if only because he was wary of strangers in this new land, and he slowly padded towards and then past the carcass. He headed towards the stranger, a low growl rumbling in his throat.

Sangilak chowed down, but a shift in the wind alerted her to the presence of another. Her head lurched upward swiftly and her eyes held fast to the large being a good distance away. She kept vigilant up until the point she noted that he remained as he was, where he was, but when she returned to the task of eating she did so slowly. To be a lone wolf was not the life for Sangilak; she was after much, much more, but there were things she must attend to, first. Her worry had reduced as another breeze came; she recognized the scent upon him.

She heard Tatkret before she saw him; he moved toward the meal she had toiled over, and then past it. The low growl in his throat was rejoined with a growl of her own as she rose and paused in her meal to bark out a sharp, Tagva. But she knew it was not violence Tatkret sought; only further investigation. She spoke in regard to his growling approach; she was a proponent of violence, but not the foolish sort, not when it could not be afforded. She was a physical wolf, feral to the core; she would not bother what did not bother her for long. Still, if she were not preoccupied, she would have had the same drive to sniff out this other being that lingered; it seemed the stranger was sated enough to not bother risking her fang, which he would surely receive had he made to take her bounty from her, and yet he remained. She had returned to eating, the creatures innards spilling freely from it; she took the richest parts, and would leave anything else to Tatkret. The scraps were for the birds or any that would scavenge them. She paused again to lift her mighty crown, her tongue rolling over one bloodied canine as she observed the scene up ahead.

Standing upwind, Warbone was left to rely on his eyesight for determining the factors of this situation, and the shadow's companion remained out of his immediate line of sight until it became pertinent to reveal himself. The sandy male surged forward, the bristling of his fur visible even at his distance. Warbone kept his position, not turning to face the wolf with his body, but he instead remained sidelong and seemed to perk considerably at the challenge. His tail rose in taunt, swaying back and forth slowly in a beckoning motion. His ears pressed forward eagerly, both interested and unperturbed by the show of aggression towards him. Though his expression was difficult to read with the amassed space between them, there was no flash of his teeth or sound that alluded to a particular expression of how he felt about all this.

Except marginally excited.

He could not decipher what was spoken, but he had definitely heard something from the gorging wolf— a command, it would seem, as the leaner companion hesitated (maybe only briefly) in his approach. Warbone held his position. If they both approached him unfavorably, he would weigh his options on exiting or fighting, but for now one was preoccupied with filling her belly and the other was staved by her unconcerned demeanor. The copper colossus remained, exercising his patience in observing them. He wondered if they would depart soon, or if others would join them. One more arrival and he would smartly take his leave, but for now he lingered, wondering idly if he would be able to scavenge upon their exit. This was far less taxing than finding something to eat himself.

He stood frozen, appearing as a sentinel to the female eating behind him (though it was easy to see she needed no guard, judging by her sheer size alone). Still, Tatkret continued to gaze in the stranger's direction, meeting the beckoning wave of his tail with his own show of dominance. His ears thrust forward and the man went to rumble another — louder — growl before Sangilak uttered a command that had him step down in an instant.

The other male had proven himself no threat to them as of yet, but his challenging stance and his simple being there was enough to incite an instinctual response in Tatkret. He wanted to chase the stranger off for no other reason then because he was too close. However, Sangilak's words were a reminder that it was best to keep a level head. The other was large and looked capable of holding his own, and he hadn't really done anything yet. Tatkret kept a narrowed glare upon him before snorting and returning to the fallen buck, promptly tearing into the flesh of it's stomach as he watched to see what his companion would do.

Nothing came to a head; Tatkret returned to the meat, and the duo continued to eat. Her eyes never left the wolf in the distance as she continued to tear at the sweet, warm meat; the skin was pliable and soft, melting beneath her fangs like butter. This good of a meal was truly hard to come by as a lone wolf, and so she enjoyed what she could of it. She stopped only just before her stomach might ache and stepped aside, some stringy bits lingering upon her muzzle. Sangilak licked it off and awaited Tatkret to finish; then, they could move on to find a place to settle for the night. Certainly not here in the great wide open, where they would be vulnerable.

He lingered for a while, watching them eat as he remained a gargoyle in the far wings. From this distance he couldn't tell if they were watching him too, but he suspected it, having to judge by the angle of their chomping muzzles rather than the shine of their eyes— which he could not see. Before they could both finish their fill, however, Warbone began to depart. Keeping a mental pin of the kill's location, he made to travel away from the companions until he was out of their sight, then he veered north. He charted a wide circleback to the dead ungulate, a trip that would take him about half an hour. If they hadn't moved on by then, he would make the trip again. Traveling and scouting was less taxing than actually hunting. And he had become, in his time alone, a very patient creature. This was not something he saw as a task, but merely a necessity if he wanted to avoid mustering the needed ardor to track and retrieve his own live meal.