Kildeer Rest pakstoka

maybe a @Veteran? <3

heda was trailing one of the sick caribou. it had flattened and stumbled through several ground-hugging plants.
over the course of the morning, the war-girl had discovered that the taiga floor-cover hid slippery rocks. she was accustomed to the rich dark earth of rivenwood.
with a crack of twigs and a bellow, the ill beast clambered to its hooves and began to shuffle off again, hoping to avoid the young wolf's teeth. heda quickened her stride.

When Veteran came across the young woman trailing a sick cow, he joined her quickly, falling into formation alongside her. He thought this was one of the youth he'd seen hanging around the Moonglow camp, and so he mistook her as one of the Moonglow princesses. 

The cow that the girl tailed was eaten away by sickness, stumbling across the taiga and fighting to remain on its feet. Likely it was a victim of the Zombie Deer Disease, as his mother called it. 

The sickly cow stumbled particularly hard over one of the taiga's scrub bushes, and after a few long moments it had failed to rise. Veteran's icy eyes cut over to his companion. He waited for her direction. This was her kill, after all-- he was just the support, to be called upon if needed or desired.

so intent was heda upon the fallen animal that she did not immediately see the boy.
her head came up sharply as the scent of duskfire entered the air. it was a recognizable fragrance, but the other wolf was unknown. "hello," she said softly. he wore storm-blue eyes and a coat that seemed dusted in snow. in some ways, he reminded her of issoratuyok.
"i haven't killed one of these yet," heda admitted, motioning toward the animal. her attention shifted back to the boy. he was handsome, and the scar that traced his head suggested that he'd seen things she had not.

Every clue indicated to Veteran that his companion was of Moonglow. Her coat appeared to be a comely mixture of the colorings of both Kukutux and Aiolos, and the scent of the Taiga hung heavily about her.  

"Hello," he returned, curiosity lighting his dark features. 

"I.. haven't either," he admitted, "Not by myself." His mother had expressly forbid him from attempting a caribou hunt solo, no matter the condition of the animal. 

"..Except don't tell that to my sister, if you see her." He grinned sheepishly. He may have been guilty of embellishing his hunting stories a little too much, the last time he had run across Wayfarer.

"oh, you have a sister?" heda asked. she kept one silver-smudged peripheral trained on the cow as she glanced toward the duskfire boy. "i'm here with mine. druid. we're from rivenwood, ah, that way." heda lifted a paw to gesture vaguely north. 
"she's probably with mireille. that's our friend from sapphique." why was she talking so much? she was talking too much. the ruminant bellowed again, a rusted and weakening sound. 
"if i'm with you does it still count as by yourself?" heda asked, perking her ears toward the animal.

Oh, so sisters were one thing they had in common, then.

"Mhmm, mine's called Wayfarer. We're from Duskfire Glacier." Remembering a little belatedly that he had yet to introduce himself, he added,  "I'm Veteran." 

Rivenwood, huh? Mom had mentioned them once or twice. They were allies to Duskfire Glacier. "Is your dad Mahler?" he asked curiously. 

Mirielle from Sapphique? The pack name sounded vaguely familiar, but Veteran couldn't place it exactly... not while he was distracted by that deer, at least. 

"No, I don't think it would count," Veteran admitted a little sadly. "But I'd rather have the help," he added, with just a hint of shyness in his smile. "Besides, it's your deer." He wasn't going to swoop in here and tell her to get lost, after she was the one who had been tracking it. He was reminded of the Shadow Girl who had stolen his kill that time in the Herbalist's Cache. He was still pissed about that.

heda grinned. she wanted to tell him that she knew issoratuyok. but veteran's question blanched the girl beneath her fur. and then she felt red flushing her cheeks. she hoped he couldn't see that, hoped he wouldn't sense her sudden jolting energy.
"uh, no. he's just ... mahler, you know? our graf." she thought fondly of him, and it was easier to let go of whatever had made her feel so weird so suddenly. "he teaches my sisters and i things. like how to find stuff. how to plant things. he taught druid about medicine, i think. oh, and he taught us his language."
she motioned to the animal. it staggered listlessly to the left. "i think we should get it," the rivenwood girl finally determined, smiling sideways at veteran. "then it can be our deer."

Veteran could definitely tell that his question hadn't come off the right way, and that was puzzling to him. As a child of an idyllic upbringing (at least for the Teekon Wilds) he had not yet learned that bringing up an acquaintance's parents was likely to be painful more often than it was informative. 

Veteran nodded along, understanding her description of the role of a graf. It was similar to Coach Meekah's job in Duskfire Glacier. 

She redirected their attention to the deer. 

"Okay!" he agreed readily. He was not about to pass up the chance at making his first kill without the aid of an adult. 

"Um, the Moonglow wolves always start by giving chase, and flanking it on both sides." It was important to keep the prey moving forward, so that its movements were predictable. A running deer was not a fighting deer, and therefore much less dangerous. "We run beside it, and bite it and let blood, and tire it out. When it's tired and there's a good opportunity, one of us can pull it down." It was pretty straightforward, in theory. This would be his first opportunity to put into practice what he had seen and learned. 

Veteran would wait and see if she agreed, and then he would follow her lead when they began the chase.

veteran was very informative. excitably she listened,  glancing toward one flank or the other as her companion described the movements of the moonglow wolves. "i think we met one. two. there was a tall man with white fur and scars. and there was a big lady, also with lots of scars. my sister said it was nyra."
heda was chunnering. she scoffed at herself beneath her breath and looked apologetically toward veteran. "why don't i run at its left side, and you take the right?" she suggested with a wave of her tail. the girl glanced around for ground that would be flat, good for them, but not so good for their quarry. "it looks like the snow might be deeper over there," she added, motioning toward an area a good ways away. "we could run it that way?" she suggested, looking to veteran now for his own approval.

She described the big white wolves with scars, and Veteran searched his memory. "I think I've seen them..." He noted with a bit of hesitation.  He had seen a lot of white wolves in the camp, and a lot of wolves with scars. There were more wolves coming and going from the camp than he'd ever seen in one place, and it was difficult to keep track of them all. 

She liked his plan. He grinned.

"Perfect!" he complimented after she made her own additions to the plan. The area with the deep snow lay to the left of the cow's trajectory, which would mean that he would be primarily responsible for bullying the creature in the correct direction, given that he would be placed on the creature's right flank. He was so up for the challenge. "Let's go!" he yipped excitedly, beginning the charge towards the target.

He growled and barked as he approached, trying to get the cow to begin running. Instead of increasing its pace, it stopped in its tracks and swung its head in his direction listlessly. Veteran slowed his charge about ten wolfslengths from the creature, confused as to why it hadn't started running. 

Finally, it moved. It began lumbering forward. Veteran exchanged a glance with his hunting partner before moving to the right side of the creature. He leapt, jaws aiming to bite at its flank and begin letting blood.

the thing didn't run.
it tripped heda up too — she hesitated, but not for long, and especially not as veteran struck for blood. the girl swung in from the left, snapping at its elbow.
the animal bellowed and stumbled on. but something remained off about them. the cow's eye rolled in its socket and heda caught sight of her own reflection in the milky surface.
she was sickened but continued to harry the beast on, leaping higher as the snow grew more thickly around her limbs.

Everything was going according to plan now, and the snow depth rose steadily as the group moved in the predetermined direction. What Veteran hadn't considered though, was that the snow depth would affect his own movement as much as the caribou's, if not more, given that he was significantly shorter. The deepening snow slowed the whole group to a crawling pace, and Veteran had to fight harder with every successive leap. He was tiring quickly. The last few leaps, he was barely able to even reach the creature's belly. 

The caribou was wounded and bleeding from six shallow wounds on its right side (and who knows how many on the left, Veteran could not see if Heda's attacks had been successful). But it was still standing upright, and Veteran was getting really bogged down. 

"Hey--!" He realized he had never gotten the girl's name. "Can you reach the throat..?!" he shouted. "I can't-- I'm stuc-- FUCKING DAMN IT." Veteran barked the curses as he stepped into an invisible snowdrift, plunging into snow up to his shoulders.

heda was panting. three of her attacks had landed, but without the taller limbs and more powerful build of an older wolf, the snow was proving to be damning. as if recovering itself, the caribou tilted back its head and moved somewhat faster. 
instinct told the girl to stay with everything, but she was falling farther behind, and veteran's shouts turned her head. "dammit!" she swore, turning away from their quarry to return to where veteran had been swallowed by a thick drift.
the girl dug out the side of it as best she was able, shaking out her ruff and trying to carve a path away from the area with her own body.
"i can't reach," heda admitted when she had caught her breath. "do you want to try again?" the animal had stopped not far off, and she followed it with her golden eyes.

Veteran bulldozed his way out of the snowdrift, snow flying left and right as he scrambled for better footing. Having grown up in the taiga, he was no stranger to moving in snow. He had just let the deer distract him from the best path. He'd learned an important lesson-- you have to watch your own steps just as much as you have to watch the prey, if not more. 

Since he would have to pay so much attention to his own steps, it seemed like it would be necessary to know exactly where the prey was going. That way, he wouldn't have to keep eyes on two things at once. 

"Yeah," he said to Heda. He panted, still trying to catch his breath. "I think we need a new plan, though." The deer was way taller than them, and they were never going to be able to keep up in the deep snow. ..This was hard, damn it! The adults made it look so easy!

"Maybe.. one of us can drive it somewhere, and the other can lay in wait?" He looked toward Heda, uncertain.

heda nodded, taking the moment to stretch her limbs as long and firmly as she could. "what if i go out and bring it back here. we've already made a trail here so it won't be so hard to move. as long as it cooperates and doesn't like, run off that way," heda breathlessly laughed, gesturing nowhere in particular.
she shook more snow from her coat and looked at veteran, wondering what he would think of her plan. she was determined now; she'd stay out here just as long as him if that was what it took.

Heda volunteered to go out and steer the caribou back in this direction. 

"Okay, yeah," Veteran agreed, glad that she liked his plan. "It'll stay on the trail, probably..." he predicted, his brow furrowing thoughtfully. As young a hunter as he was, didn't really know for sure how the animal would behave, but he figured that if the caribou was as tired as he was, it wouldn't be trying to plow a new trail in a different direction.

"..So I'll wait there," he decided, pointing to a spot on the trail where the snow had been heavily disturbed, with a pile of snow large enough to hide him.

heda nodded. veteran was a hunter, after all. she had only really gone after birds.
the girl turned. the red of her spine-stripe would be the only thing visible as she moved after the caribou. the girl was panting but drew up alongside its thigh; her teeth snapped, lancing the animal with pain.
slowly she drove it to a stop. more slowly heda turned the caribou, driving it back.
had it been sensate she might have been gored by a hoof.
the animal lowed pitifully as it stumbled back along the trail, approaching the hillocks of white where veteran had sequestered himself.

The approach of Heda and the cow was painstakingly slow, and Veteran almost sprung from his position a half-dozen times in impatience. He continuously reminded himself of how awful it had been trying to run through that snow. He just needed to wait for the right moment. Some of the Moonglow hunters could wait for hours, he recalled. 

Heda was the real hero, trudging all the way out through the snow, and now back, driving the caribou. Veteran owed it to her to do this the right way. 

Finally, the cow was close enough to grab. Veteran leaped, attaching himself to its throat with ease. The cow went down quickly and heavily. The half-second before Veteran tore its throat out, he could have sworn he heard it sigh with relief.  

Hot blood stained the snow, spilling from the new wound in the caribou's neck. It lay still. Veteran looked to Heda, tail wagging tenuously. It was dead, right? He'd just made his first kill, right?

it was over swiftly. the spray of blood into the snow excited heda. "good job!" she chuffed. her eyes shone with delight — and more than a little admiration. the girl pranced around the downed animal. 
the adrenaline was giving way to hunger. "we could eat some and then call the others," she suggested, tail wagging. "maybe they could help us carry it back." heda was a little of the mind that she and her companion had earned first choice, especially veteran.
she lapped at the blood in the snow, not wanting to make a first move until veteran had answered.

As the scene finally went quiet, Veteran's heart soared-- no, it felt more like a surge. He couldn't contain his energy, and like Heda he also danced around the kill, sniffing it, pawing it, and nudging Heda excitedly when she came near. 

"You too!" He returned the compliment, tongue lolling. 

She offered a course of action, and he nodded enthusiastically. "I like that plan. You're a good planner!" She had come up with the plan that had finally worked, after all. 

Veteran would dig in with gusto. He had never been the first one to feast at a kill before. He would tear excitedly at the belly fur, like a young child shredding the wrapping paper on a much-anticipated birthday present. Although there was hardly anything more than skin and bone on the kill, Veteran's celebratory energy would not be dampened. 

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