Soft come the dragons

Edit on 08/18: I'm editing in a conclusion due to Ariston's removal from the game.

Miraculously, Ariston managed to avoid bungling the entire operation—so far, anyhow. Koontz shot him a quick smile, then faced forward again, now proceeding very slowly. She could not see them yet, yet she sensed the resident herd of deer in a clearing ahead of them. She could smell them and faintly hear their rustlings from here. She also felt them, in a way, as if she had a sixth and uncategorized sense akin to a heat-seeking missile. Only, in her case, she was a meat-seeking missile.

Sliding beneath shrubs like a silver shadow, Koontz froze in a crouch when her pale eyes finally spotted their silhouttes through a break in the trees. She turned her muzzle sharply, chuffing very quietly to tell Ariston, Stop! She then settled into place there behind the screen of foliage to track the herd's movements. The yearling would study them until she figured out which one was the most likely target. Although a terrible role model for it at times, March Owl had instilled in her youngest daughter—her final cub—the importance of patience in the midst of a hunt.

That patience served her well—and paid off in the end. After carefully selecting a victim and exchanging a silent cue with Ariston, the two wolves emerged from the brush. Fortune favored the leading pair, allowing them to fell the half-grown fawn they had targeted. It was all over in a moment. And it only took them another few minutes to fall upon their kill, bolt down as much meat as they could hope to hold in their belly baskets, and then flopped down in the grass nearby to digest the fruit of their labor.