Swiftcurrent Creek trampled by turtles

By day three, young Bones missed Tortuga and even her mother, though she would never admit these things aloud. She kept her back turned on them (literally and metaphorically) as she continued loping purposefully north along the coastline, sure that she would find something, some clue that would lead her to her father. Ah, the ignorance and optimism of the young!

She reached the fringes of Teekon Wilds and the scent of wolves led her inland, into the realm of landlocked landlubbers. She roamed freely, zigzagging across the unfamiliar terrain, sniffing here and pawing there. At one point, she lost the trail of her brethren... but she caught it again and, this time, she headed toward it directly, walking in a straight line until the burble of running water filled her large ears.

Bones stopped when the scent markers filled her nose, warning her to proceed no further. She looked left and right, her pale green eyes scanning her surroundings. She saw no one, save for a box turtle shuffling slowly southeast. With surprising swiftness, the young wolf approached the small creature, overturned it and used her teeth to crack through the shell.

With unprecedentedly delicate precision, she extracted the soft, pulpy meat, which she set aside, then used the coarse, leathery underside of her paw to scrape the veins and gristle from the interior of the shell. When she finished, she bowed forward almost playfully, her chin touching the ground as she wriggled it underneath the shell and, ever so slowly and carefully, managed to tip it back into her gray head like a hat.

Moving very gingerly now, Bones took a seat, the lump of meat sitting neatly in front of her forepaws and her helmet perched at an angle atop her head as she awaited company.