Big Salmon Lake [m] Fresh out of an icky gooey womb

The she-wolf spoke first, her voice gruff as she declared her allegiance. Peregrine felt a pang of disappointment. His eyes then shifted to her mate (presumably). He met the stranger's words with a blink. He didn't follow. Did he think Peregrine should wash off the tiny corpse? But the fluids would provide extra nourishment to Finley and her own suckling young. Then he realized. Oh, he thought, looking down at himself. He was covered in a sticky grime that would dry into an awful crust if he didn't rinse himself off and soon.

He licked his chops, then picked up the dead fawn and trotted to the bank, keeping a comfortable distance between himself, the other two wolves and their kill. He set the carcass down nearby and then waded quickly into the water. He went deep enough to plunge his head under the surface, then came back up with a loud snort and several shakes of his head. Peregrine then retraced his steps back to dry land, though not without stopping in the ankle-deep water, then suddenly lowering himself and rolling in the shallows to remove the crud from his neck and shoulders.

He stood, dripping, then exited the water and placed a paw over the slain newborn. "Are you the Alpha pair of the spine?" he guessed, trying to remember if he had ever met anyone else from the pack. He vaguely recollected a black wolf identifying himself as the spine's Beta coming to visit back in the caldera's earliest days. He could not remember his name. He did remember warning him to leave them alone and he would return the favor. He had evidently passed along the message because Peregrine could not recall having any trouble with the Ouroboros pack, despite its proximity.

"I met your Beta once, a long time ago. I told him to mind his own business and we would do the same. He is perhaps the only wolf in the world who actually paid my words any attention. I want you to know it's appreciated, in this day and age of entitlement and dumbfuckery," Peregrine found himself saying.