Redhawk Caldera I'm the holy water you can't live without

Four out of five hunts end in failure, said his father, and while Nightjar wouldn't commit that fact to memory, it did line up with his observations. Slightly more than that failed for him, more like five of six or six of seven or maybe even every single one, but that was all due to his inexperience and youth. One day, maybe he would shorten the gap as well and succeed every now and again.

Yet when asked whether he'd ever considered pursuing the trade, Nightjar honestly answered, "no." His father was a master gamekeeper, and Nightjar didn't mean to offend him with that comment—truthfully, he didn't make the connection, even though Peregrine said it himself. One of Nightjar's peculiarities was the way he viewed trades, especially ones that others deemed useful, like gamekeeping. Unlike fighting, which all wolves could do but not all wolves agreed to, or healing or naturalism, which were specializations, hunting was something that was not optional. A wolf that couldn't hunt was as good as dead. The same logic could be applied to being a warden, but Nightjar felt that was even more optional than hunting, since being a pack wolf was almost optional in good seasons. To specialize in hunting was a lifestyle choice, but very much unlike many a logical wolf, Nightjar saw the trade as pointless because everyone can and did do it.

He told his father as much: "everyone has to hunt. Everyone can hunt. Everyone's a gamekeeper." There were other things involved with being a gamekeeper that he didn't know as much about, perhaps skewing his views. He thought all they did was hunt. Then again, Nightjar would sooner leave a corpse for the scavengers than bring it home, where its scent could attract competitors and carrion feeders. That fact alone would make him a poor contender for gamekeeper even if one factored out the hunting. On top of that, he was probably the slowest runner in the pack, definitely not good for chasing fleet prey.