Two Rivers Isle Chopping down with hatchets

A fork like this should be a perfect place for prey, thought Saena, but the truth was that the prey was gone. There were rabbit droppings and the occasional vole nest, but nothing more substantial, and the accessibility to these gaunt and wary pickings was lacking. The rabbits were driven by hunger to be more alert than ever, such that even the slightest of noises sent them skittering away. The voles were far more cautious than usual; the birds were just as hungry, and unwitting voles were an easy catch for any raptor. No, thought Saena with a grimace, there's not much more here than ghosts.

When the sound of a larger animal's approach drew her attention, the alpha flung herself low and crept forward. Her jaws were slick with saliva as the anticipation of something larger than a hare mounted in her breast. Yet she could see Laika long before her approach was complete, and even a starving Saena could tell a wolf from a deer. Straightening, the woman shook her mantle as if to sooth the fur upon it, then strode to meet Laika head-on.

The woman's question was met with a brisk shake of the lead wolf's head. "There's nothing left," she said through lightly gritted teeth. What she wouldn't give for a bone to chew on. Even marrow would serve a good substitute for meat right now. "The herds are gone. What are we to do?" The pack was now too weak and tired from the famine to travel any further, and uprooting them again was not an option. For their brief time there, Saena was fond of the creek.

"I may range further ahead and see if there's anything left closer to the coast," she said, as though to answer her own inquiry, though her blue eyes lingered on Laika and the hope for a suggestion on how to secure food still hung between them.