Gyrfalcon's Keep break you down and swallow you up

I hope this is okay!

Had Szymon been privy to the owl-wolf’s less-than-complimentary thoughts, he would have thrown diplomacy to the wind in favor of rewarding the Moonspear wolf with another set of battle scars — and in this, perhaps he was a different wolf than the cringing, furtive creature who had lurked without ambition at the bottom of the hierarchy back on Warsaw. There was something changing in the golden-eyed, golden-hearted Cairn — a growing awareness that he was not merely his siblings’ punching bag. The loving, worshipful way Doe regarded him had a great deal to do with this transition — but so did the freedom of these unforgiving shores. Szymon would never be a large wolf; he would never catch up to Jaglon in size or Jagoda in brute strength. But Szymon was a Cairn, as battle-tested and bloodied as any of his siblings, and the latent desire to conquer — though tempered in Szymon by the gentleness that lay close to the marrow of his bones — was very slowly beginning to overpower his natural tendency to avoid and submit.

He watched with wry amusement as the owl-wolf snapped at the latest gyrfalcon to make a pass at Szymon’s flesh, coming away with a mouthful of tail feathers. “I’m Charon Ostrega, from Moonspear, the big mountain over there.” Following the wolf’s gesture, Szymon’s auriferous eyes captured the mountain in question — an impressive place, if you liked mountains, and the Cairn offered an appreciative nod in reply. He made a mental note to keep an eye out for any wolf named Lazarus — of course it was a white wolf, his shell-shocked mind muttered sarcastically; but he remembered Deirdre and tried to think fairly — and smirked at the thought of staying away from any wolf worthy of killing. It wasn’t his natural kneejerk reaction to fight, but the necessity of bloodshed had been beaten into him until it was almost second nature. Almost. A rumbling growl served as a suitable reply to Charon’s introduction; Szymon didn’t have much to say about himself, personally, and generally preferred to speak when prompted to — either verbally or circumstantially.

A clatter of rocks from the north and several indignant squawks caught Szymon’s attention — he knew from his travels, however brief, that a sprawling forest lay nearby. The manner of prey, however, was something he had little experience with. With a glance toward Charon, the inky-ribbed wolf crept forth in a lengthy stalk, peering over the frail elevation provided by the rocky hillock upon which they stood. The air was rich with the metallic tang of blood, and below the pair of wolves, two mountain goats backed away from one another with the odd intention of clashing another time. They were creatures Szymon had never seen before — but selfishly, he wanted the skull and those coiled horns. Casting a pointed glance toward Charon, he quirked his muzzle toward the shoreline. If they drove at least one of the goats into the sand, surely the sinking terrain would act in the wolves’ favor.