Stavanger Bay everyone, step aside; this is the last warning

Szymon devoured his Chosen One’s delight, relishing the needlelike clasp of her teeth as they pricked his skin and the way her whirring paws rarely ever touched the ground when she was happy; he chuckled, a low, rich sound that became lost and muffled against the precious press of her long-limbed frame against his own. He moved with the force of her whipping tail and wiggling body, growling possessively as the unbidden thought of any other wolf touching her this way crossed his mind — and perhaps it was the electric feeling engendered by the nearing approach of her season, something Szymon had yet to fully understand or experience — but he could not help clasping the looser skin at her nape between his teeth with the same gentleness he’d brought to the fawn hide or the gyrfalcon eggs, closing his jaws just enough to leave an imprinted tattoo that would fade in mere seconds. Still, it made him feel better — it made him feel qualified to face the imagined intruder and say, “She is mine.”

“Mmm,” he hummed his approval, “mine.” As if she didn’t know!

“You first,” had been the witch doctor’s command, and Szymon’s tail lashed the air in exuberant agreement with this plan. He was not a creature for teasing and play — unless the play was with Doe and specifically requested or initiated on her behalf — and had no desire to hold out on her. He tried to reach the gifts without moving away from her, but found himself unable — and so, with an apologetic lick across the crown of her skull, just between the uneven peaks of her ears, he stepped away to retrieve the spotted hide. He shook it with a deft twist of his head, unfurling some stray sprigs of mint, and laid it at her feet. He had no reason to feel anxious at giving her such an odd gift — she had never looked upon any of his previous gifts with scorn — but the flicker of his tail betrayed his frenetic need to be praised by her. “M-My first — ” deer kill, he was about to say, and that was about the time he realized that he’d murdered the animal his Chosen One was named for. Well. That was a bit awkward — but it was too late now.

Scrapping whatever he was going to do with that particular sentence, he dragged the meat — the gleaming haunch and thigh, which would provide a nice bone for her to chew on when all was said and done; and the rich, warm blooded viscera that most of his coastal menu items lacked. Here, his actions seemed to say, just forget what I said. Eat this.