Redhawk Caldera Ashes, ashes, we all fall down

If I end up being too slow, y’all have my blessing to skip me. ♥

She hadn’t been able to locate Lucy on her most recent expedition, but she was far from giving up the hunt. While Ferret was latched onto Peregrine in a ruthless display of aggression, Sassafras was somewhere near the northeastern border stripping one last morsel from the flank of what had been a pleasantly plump rabbit in preparation for another go at the search effort. She nosed the carcass aside somewhat lazily once she had finished it off, yawned so widely that her teeth clicked to a close, then flopped her shoulder to the earth and rolled with vigour. She paused only for a moment, lying there so still that she might have looked dead with plant and dirt debris strewn all throughout her swarthy fur, but in that moment a frantic howl rose up that shocked her to her senses.

She sat up with a start and pricked her ears, trying to metabolize what she had just heard. Fox was panicked, and if Fox was panicked, then something was very, very wrong in the Caldera. Suppressing a furiously frustrated growl that threatened to erupt somewhere closer to her chest than jaws that clenched instinctively, Sassafras launched herself to her paws and tore off in a flat-out run towards the Alpha female’s location as fast as her sprinter’s legs could carry her. She didn’t have time to think about the fact that her name had been one among the handful that Fox had chosen to call in a moment of desperation, or, more importantly, why she hadn’t heard Peregrine’s name, too.

When she finally reached the small gathering, it took next to no time at all for her gaze to settle on the fallout of what had happened. The scent of blood was as heavy as a shroud of fog hanging in the air, and it didn’t seem to matter to Sassafras that she had completely missed any explanation that had been provided. The girl’s eyes widened as she tentatively stepped closer, looking from Fox, to Peregrine, then back to Fox, and finally to Elwood and the puppies. Gannet was even attempting to clean his father’s open wound. Her lips formed a thin line as she struggled to keep her profanities to herself, and she kept her questions at bay.

"Just a second," she said to no one in particular. It didn’t seem as though they had reached the point of damage control yet, and Sassafras wasn’t sure the Caldera had a medic. Despite the fact that she had no idea what she was doing, the purpose with which she turned away and began to rip up as much grass as she could stuff into her mouth might have led someone to believe otherwise. She wasn’t certain it was the correct tool or method, but grass was the most innocuous thing she could think of to staunch whatever blood Peregrine was still losing. She lowered her head as she ripped and chewed and ripped again, glancing back to her packmates with a giant side-eye of concern. She briefly considered that she looked incredibly stupid.