Heron Lake Plateau plight of the lemon children

:eyes:

He'd finally started to get a handle on the travel route a couple of small family groups of deer took on a fairly regular basis.  Next step would be to gather a few to hunt 'em down, fill the caches with something more significant, and all would be well.  As long as they all stayed on their route, the groups should provide a fairly reliable source of food for the upcoming pups -- and the rest of the pack, of course.  At the very least, deer were also a lot less dangerous than going after a moose or elk or something bigger, even if they didn't come with as much meat on their bones.  It'd be a good start for a pack full of yearlings.

Quixote had been pretty focused on this the past few days -- or maybe it was a week at this point -- so the fact that Screech had been scarce the last few days hadn't even been noticed.  But of course, that punk wasn't particularly important to him in the first place -- as long as he kept out of trouble, that was all that mattered.  Quixote, though, was heading back to the lake to make another likely-to-fail attempt at catching some birds when he rounded a thick patch of bushes and Screech was straight in front of him.  Quixote was practically staring him down -- he'd paused mid-stride for a moment, snapped out of his thoughts about hunt planning, as Screech was probably one of the last wolves he'd expected to run into.

His expression barely shifted from neutral, a faint crease in his brow.  His limited interaction with Screech hadn't been positive, and what he'd heard from others hadn't been either.  But at the same time, Quixote was curious what an interaction with him would actually be like, so he didn't want to poison the waters by accident.  Screech,  he said, almost sounding like it should have a question mark on the end.