Heron Lake Plateau If you can use a doorknob

As the dust settled, it took what felt like forever for him to catch his breath, sputtering and coughing.  The wind had been pretty well knocked out of him and for a moment the world felt way too bright, slowly fading back to normal.  He took a moment to survey this little disaster: well, the fawn was very much dead -- in the end Quixote had landed partially on it, and it was twisted and squished in a very unnatural way.  It had probably been pretty much dead before tried to get a place on America's Funniest Home Videos.  He'd been fortunate, pretty much tripped over the damn thing where it's mom had hidden it in a patch of tall grass while she was off grazing elsewhere.

Quixote slowly pulled himself to his feet.  Everything kind of hurt, but he knew right now it was probably just going to get worse.  There was leftover adrenaline from the hunt in his system, which was probably dulling things, too.  For now, he probably looked a lot worse than he felt, mud-smeared with a new collection of scrapes and bruises.  His dark pelt did an okay job at hiding some of the dirt and blood.  Nothing fatal, as far as he knew, but the next few days weren't going to be pleasant.  It was his own fault that he'd gotten into this mess -- Quixote had been perhaps trying too hard to do everything himself, and it had started to show.  For anyone paying exceptionally close attention, he'd lost any extra weight he carried and probably looked far more fit than he did before, but it was a slightly different look than before.  You know, somewhere beneath the mud.

He looked up the slope and he could sort of see the path he'd taken -- where the wet grass from last night's rain had become a Slip N Slide, wrapping around the edge of the plateau, the scrapes and gouges where he'd tried to keep his footing, and some further smears where that was no longer a thing.  He'd probably rolled, what?  Fifteen or twenty feet?  It could have been a hell of a lot worse, and for that he was fortunate he'd been near where the lowlands came up to meet the plateau.  Not to mention, he kind of had to get back up there.

It was fairly slow going.  His legs all felt like they were stiffening up already as he dragged along the contorted and equally messy fawn.  Though his final goal was @Raven so that he could deliver the kill, he was moving slow enough that it wouldn't be much of a stretch for him to cross paths with someone else along the way as the morning started to fade towards afternoon.