Swiftcurrent Creek does your daddy know

For @Scimitar, but all welcome. :)

Hunger clawed at her belly, rousing the youth from her sleep. Her coat was slowly gathering the scents of the creek and its inhabitants, and she had met more than a few of those she shared the territory with. Like it or not, it seemed that this place was now her home. Magpie still thought of herself as a slave to these outsiders, not having seen much of the fox-like wolf that had brought her back to the lands. They owed her nothing, and she owed them everything.

But she couldn't survive here long enough to repay her debts if she died of starvation first. She had hunted for herself — the small, quick game that was barely enough fuel to recoup the energy lost chasing them — but she craved heartier meat. Magpie knew where at least one of the caches were, having brought a kill back to earn the tolerance of these wolves. She did not have permission to take from it, but she didn't know if she needed it, either; but instinct and the lance of hunger in her belly drove the teen.

Coming upon the small clearing in which the mound existed, the youth lay her nose to the ground to sniff out the cache.