Meadowlark Prairie red lights

When one wolf slunk from elsewhere and paraded themselves before her, she initially did not know how to respond. The sight of it made her nervous in the way that all interactions made her nervous: was this friend, food, or merely unworthy? It had been many years since a wolf felt so bold as to speak to her - long enough that she nearly did not decrypt the language; such strange creatures, wolves. If this one had merely assailed her, she would know what to expect. Instead there were words, and slowly, understanding. But it took her too long. The moment the brawny beast connected the sounds of the wolf with the scent of akpik, it was too late.

The other — the petrified one, frozen like stone before her, the mighty ice flow, either lost their mind or gained a spine. Either way, they came racing straight at her - pushing aside the dark wolf, plunging face-first towards her with a sound that was far more familiar than their strange language. This made sense; this was how wolves were designed to act. To foolishly lose their heads when something terrified them. They were like children. Had she not been so distracted by the enticing scent of food, perhaps she would have reacted with more ferocity.

Kilalurak did next to nothing but duck her head a bit; the wolf slammed in to her skull with surprising accuracy and enough force to cause her to wince, yet all she needed was to deflect, and she was hastily retreating once more — this time lunging away from the silverback; this was not worth the calories lost, though both wolves would have satisfied her hunger to some degree.

As she made her trundling escape through the meadow, she vowed to repay this particular wolf one day.