Swiftcurrent Creek and be known in its aching

her lope is catious, tread laced with uncertainty, as she roves the northern half of the territory. her body feels different, foreign, almost, and she treats it with the same distant suspect she might a stranger at their borders. it is the third day she's left the den, the third day she'd followed trails and probed at dens without making any sort of attempt at the prey that ran freely here. one advantage to a small pack was that the prey was more readily available, she supposed, though that was outweighed by the weight each of them had to bear to keep not just the able pack, but the young, afloat. 

instinct crackled to life at the same time the hare darted to the right, and for the first time in a long while, she responded. she drove to the right, extending herself towards the hare and snapping at its hindquarters. a kicking limb in her jaws, her momentum was too much to reel back in and so she continued along the rabbit's initial trajectory, tightening her grip and whipping her head around as she slowed. the hare's scream whistled past her ear and was silent, and in one smooth motion, she deposited the creature at her paws and tore into it, infused with a cavernous hunger the seemed to blink into existence only then.