Neverwinter Forest And they welcome everyone to stay

Set late on the 6th/early the 7th

Mal returned home victorious in two ways.  The most obvious was that he carried a hare in his jaws.  He felt like he'd somehow solved all life's mysteries and could no longer be looked down on due to his age.  Something about it all just clicked, and the ego-boost that had come with it all made his facade of knowing what he was doing ring a bit more true.  No saying that actually was.

He had kind of wished that he had brought the scents of his other encounter home with him, just to prove it but it had come to be a problem.  Mal had gone after the hare's trail once Cupid departed, but kept finding it incredibly hard to properly focus with the scents that still clung to his fur.  He tried, but after the third time he zoned out it seemed impossible -- it just made him want to go find Cupid's trail instead.  In the end, he had scrubbed the majority of it from his fur in the fresh snow, and it was only when Mal pressed his nose deep into his pelt that he could find the memory of it.  After that, he could focus and his hunt was successful.

He'd been gone longer than normal -- normally Mal was only out of the territory for a day trip, but it was a full two days or maybe a smidgen more at this point.  It wasn't like he was gone for a week, though.  He paused at the borders to mark a tree, then continued from the open black sky to the dark canopy, winding his way towards the heart of the territory so that he might cache the prize he brought home with him.  The chances of him running into one of his packmates seemed pretty slim at this hour on a snowy night.