Ouroboros Spine dry country

Totally didn't realize this was AW (can't see tags on my phone, blahhh) or I would have replied to this sooner! :C

Their numbers had dwindled severely. In the days preceding the death of Ptarmigan, Mordecai had once more returned to the borders of the territory. In part to remain an outlier to the pack, but also to take matters into his own hands. He had no expectations when it came to how his assumed leadership would be taken, but at the same time he had no care for how it was received. Arrogantly, perhaps, he felt he could handle the trio that remained aside and beneath him, though he had not seen them in days. Sitri he knew would be nursing his wounds, and whatever Cara and Kaname had been up to he did not bother to find out.

On the outskirts of their territory, he had tried to keep the expansion beyond the basin theirs. But it was failing as he could only cover so much ground in so much time, and in turn he had seen the prints of canine and ungulate alike coming and going. A cooler wind had come to settle across the wilderness and with it he could not blame the herds for going on, or the wolves that had filed themselves out of the Spine's ranks in hopes for better lands. Yet all was perhaps not lost when he had come up a shallow grade to find someone else lingering through the woodland. A lesser creature with fewer problems may have donned a warmer expression, but the Ostrega retained a harder expression than he had ever bothered to wear, one marked with direct interest in what the other was doing so close to their home.

He approached swiftly, his tail turned skyward in a display of dominance. He chuffed lowly to the other, though the call may have been unnecessary. Mordecai felt he would have been spotted readily. His pace curtailed itself as he drew near, but not too near out of habit. The last perceived stray he had come across hadn't bothered to answer to his interests, but perhaps this one would be different. Still, he had learned that one could never been too certain as to what they would find in the wilds, and his caution was justified because of it. Mordecai was wordless, but the prompt of him wanting to know what the other was looking for came all the same; he canted his head slightly, eyes never leaving the earthy-coated male.