Firestone Hot Springs moontooth

The cheer was not entirely unexpected; he had told this story to great effect in the past. Not a fraction of it was exaggerated, but he did tend to underplay the terror that'd gripped him from the start to the finish of the fight. It had gone on longer, too, than Dutch liked to remember. Much of it had been spent in stillness and quiet, all four of them exhausted, all four of them trembling in pain.

Still. The panther struck a noble (read: slightly silly) pose under Chakliux's attention, and then laughed delightedly at the new title he was given. Mikiak.

"Only with help," he reminded the other man. "I could not have done this without Slow West, and we could not have done it without his father — who sacrificed the last of his fighting days to see the battle won."

The kinship he'd felt with Slow West had been far more complex for Dutch than it had been for the coywolf. They had enjoyed each other's company for a time, but ultimately, the other man had moved on to the next conquest. It had been a hard lesson, at the time, but Dutch had learned to remember him fondly long ago.

"I fought with luck more than skill, in those days," he admitted. "Not like a seal hunter! You cannot trip your way into slaying a sea creature in its element."