Otter Creek sleep, soldier

As the boy cleaned himself off in the water, a knot of tension loosened in Gavrel's chest. He watched the dark plumes of grime and blood sluice off of the boy and travel downstream, diluting quickly in the steady current. For a few moments it looked as if the boy himself was dissolving, difficult to see where his fur ended and the water began.

He fished well into daylight. The sky became an anemic shade of blue, with cirrus clouds loosed like egg whites across its expanse. After a while he stopped being able to feel his paws, the cold having numbed them thoroughly; he nudged his snout in the water once or twice, a few false starts.

When he surfaced with a fish in his jaws, its muscular body flapping frantically in the air, he tossed it to the river bank where it continued to strain for breath. There was no time to savor his luck.

He looked back where the boy was, dimly surprised that he had stuck around. Though he supposed that any lone wolf would be patient for food if nothing else.

In the act of ultimate altruism (at least, for Gavrel's standards), he waited for the boy to take the first bite. The fish's eyes became glassy, its throes weakened.