Dawnlark Plains LXXIII

next round, still up for anyone to join! <3 no posting order!

as moon runner led the pups to safer vantage, mountain boulder watched her for a moment. it would be good to have another hunter, but he did not want the young ones to compromise the hunt. 

yellow eyes assured she would join them another time before he greeted new snow with loving enthusiasm and night eye with a hearty flag of his tail.

snow rain came last, but was no less welcomed by a brush from the huntlead. only assurance among their ranks would see them through another dangerous hunt.

two of the caribou suffered botflies. but the second had the white lines of an additional fungal infection setting along one forehoof. mountain boulder watched them each for several moments. the second would be more easily captured, but they risked sickness in their meat. 

for that reason, he chose the first. 

there was an unspoken expectation inside the great grey man that the newer hunters simply watch, participate, and understand. 

readied, adrenaline rushing, mountain boulder's lope turned into a powerful charge that sent him directly at the heart of the herd, as he had done so many times before. 

the caribou's group held, but only just, ears flicking in terror and the frightened snorts signalling their unsurety as he hurtled toward them, focused only on the redtail quarry.