Blacktail Deer Plateau Homeland

He struggled with thinking of the plateau as his home, because if home is where the heart is, Peregrine still very much lived in Flightless Falcons, specifically in the small den he'd shared with Osprey all their lives. Yet he made an effort to treat the place as he would the meadows and forests of his birthplace. He made rounds at the borders, worked on mapping and stocking the caches and resolutely refused to leave the territory, seeing no reason to do that, now or ever. His motives weren't spectacular—he did these things primarily to avoid insanity, secondarily to contribute—but he did his duty nonetheless.

"Fake it 'til you make it," he announced sourly to no one after dropping a slain rabbit in a cache near the plateau's edge. His eyes hardened and he stared off into the forest for a few beats. Instead of anger, aching misery crept over him as he thought of Osprey. Catching himself, he snarled sharply and shook his swarthy head. "Fake it 'til you make it," he repeated emphatically, his large, lissome form stalking off down a deer trail.