Kildeer Rest trappings of starlight

Tikigâk watched on in silence. As the other lowers their head, Tikigâk does perceive it as submission—it is why she thinks nothing of the others heavy tread as they step slowly away, likely not to incite chase. Tikigâk thought the woman smart for both things—they understood what it took to survive. If one had pride, it must always come second in moments such as this. Moments that meant whether or not you would live to see another day in good health, if at all. 

They had abandoned the meal. The other paused long enough to speak to what Tikigâk had not yet been certain of, at least whether or not any other would know of her own changes. Tikigâk watched the other gesture toward their own stomach, though even still was quiet and unmoving—not confirming, not denying. 

Only when the woman was out of sight did Tikigâk turned to look at her mate, hearing his faint words. She may. She knows there is food to be had. We must claim the moving herds. Bring them to Darukaal, it is only a suggestion then, and she wonders at its merit. Now she moved toward the still-warm carcass. 

Small. But still food. We will finish this—if you do not hunger, I shall, she rumbled in her deep voice; meat was meat, and she would carry his young this year. None would go to waste. His bemused tone was answered with a bearish snort, but her eyes upon him, no longer indifferent and empty, were filled with something like mirth. 

She nods to his words. Tikigâk would eat, and eat, and eat—already she was filling out into the wolf that she had been once before, once a little leaner from her time in the wilderness alone. But soon even larger still for the cubs to come.

What other cubs, in Darukaal? she asked next, thinking of the young to support. Tikigâk knew Faust would have determined other breeding pairs based on the plentiful food—she did not worry for their own cubs starving. But as his mate, and now as Darukaal, Tikigâk would step up to aid him in ensuring all mouths were fed until she could not due to whelping. 

Tikigâk placed a paw upon the carcass, and began to eat—but an ear cupped toward him indicated she was paying attention, even as the other listened to the wilds beyond being still cognizant of the cougar that had passed through.