Blacktail Deer Plateau ◊;

his gaze followed her—not sharp, not demanding, but steady, the way a mountain watches the wind. she spoke again, her voice winding with uncertainty, the cadence soft and questioning, but her words meant nothing to him. not in the tongue. only in her eyes, her motion, the way she touched the pronghorn hide like it had already begun to belong to her.
he did not move. did not reach for the meat.
instead, he lifted one paw, calloused and dark with old dust, and made a small gesture. the meal was not for him. his hunger had long since passed into something else. the watchful stillness. the sentinel’s vigil.
she had eaten her fill. there was still more. and he would guard it, if she chose to carry it, butcher it, bury it—he did not care.
she was not his to command.
and the kill—now hers to decide.
his gaze drifted away, scanning the slope beyond them, shoulders relaxed but coiled beneath the weight of instinct.
he would not eat.
not while she still moved like prey.