Sawtooth Spire wild kids

mrs. redhawk, weird, yuck. she didn't find the name homely or anything, it just felt weird to talk in such adult terms about something that was a joke, right? right? caracal wasn't actually like gunning to be married to her, he had never shown interest like that before.
she shook off the thoughts and bumped his paw with her own.
"i saw some crows on the way in. we won't eat them, but they'll lead us to something else i'm sure. also i don't really have a last name, and yours is a reference to birds. maybe it was fated."
she stuck her tongue out and leapt sideways, trying to hide her nerves with more playfulness.

You’re the professional, he said by way of agreement, sweeping his foreleg in an “after you” fashion.

Trundling along in her wake, Caracal suddenly thought of his mother. Wasn’t this sort of like what she was doing with that Maxim guy? He knew her union with him was legitimate though. They were actually quite the domestic duo. This wasn’t the same thing. Notably, they weren’t about to start a family together.

He was a young man, so of course his mind went there. Sluggish and tired, he fell behind Heda and took an opportunity to admire the view. She was a pretty girl. She was struck by how young she looked. He felt an abrupt and inexplicable stab of annoyance with himself.

I think I’m getting hangry, Caracal said offhandedly, speeding up to walk beside her again.

caracal was looking at her now. he walked behind for a time and heda felt his eyes. she wasn't so aware as to know what his mind was exactly on, but she felt some awareness of a difference in the way she was being studied. 
grateful when he came to her side again, heda chuffed. "well, you're in luck, cuz look." she showed him the flat-foot tracks of a single goose. "its wing is dragging on the ground," she observed, gesturing to the long marks left by the flight feathers. "probably broken."
it had gone left, under a stand of pines. she looked at caracal and then slunk beneath the needled branches.

His sudden onset crankiness—pretty unusual for him, even on his worst days—prevented him from feeling much interest in Heda’s hunt. He didn’t care about game trails or what these tracks meant. He just wanted to eat.

His mood was so unlike him, at least Caracal was very aware of it. He refused to take it out on Heda, mustering the energy to nod and trail along after her. He hoped she didn’t expect him to be much help, not because he was feeling ornery but because Caracal didn’t have the first clue how to hunt a goose.

the trees let up. heda snuffled over the tracks again. there was a new, incredibly glum vibe wafting off caracal and so she looked up, distracted. her ability to hyperfixate had belatedly suggested something was wrong, and now the young wolf peered at her compatriot.
"listen. you looked weird a second ago when i talked about ensio and veteran, and you look really unhappy right now." she tossed a hip and swung her tail gently at his shoulder. "if we're married we have to talk about things, right? like legally?"

He had not expected his companion to call him out on his sudden mood swing, nor to touch the rawest possible nerve by specifically mentioning Veteran’s name. He sucked in a sharp breath, his stomach pinching.

Caracal wanted to point out they weren’t actually getting hitched. But just because that was a work of fiction didn’t mean their friendship wasn’t the real deal. And since they were going to be in one another’s pockets for the foreseeable future, he really didn’t want to jeopardize this new bond.

With that said, he definitely wasn’t ready to tell Heda the truth, so he said, I just—I’m still beating myself up for dropping the ball on Attackasack. Gods, he would not miss trying to pronounce that godawful name. And I’m really hungry and tired, sorry if I’m being grouchy, he finished, truly meaning that.

Now, can we please find and eat this fucked up goose? he demanded in the next breath, managing a playful leer. So I can stop being a grumpus?

heda grinned as he thoroughly fucked the name up. "okay, all right." i don't believe you but no sweat.
she resumed her tracking of the goose, holding caracal back with a forearm as the bird crossed a clearing right in front of them. the right wing had indeed been snapped. "geese are nasty. he can still hurt you even injured like that. beak and the other arm, bam, now your shoulder is busted."
she jerked her head, indicating caracal should move to the right, while she dashed through the snow toward the goose, barking for its attention.

When she struck out a foreleg to stop him, Caracal puffed out a little oof as it hit him in the chest. But he obeyed the unspoken command, deferring to the young huntress completely as she explained the risks of hunting this particular quarry.

Good thing I’m a doctor then, I guess, he whispered right before darting to the right as indicated, not entirely sure what would happen next.

caracal darted in the aforementioned direction. the goose spread its beak, revealing the rows of unnecessary teeth. her stomach turned; heda did not think she'd ever get used to fangs on a bird.
the goose lunged for her. it yanked a tuft of fur from her foreleg and hissed loudly, lifting its unaffected wing. the fowl darted at heda again. this time her teeth connected with its beak and glanced off. she raised a forepaw and aimed a crushing blow at the beast's throat.

What happened next was Caracal found himself face to face with an angry, injured goose. It was quite a bit larger than he’d expected. And it had teeth, which he could see from up close. The yearling nearly pissed himself.

But the bird went after Heda rather than the arguably easier target. Caracal gaped as he watched its neck move like a snake. It even sounded like a snake, hissing as it lunged at his wife friend. For her part, the young she-wolf seemed undeterred, darting in and out like a professional goose wrangler.

Belatedly, Caracal attempted to help her. He mustered up his courage and dove at the goose’s broken wing, snatching it in his teeth. Instincts took over a bit in that moment, leading him to yank, incidentally tugging the goose clear of Heda’s fatal blow.

And if that wasn’t bad enough, the goose turned on him with an angry honk, beating at him with its uninjured wing even while he maintained his grasp on the broken one. And a sharp, toothy beak fell upon his head, showering him in painful blows he tried to weather, at least until one nailed him square in the eye.

the next seconds happened in a blur: her paw came down on empty space, neck-feathers flew as the goose whirled, and heda heard the hot wet squelch of a sharp beak.
o god o fujk
she didn't allow herself time to gape at it, she grabbed the goose by the back of its small head and dragged it, squawking and flailing, away from her compadre. teeth pierced its birdbrain; she shut her eyes tightly until its dangerous death throes ended, then dropped it into the snow and went back at once to caracal.
"geez, goddamn, let me see," she shivered out, hoping that the injury was less severe than it had sounded.

SHITTING FUCK—!

He let go of the goose and rocked backward, stumbling over his own hind legs and crashing into the dirt as a foreleg came up to paw at his face. His eyeball ached and burned and stung all at once. Touching it probably didn’t help but he instinctively brought up his other paw, both of them covering his eye.

Caracal dimly registered some noises in the background, then he felt Heda’s breath wash over his face. He rolled his head, squinting at her with his good eye. She insisted on seeing, so he shakily moved his paws away so his companion could assess the damage.

I’ve decided to leave his eyeball’s fate up to you. LOL.

heda bent over him. there was so much blood. at first she was hopeful it was coming from his eyelid or a cut over his eye, but no such luck. the lens itself had been torn and the iris was now more of an oval than a circle. the white of that eye was completely red with burst blood vessels.
"okay, uh, so — so your eye is pretty fucked up, just gonna be honest. it might heal? i don't know. we should — cover it?" with what? he was the medic, not her. heda palmed a pawful of snow, ready to put it right on his bleeding eye as she looked helplessly to caracal for guidance.

His lip quivered as he waited for Heda to say something, preferably some sort of reassurance that everything was fine. But right around the time he realized he couldn’t really see much out of that eye anymore, she informed him that it was “pretty fucked up.”

Caracal could only stare at her with the single good eye remaining to him, thinking…

omgg

caracal stared balefully at her. heda grew increasingly more anxious. birds weren't easy. they weren't weak. she'd broken her leg going after some and now he — well he might have lost an eye. 
but it was too soon to tell, not without an expert opinion from a top medic.
"i — let's go back down the mountain. and then i can f-find help, okay?"
please don't hate me

There went their plans to abscond into the wilderness. There went their bid to escape the shackles of an ill-suited pack life. There went their marriage. All in the blink bonk of an eye.

Is it really that bad? I mean, it hurts like a bitch, but… what’re we looking at? Caracal asked in a thready voice, right before he began to laugh hysterically at his unintentional pun.

wow, he really wasn't well. heda pressed against him, trying to stem the blood with her tongue. behind the young pair, the goose lay in the snowdrifts, now starting to freeze.
"i don't — yeah, it looks bad!" she huffed in frustration when she had a spare moment. "but it's because you keep bleeding. and i don't know what i'm looking at, okay?"
her voice softened. "i'm sorry. you're — well this is not about me at all. i need to go for help, caracal," she said very seriously into his face. "so i need you to come down from the snow with me, okay? we'll find that den and i'll go look."

He flinched away with a hiss when she tried to clean some of the blood, mostly out of fear that she would touch his eye rather than because it actually hurt any more than it already did. She insisted it looked bad and she couldn’t possibly help him herself.

With no other choice, Caracal sighed, Okay, and was about to say something else when he bit his lip. Maybe… don’t go to Mereo though? I don’t want my mom to stress out. She’s pregnant. And… What about Killdeer? If you still wanna go traveling with just me, then, yeah, he finished more than a little nonsensically.

He pushed to his feet, feeling quite shaky with the pain radiating through his eyesocket. Caracal figured he could manage to walk far enough to find somewhere to shelter, though an idea hit him suddenly.

Let’s go back to that river we ran past, he said, thinking about how soothing the cold water might feel if he cleaned it there. And we’re taking this, he added, coming to a halt beside the goose and punching it right in its dead face.

she shook her head. "okay, mereo out. there's other packs around, right? i mean, yeah. i'll find them, duh." it was a poor attempt at humour that was also breathy with how nervous she was. "i still want to go traveling with you, are you sure you want to go with me?" wasn't it her fault a bird with teeth had mauled his eye? how could a trip even be on offer after that?
"to the river then," heda said weakly, smiling despite herself as he trashed the bird's face. she kicked it too and then picked it up, offering her shoulder for caracal to lean on.
the river they did not know was already named rushed past the two. huge ice chunks floated on its surface. the roar filled the air. "maybe not right up close," she mumbled into the boy's ear, unable to hear herself think. heda moved to put a stand of birch between them and the waterway.

She picked up the dead goose and they set off for the river, Caracal pondering what she’d said. Although his entire head was now throbbing and his depth perception was shot to shit, the silent walk gave him the time to come up with the perfect witty comeback.

I do want to go traveling with you, he said when they arrived, slumping near the riverside and raising his voice to be heard over the current, but I want a divorce. You’re gonna have to go back by yourself and tell them I was murdered by a goose.

It was a joke, of course, but he didn’t think he’d be traveling anywhere for at least a little while, if Heda was right about the severity of his injury. Wherever he ended up convalescing, it wouldn’t be with Atautsikut. He felt riddled with guilt and relief in equal measure, realizing he had a built-in excuse not to go back at all.

heda laughed along but the idea of being divorced was — it made her feel a kind of way she could not explain. caracal was joking and she left it at that. "i'll carry that message for sure," she said with faux somberness.
heda glanced at the river and then stood. "are you gonna be okay here? i'm gonna go look for someone now if you're okay to wait." her face was strained as she said this.

He gave her query some serious consideration. He was in a good deal of pain and he couldn’t see anything out of his left eye. Well, he supposed he could see some light and shadows, but that was it. Caracal felt a jolt of fear as he worried: what if he never regained his vision in that eye?

I think I’ll be okay. I’m gonna eat that goose’s face, for sure, he eventually replied, giving the carcass a baleful look before glancing back to Heda. I’ll wait here, he added a little obtusely, making himself as comfortable as possible as he said the words.

When she left, he would approach the water and do his best to clean it. Then he would eat. After that, he might try to find something to help with the pain. Even with the snow, there were quite a few plants growing up here. And then he would get some much-needed rest, his mind inevitably straying to @Fennec…

Thank you for this most excellent thread. <3