Moonspear titles are hard ok

He climbed up from the lowlands with something clutched between his teeth; the trees were white-capped but their lower edges remained dark, and he skirted beneath them, scurried as quickly as he could over the terrain while doing his best to avoid the snow. His entire body quaked except for his head, as his neck was straining with his cargo and the tension there kept him steady. There was the white of the snow, the deep grey of wet stone, and trailing out behind him was blood—a violent red that bled to pink as it melted the ice.

As soon as he was hidden in the shadows of the trees he let that tension out of his jaws. The body dropped with a wet thump against the tree trunk, tumbled down across roots, and stagnated, steaming and warm in the dark. Tye didn't immediately set upon the fresh kill; he wanted to very badly, but he also needed to keep himself alert in case anyone came looking for him — or for it. It was the first rabbit he'd found in at least a month. Something young and stupid but fat, and fresh.

He thought of @Dragomir and how the boy had stolen from him before; he thought of @Hydra and what she would have wanted of him, but mostly Tye thought of himself: he had been working hard for these wolves and still had lost so much weight—so with a sense of greed and gluttony, he descended upon the kill and began to tear it to pieces, swallowing chunks without taking a breath at first, letting the viscera spill across the soil.

Hydra had allowed herself some temporary reprieve in the upper reaches of Moonspear; she would need to track later. The hares here were fat, and at the very least plentiful... but still, the payoff was not so great as it would be were she to find something larger, and failed hunts meant for wasted energy. For the moment she slept, covered by snow and warm for its insulation accompanied by her winter furs. Hydra was not a large wolf, being average in stature, though her winter furs certainly could fool many into thinking otherwise at first glance. 

She roused after a time, and feeling rested and energized the matriarch emerged from her winterbed. Shaking out her furs, the blue-eyed Ostrega could smell blood on the wind. Her ear flicked, and her head turned in the direction the wind came from, and without a second thought she drifted toward the scent. Already she knew the animal it belonged to, and if it had not been felled it soon would be. Her pace quickened, though only just. 

It took no time at all for her to come before Tye and his kill, though to see him with it brought no ire or aggression from her. To feed her children at all, her pack needed to eat themselves; they could not starve, and she did her best to ensure they did not. While most of what was found was offered to the young here, not all of it was; how could she rule a pack, mindless and starved? How could her subordinates fight for, or even hunt, big game, should they come across it as they had some time ago? 

Hydra was glad to see him eat. He was surviving here, and being fed here, and had also fought for them as best he could for the very same sort of animal he wished to eat now. Doing that had Hydra recognize him as packmate rather than what she had been uncertain of before. He could provide, and had—lending his fangs to their (as Hydra saw it) claim. Licking her chops, Hydra pressed her snout against the earth and wondered if anything of more substance than hare had come through in recent days.

He glut himself upon the hare until the feeling of nausea overwhelmed his strong hunger, and with a violent twist he scrambled atop the roots and ducked his head, upending his stomach. Out came the fresh meat, some chewed and some torn but all thick with bile and mixed with the blood of the animal; the steaming pile of vomit scattered from his parted lips and splattered against the soil, leaving him empty. He had eaten too much too fast and now paid the price.

The scent of bile flooded his nose; it burned in his sinuses too, and soon the boy was gagging and coughing on it, but the spasm passed quickly enough. He licked at his muzzle as he withdrew from the roots, feeling the sting on his underside from where he'd scraped his belly against the bark in his haste—and as he came down, he slipped in the exposed vicerae of the rabbit, almost falling. He was so awkward, and unclean.

The boy settled near to the dead thing but didn't try to eat any more, watching as the body cooled, feeling the rumbling of his upset stomach as if it were a voice telling him, 'You stupid piece of shit.' His ears slanted like little horns atop his head, and when he grew too tired of watching the meal he could not eat, he turned—spotting the dark silhouette of the queen suddenly. Out of habit (even if it were outdated) he ducked his head, scooted his tail closer to his haunches... omega.

Hydra had missed the way he had eaten before her arrival, but the way in which his body reacted made it obvious enough. She was reminded of Galaxy when she had eaten too much, too quick; when she had refused to eat at all. Hydra frowned at the memory, though by the time Tye looked at her there was only an apathetic look upon her features. Her features softened as he submit before her, her tail waving, and Hydra, more unkempt than usual for her recent rousing, took a few steps closer to him, her own body language casual despite the natural authority she ever maintained. Mindful to avoid the spots he had gotten sick upon, Hydra's ears twitched. Seeing a choice piece of meat there, Hydra thought to take it for herself... but waited.

You are no longer hungry? She asked, seeing that he was no longer eating. Reclining onto her haunches for a moment, Hydra moved to pick away clumps of frozen snow that clung to the tips of her fur near her foreleg.

The burn of the acid in his throat made him cough softly, which he tried to control as the queen approached. She gingerly enough avoided the mess he'd made and as she settled beside him, he found he could not raise his eyes to look at her; she was powerful, she had always been this almost-sinister figure in his life and he was deeply afraid of her, but also deeply intrigued; she was impressive for her youth and her overall prowess, but it was like being approached by a hungry lioness—if he moved too fast, or drew her attention with his eyes, would she strike? Her voice did not hold any hostility though, and eased some of his nerves.

I- hic I am. The smell of blood was so tantalizing to him now, but the sour bile in his mouth was too much. He slid down to his belly, lethargically dragging his stilted limbs through the dirt in the process, and gathered some snow to himself. It was pink with blood; that wasn't why he was drawn to it though, and as he began to snap at the pile he felt the chill of it, the strange sensation of the melt, and spat it out after. His mouth felt a little bit better after that, but he still didn't have an appetite.

I'll gather it up and cache it, he offered after a second or two of drawn silence, and finally glanced at her with some care; was she hungry? Did she want it? It was one measly hare, but if he didn't prepare it soon for burial it would go to waste, he knew that.

He responded that he was, and seemed to seek to clean his mouth with the snow near to him. Hydra observed as he did so, though he did not make a move to eat again. He offered instead to cache whatever remained of it, and she nodded. Catching his look, the Ostrega shook her head; she herself had found another stray coyote, thin though it had been, lurking near their borders and had sated herself on that. Gangly though the thing had been, she did not know hunger the way in which Tye did. 

She wished he could eat, but it seemed he had not the stomach for it. Hydra, finished with the cleaning of one leg, drawled: be sure to eat slower next time. Eat too much too soon and that will surely happen again, came her advisement. She hated to see anything wasted though; Hydra moved toward his sick and lapped at it. Best she do this so that no scavenger would be tempted to act and find the rest. Such a thing was natural, though it did not do much to fill her stomach it took away the edge of hunger that might have come otherwise. 

Finished with her own work there, she cleansed her palette similar to the way he had before withdrawing. I intend to scout the upper reaches later for larger game; would you care to join me? She invited; though they could sometimes be elusive, this time of year she recalled with great clarity the sound of horn against horn when the rams courted and tested their rivals. From it typically came a meal when one young, headstrong creature fought against the might of their strongest elder; it yielded injury. And sometimes it yielded an immediate supper, though their bounty was typically quick to find their footing upon the shale—quicker than any other species she had ever seen.

She was right, and he'd learned it the gross way. His heart was still racing, full of an ebbing adrenaline that made him fidget. So did the cold though, really, and Tye found it difficult to keep steady where he was settled. He didn't want to be weak; he didn't want to be a drain on the pack's resources nor did he want the queen to see how futile it was to keep him around. He was convinced that at some point, possibly very soon, she would see what a mistake it was to keep him around and feed him to her children.

When she next spoke it wasn't to berate him for wasting food, or to admonish him for lazing as he did. She offered to help him—or rather, offered to give him a job that would warm him up. He was on his feet in that instant, shaking at the haunches. Of course. He need not have spoken; there was a feral edge to his body but a focus to his eyes, as he was intent to serve.

Hydra did not think it futile. Not so long as he pulled what little weight he carried, which he did when push came to shove as she had seen. She saw something in him yet, and detested the lack of food to help him and the rest of them grow stronger still. It was unfortunate, but Hydra hoped to see that change... sooner rather than later, ideally. 

He was eager to assist, and Hydra was glad to see it. Bury your kill, rest if you must, and find me just before dawn. This was when her intended quarry typically became active, before the light of day truly came about—and this was when they would seek them. Perhaps their fortune might have shifted; perhaps something would be found this time.

Her instructions were beheld with such focus one might've thought Tye was speaking with a goddess; he didn't want to screw up, and he knew he needed to keep the details of her instruction fresh in his mind. It had become harder and harder lately for him to remember things; it must have been a by-product of the famine. Without fresh meat for his belly he'd never get better. He nodded as she explained what he was to do, and then once there was silence he bowed and slunk from her side, taking the initiative to begin the work quickly. He hurried about and gathered what he could—chunks mostly, the taste of each part making him nauseous over and over again, but he kept himself composed long enough to pile them together and then to begin digging. It would take time, and his thin-to-nonexistent muscle would scream to him after, but he'd dig a fresh pit for the remains.