Horizon Ridge Oversleepers international

Having spent the past ten days or so chilling on the ridge, Chipmunk was living large. Well, not really. It sucked having to work so hard for her all her own food, not to mention the constant pissing on things. At first, it had been kinda fun, but now it was just so boring. Not only that, but she was tired. Chipmunk just wasn't cut out for this kind of work. Let's be real, Chip is a lazy piece of garbage.

Today, she decided to give up on all that and laze about. Taking one day off wouldn't be so bad, right? It wouldn't, except that she was hungry. Groaning, Chip rolled to her feet, half-wishing she was back with Vengeance (and completely unaware that he was dead) and company. But not wishing it so much that she was going to go back there. They were a real drag.

She threaded south along the coastline for what felt like weeks, winter’s teeth at her back. The solitude was hard; she even sort of missed all the arguing. It was all she’d ever known, after all. But Harps didn’t turn back, not even when she missed her older sister so badly that it felt like a knife to the gut. Lele hadn’t wanted to leave dad and Spur, despite everything, but at least she’d taught Harps how to catch small game. Despite the season, the yearling never went particularly hungry.

Harps arrived in the Teekon Wilds without fanfare or any particular knowledge of her whereabouts. The wind-whipped coastline looked much the same as always as she kept going, not sure what she was looking for or if she would ever stop. Of course, she paused often to hunt or rest, though never for very long. There was an itch beneath her skin, some invisible force pushing her further and further from her past, toward an unknown future.

Presently, she trotted beneath the shadow of towering slab of rock, partially knocked down. Harps slowed and stopped, peering at it and wondering what could’ve destroyed a mountain, even a small one like this. Her copper eyes slipped back and forth as if looking for some sort of explanation, then they roved back up to the felled ridge. Harps had seen many landmarks on her travels, yet none had intrigued her like this.

She picked her way toward it, hesitated, then began to climb. Harps had been raised a nomad. Between that and her awful mother, she was made of tougher stuff than the average yearling. But she only made it halfway up the rocky slope before her muscles begged for a respite. She plopped onto her haunches, tongue lolling as she panted, shifting slightly to turn her back to the icy sea wind.

Chip picked her way across the ridge, avoiding the crumbled parts. Those parts didn't look very safe, so she liked to pretend they didn't exist at all. She spotted some vultures circling overhead more inland, so Chipmunk made her way there. It wouldn't be the first time she'd eaten carrion, and it certainly wouldn't be the last. She had no qualms eating things that had either died on their own or been killed by some other predator. Food was food when it came down to it.

Using the circling birds as her guide, she eventually found what she was looking for. A barely-breathing old buck, down on its luck. And Chip didn't give a fuck... about eating it while it was still barely alive. Ruthlessly, she began to rip at its flesh, starting with the belly. Its breath came faster, but it was too far gone to do more than a few feeble movements before it finally succumbed to the final part of the circle of life.

There were a few crows already lined up just behind Chip, and she had to chase them off a few times to make sure they wouldn't get at her meal. She knew that other scavengers would be drawn to this food, too, so she wanted to fill her belly as quickly as possible before she was forced to leave it behind.

He picked his way through the rubble, his muscles used to this level of strain, but the unfamiliar pull of muscle on scar tissue causing him to grit his teeth. He needed to get himself back into condition. "Death. Before. Surrender." He grunted to himself, Nix's mantras urging him onward. "No submission. No weaknesses. Kill or be-" he grunted as a loose chunk of stone gave way under his paw and he struggled a moment before heaving himself into a ledge. 
The sound of agressive cawing got his attention and he looked up at the crest of the ridge, about 20 yards away. Curious, he hoisted himself towards the gathering birds.

Her muscles ticked like a cooling engine as she rested there, catching her wind. A few minutes into her respite, she noticed some large birds circling overhead. Her copper eyes tracked their effortless movements as they drifted on the air currents. Her gaze dropped when a flock of smaller birds burst into flight a lot closer at hand: on the other side of the ridge. Even from a distance, she could hear their indignant caws! of protest.

Intrigued by this, Harps sprang back onto all fours and began to pick her way toward the source of the disturbance. When she came upon a she-wolf standing near a buck’s carcass, Harps drew up short, a foreleg dangling in midair. Her eyes cut sideways when she saw a small, dark male in her peripheral vision. Licking her chops nervously, she lowered her tail and began backing away from the scene. Much as she would’ve loved to feed on the dead (or dying?) deer, she didn’t want to press her luck against two strange wolves.

Chip out!

The first to approach her was a dark male, and Chip paused mid-bite to stare at him. Only a few seconds went by before another wolf approached—this one an agouti female. Outnumbered, and (wrongly) figuring they were working together, Chip fled the scene immediately, not looking back to see what was going on with the other two. She did, however, manage to hang on to the bite, and she would take it away to another location and scarf the rest of it down there. A single crow followed her, and she would lose the last little bit of her food to it.

Memory looked up, Mildly surprised by the females fleeing form. To be fair he was a rather intimidating wolf. 
he waded through the screeching, swooping cacophony to the deer, who was still moaning and occasionally kicking. 
"Barbarian. At least finish your kill." He snorted, cocking his leg to piss near the kill, marking it as his. He lowered his head and quickly dispatched the suffering beast, before sensing the presence of a third wolf. "Well?" He growled. "Dont skulk about like a coyote. If you're hungry, try your luck."

Her ears pressed forward when one of the two immediately fled. Harps glanced after her, though her gaze moved warily to the remaining wolf, tracking his movements as he moved closer to the unfortunate deer and urinated on it before putting it out of its misery. She started when he looked at her afterward, directly addressing her.

He didn’t invite her to eat alongside him. He said, ”Try your luck.” Harps didn’t like the sound of that. He wasn’t particularly large, though he was heavily scarred, which seemed to say “fighter” to Harps. She was a scrappy young thing herself, yet she was no warrior. She didn’t have the experience or the skills. And while she fancied herself resourceful, she didn’t consider herself particularly daring or brave.

But it was so much food and there was no possible way he could eat it all. So the yearling shook her head and withdrew, though didn’t stray too far. She didn’t even bother hiding herself. She simply hung back, waiting for the stranger to take his fill and inevitably abandon the carcass.

He kept a close eye on the female, bending to eat- the other female hadn't even taken the best part and soon he was neck deep in entrails. 
He looked up at the lurking female once again, shaking his pelt out and flinging blood everywhere. He turned to her and spoke, slightly irritated. 
" Are you an overgrown fox? Or perhaps an oddly colored coyote? Or perhaps...a Spineless Omega." He growled, taking a step towards her.

When he finished eating, Harps tensed, waiting for him to depart. Instead, he looked at her and jeered at her. She blinked her copper eyes, a little taken aback by the unnecessary aggression. But growing up with Spur had given her quite the thick skin, so his words didn’t get a rise out of her. She did feel a little flighty in the face of his threatening posture and tone—and she would take off if pushed—but she stood her ground momentarily.

”No, I’m none of those things. I’m just hungry and waiting my turn. There’s plenty left,” Harps pointed out to him, her voice mostly even but with a slight note of pleading she couldn’t quite help.

He smirked at her reply. "Go ahead. Take it, then." He replied, his voice velvet smooth. "Or are you afraid?" 
He moved aside slightly, his eyes fixed on her, daring her to move.

He continued to goad her and Harps realized this was a waste of time. Ignoring his jabs, she turned tail and trotted away. Maybe she would stop by later and see if he’d gone, then feed. Or perhaps she would find another opportunity instead. The yearling was lucky: she wasn’t desperate and didn’t have to take unnecessary risks to obtain meat.