[Set before the Raid - Non-mandatory, yearlings and up only]

Regulus Anatolii Adravendi

Regulus trotted lightly over the plains, tail floating lightly at the level of his spine, following the tracks of a young bison that had wandered from the herds as it passed through the plains through the openings in the wall that had been growing since the meeting. From how deep the tracks on the left side of this beast’s traces, he guessed it was injured in some way. Perhaps heavily bruised in a spot of roughhousing and sparring with other young bison, or perhaps a happy run had turned to pain, and the bison had broken through a ground squirrel burrow close under the ground and twisted or broken a leg. Despite the painful events that had transpired, what with Marina, Creed’s death, Valor’s close call with death… he was happy. He had a consort, a mate. He wished his mother could have been there to see them, and the announcement. But perhaps she was watching over them all and already knew. He hoped his grandmother knew and approved, as well. No doubt she would have, since she was a healer of great skill. A soft sigh escaped him, then he stopped as he spotted a brown form up ahead. The young bison cow was foolishly alone, though in all likelihood, she’d been unable to keep up. She was certainly in pain, and he could see the wrongness of the twist in her right foreleg, the lower half dangling uselessly at the knee. He regarded her shrewdly from a distance, then turned and sang a hunting call to the pack. Just because she was tired and injured didn’t make the cow any less dangerous.

Mask was out himself, hunting, though it was small game he sought. Gamebirds, hares and the like. Only bachelor males or injured, though... at this time of year there were too many species raising young for him to risk the population by taking a female. He had just stashed a young gamecock at one of his caches when Regulus' call caught his attention, and he raised his head in interest. A pack-wide hunt was certainly well within his rank's purview, mandatory or no, and he wasn't going to miss the opportunity to show his dedication to his field. He took the time to carefully recover the cache with the cairn of rocks that both marked it's location and protected it from smaller predators, then moved at a lope to catch up with Regulus.

He was a bit surprised to find, as he came into sight of the eye-catching alpha, that he was the only one to have appeared just yet. He paused gracefully to nod greeting to the larger male, then let his gaze be drawn to the dark form that had prompted the hunt. A bison heifer, one hefty foreleg clearly twisted and useless. Still not an easy hunt, not with her bulk and her horns, but... more certain than trying to cut her from the herd and chase her to a standstill. But even with Regulus' own size, two wolves alone could not hope to take down a bison safely. Yet nor could they leave her to suffer and die - that was simply poor stewardship of the herds that called the plains home, and a waste of a great deal of meat that could go towards feeding the pack's multitude of pups. He supposed they would simply have to wait, and hope that more of the pack finally appeared.