It was time.
The season had turned, and she'd bided her time until she'd judged it was right. Now was the time to call the pack together, for the fall þing and then - the vetrnátta blót. It was the time known as Winter-night, and the morning had dawned clear and cold, a crisp feeling like a fresh cold apple. It was a good day to set out on the hunt, to feel your blood run hot beneath your skin as the cold caressed you and ice crystals formed a rime on your pelt and muzzle. She had started some few days ago, hunting and storing what game she could take alone: hares, ptarmigan, grouse, geese, fish, even a fat beaver who ventured out to fix his dam before his pond would freeze over completely. Today with help she had taken a first-year doe elk, a leggy youth not even a year old - strangled it until it was insensible, then drugging it to keep it quiet and motionless at the meeting-place with vines twisted in a hopeless snarl around its legs and neck to prevent it from moving even in its quiescence state. With the cold snap there was little worry about the kills spoiling where she'd cached them in a cold cave in the gorge. If anything they were frozen stiff when she'd retrieved them and carried them in many trips down to their southernmost land to start to thaw somewhat. They were cached nearby with various beverages ranging from mead to wine and ciser to a new, fizzy drink that was only faintly alcoholic and tasted of ginger, awaiting the feast that would follow the blót.
But first...
Satisfied that the elk would be docile for many hours if it came down to that, she leaped with a fair amount of grace for her age to her rocky perch and lifted her head to call together the pack for the Winter-night þing. All would be required to attend, from her two faithful Stallari down to the youths of the pack, and the thrall to serve them.
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