Face Up, Untouched

It was with a desperate scrabbling that she sank her long upper canines into the throat of an exhausted old doe she’d been tracking for hours, not giving the deer any chance to rest weary bones or fill an empty belly. The deer was lamed, which helped immensely—the laming had been Aurielle’s own work, and she’d received a hard kick in the ribs for her efforts in ambushing the deer. She’d lain in wait, downwind of the trail where she knew the doe tended to go to get water at the streams.

When the deer had drawn level with the wolf camouflaged in the snow, Aurielle had burst out with a slash of canines for the deer’s lower left haunch, damaging muscle and tendon and leaving the doe with a severe limp. That had been at early morning, and she’d been hounding the beast ever since.

She rose as the deer finished spasming, satisfaction rising in her breast as she lifted her head to howl, letting the pack know there was a fresh kill open for any who wanted a meal before it was quartered and stored away.

A familiar howl came just after, and she spun to face it, in the next breath leaping into a flat out run. As run ragged as they all were this winter, it heartened her to hear Brandr’s voice. She did hold herself to some reserve—perhaps he was merely visiting, and not rejoining.

She slowed to a more dignified trot as she came around the curve of the wall into full view, slowing to stop beside Gwen and smiling at the hunter. “It’s good to see you well, Brandr. How have you and your family been?”

Walk ---- "Speak" ---- "Hear" ---- Think