I Can Still Hear it Mooing

Gryphon's fancy new stiff-legged gait, courtesy of the volcano leaving him trapped with a broken leg beneath debris for the better part of a week before he'd painstakingly dug himself free too late to have the strength to find help to set the bone straight, carried him over the prairie in a painful hobble. His back left leg hadn't every healed properly so the paw was set somewhat at a right angle to where it should have been, and damage to the hip made the joint stiff and difficult as well. Mostly he'd resorted to snares to keep himself fed, which weren't particularly his specialty before he had gotten injured, but he'd certainly made himself get good at it since. He hadn't tried to return to Winterfell even after he'd healed, though many nights he lay awake worrying about his mother, about his brother, and his brother's children. He stayed away not because he didn't want to be near them, but because he refused to saddle them with a cripple. They undoubtedly had good standing in the pack. He wouldn't jeopardize that because he wasn't ever going to be able to be a pack hunter again. He was a three-legged burden with emotional scars who was better off alone and lonely than dragging his family down with him.

Gryphon had been tracking a buffalo herd as it moved through the prairie. He couldn't take down more than a calf alone, but accidents happened even to the mammoth creatures and he'd been able to do some scavenging when the opportunity presented itself. But as if the gloomy recounting of his woes had conjured him, there was the black and white form of one of Dragon's children, the little boy who least resembled him and Dragon. Not that he was a little boy anymore. He'd grown up.

Gryphon recognized the wolf chattering at his nephew about finding other hunters, and scowled darkly. One of Valentine Imperialis's kids, the one he'd seen murder slaver pups. Gryphon's hackles bristled and a silent snarl creased his muzzle as he approached, but his aching stomach gave him an equally fierce reminder that he hadn't eaten in... well, a while, since something had been robbing his snares before he could get to them lately, and he had to swallow painfully to clear his mouth of the sudden surge of saliva at the thought of fresh buffalo. "I will help you," he spoke as he limped up, his voice gravelly from disuse. It was infuriatingly humiliating to reveal his disabled body to his nephew, but the fact was that if he didn't eat he would die, and he wasn't ready to give up yet. With a few healthy wolves to do the bulk of the work he should be able to contribute enough for them to take down a bison together, and he could finally eat again. It would be worth the pain his crippled leg would give him for the next week, to eat. And the fury that the very thought of working alongside Valentine's son. This time.

Word Count: 511
Total Word Count: 1,085