cold dawg sparkle dawg

Ronan had been following the trail of an infected bear, intent on putting the thing out of its misery. It'd been wandering around aimlessly for days, torn between its natural instincts to find somewhere safe to hibernate for the winter and the unnatural desire to further spread the infection. Ronan despite it all felt bad for the thing, because it was putting up a damn good fight even if it was only prolonging the inevitable.

The tracks led him to the far north; to a hole in the ice. It was uneven with cracks webbing out from the edges; no signs of struggle or claw marks to suggest the bear had seen or heard it coming. One moment the bear had been standing on what appeared to be solid, stable ice and the next it was gone. A merciful enough end, he supposed.

Shifting his weight, Ronan's ears flicked to the sides, listening very carefully. Though Ronan was not nearly as heavy as a fully grown grizzly, he was suddenly very aware of his heft; that if he didn't step carefully things could go from kinda shit, to the worst very quickly.