Mæva pulled her hind left paw free of the muck and scrambled back onto the shore beneath a large willow tree. In her jaws was neck of a beaver which she pulled onto the shore. It was considerably heavy for its size but well worth the effort as it was a new prey and one she couldn't wait to try. She'd found the creature stuck in a tangle of mud and tree limbs, pinned beneath a large oak branch. It'd put up a hell of a fight but in the end she was able to claim victory. The beaver had an interesting pelt, surprisingly thick and she worked her jaws down the middle of the creatures belly, pulling the skin back as she went.

After pulling the skin back form the belly she sniffed lightly at the meat. It had a distinct scent and she reached in with her mouth to pull a strips from the belly to dry. If this dried well maybe she could have some beaver meat for a snack to. Where to dry it though… she looked around her and spied one of the willows roots that rose up above the ground before diving back in. That would do. She draped the piece of meat over it, simply wanting to test a few pieces.

Aslatiel had been spending a lot of time on her own lately. Her brother's had their hobbies and whatnot and she had hers at night under the stars. She missed killing and tried to wake early enough to have daylight hours in which to do so. Today was one of those days. With the stars being covered by clouds the night before, she'd gotten a bit more sleep than she usually did. So, when morning came, she made her way out to the willow forest to see what she could find. The scent of blood struck her nares and dark ears perked with interest. The cream colored girl adjusted her course to move in that direction. Surprisingly, she came upon the form of another young girl. Interesting. Aslatiel had never met another girl around her age and really, she wasn't sure that she wanted to. Ah, but the scent of blood and the sound of peeling flesh... "I could help you skin that if you'd like." Asla had her fancy kitten claws that made skinning and tearing oh so easy. As she waited for the girl to answer, the slender little fae leaned against one of the trees, watching the other wolf. "Speech"

Mæva worked her teeth onto one side of the split in the skin over the belly and she pulled back a bit farther, intent not only in baring more of the meat but also slowly skinning the animal. Though as she worked her way farther up along the animal she came to it's short little legs. Oh poo… how was she going to do this?

Mæva's ears flicked forward at the sound of movement swiftly followed by a voice. She looked up to see a pretty girl about her own age. She grinned. "Sure! Would you want some of the meat as payment for the help? I am trying to dry some of it to experiment but I don't need to dry all of it." As if to demonstrate she reached down onto the upper belly, pulling another piece and trotting over to the root she was currently adorning with meat. Geira peeked up over root, the caracals large ears twitching for a moment before she sank back down. Mæva ignored the cat.

"My name is Mæva by the way. Do you know Sirius? You smell like you're from the same pack."

The girl invited her over to help and Asla padded forward. "I'd be glad to help." Seating herself, the cream and grey child began pulling the hide away from the body. Using her sharp cat claws, she severed the connective tissue, working quickly. She'd done this many times by now. The wolf introduced herself as Maeva and Asla responded in kind. "I'm Aslatiel Fatalis." And when Maeva asked if she knew Sirius, the tiny wolf chuckled. "Sirius is my father." It seemed that everyone knew the giant warlord. He was much more social than she was, that was for sure. Seeing that Maeva was drying the meat, she tilted her head slightly. "That will take a long time to dry. My aunt Iolaire uses fire to dry her meat. I suppose if you don't have fire... sitting it in the sun might help." As she waited for the beaver to be flipped so she could continue skinning it, Asla prodded at the dead creature. "My brother and I killed one of these a few weeks ago." She didn't elaborate on what they'd done to it, but ah, she remembered. "Speech"

Mæva continued to work on the main section of hide before going back to the front paws and nibbling them off. She worked the bones to the back of her mouth, her molars crushing the bone so she could pull off the feet. She paused as she watched Aslatiel work, her claws easily cutting through tissue. "Wow, your claws are so cool." Her's were much duller in comparison. It seemed Asla was also one of Sirius' children. Boy he sure had a lot of kids, not that she could say much. She had quite a few siblings herself.

Mæva peeled a few more pieces of meat and moved them over to the rocks. Her ears perked up as the younger wolf mentioned drying the meat with a fire. She nodded. "Yes, I'm hoping the sun will help dry these. I thought of a fire but I wasn't sure if that would be dangerous so close to the trees. What do you think?" She'd be up for building a fire. "Do you know a wolf named Resin? She mentioned that her daughter dried meat by using fire. I met her on the obsidian beach."

Using her claws, Aslatiel also peeled strips of skin from the carcass. She enjoyed the sound of ripping flesh and, as she pulled and sliced, she tipped her head back and forth to the beat of some unheard tune. Maeva complimented her claws and Asla held them up, showing how they could extend and retract like a cats with the flexing of her toes. "Thank you. My dad has claws like these as well, so I guess I got them from him." Her brothers were much more unique, but she was content with her kitten claws. Having stacked a pile of meat, the cream and grey girl also began taking them over to sit them in the sun. Her comment about fire didn't seem to take the other girl by surprise and she found out why a moment later. Maeva had met Resin. "Resin is my grandma. As for the fire, at home we have a big fire surrounded by rocks. Maybe if we surrounded it with rocks, it wouldn't hurt the trees? It doesn't have to be a big fire." Asla didn't know how to make fire, but she wouldn't mind helping to build a pit for one. "Speech"

Aslatiel continued snipping the skin off the beaver. Mæva helped by taking part of the hide in her teeth and pulling back as the younger girl snipped at the hide with her claws. However, it was hard to talk with a mouth full of beaver so she dropped the hide. She was finding herself more envious of the other girls claws. But there wasn't really anything she could do about it unless there was a way to rig such claws onto her own paws, maybe from a bear or mountain lion. She'd have to ask Lini what his thoughts were.

Mæva cocked her head to the side as Aslatiel stated that Resin was her grandma. So Resin was her grandma and Sirius was her father? Mæva worked to consider all these relationships. She nodded quickly though at the mention of rocks. "Yea, I think so too. Let's see what we can find." She bounced up onto her paws and trotted around looking for rocks. She found a few, working her paws into the dirt until she freed a few rocks which she rolled to a flat area, working to make a small boundary for the fire. "We can put the meat on these rocks maybe."

With the skin fully removed, Aslatiel peeled away strips of meat, trying to make them as even as possible. She couldn't help but steal a bite here and there when a piece was shredded badly. The price for her services, she decided. Plus little slivers of meat were going to dry differently than the rest, right? Wiping her claws off in the grass, Aslatiel moved forward to help Maeva. With her paws, she dug away the grass from the earth, leaving only dirt in the semblance of a circle. She then helped the other girl roll rocks forward so that they could line the grassless place that she'd just created. Maeva suggested that they put the meat on the rocks and Asla nodded in agreement. "It makes sense." Now they just needed wood for the fire. And... something to make fire with. She'd let Maeva figure out that part. In the mean time, Asla padded around the wood looking for branches that had dried or trees that were dead. Piece by piece she brought things back to feed to their fire. "Speech"

Mæva finished moving the rocks into place then howled for Lini. He was much swifter at starting fires and it would take them a bit to get al the sticks and what not gathered. Hopefully they'd be ready to go by the time he arrived. She set out on a different path from Aslatiel, seeking to cover some different ground and widen their search. She found a few small branches that had been downed in the storm and she quickly picked them up and trotted back to the fire ring. Ok, they'd need more than that. She headed out again and trip by trip she had a small supply of wood.

At that moment Lini arrived, a scrap of deer hide in his paws that held his various treasures. "What, what's the matter? I was in the middle of collecting some very nice rocks."

"I need your help starting a fire. To you have your fire rocks with you?" The lemur hopped down next to Mæva and opened his deer hide, sorting through rocks and shells and nuts and other various odds and ends as he looked for his flint and metal."

Little by little Aslatiel amassed a pile of sticks and chunks of dried wood that had drifted down the little streams to be tossed aside. It wasn't much, but it would have to do. Stacking the wood beside the fire pit, she watched as a little creature came at Maeva's call. Her head tilted slightly. She'd never seen such a creature before and, before she could help herself, wondered what it tasted like and what it looked like inside. It was obviously her companion, so she couldn't eat it. Pity.

Getting a little bored, Aslatiel patrolled around the area, waiting for a fire to be lit. There wasn't much else for her to do here. The corpse had been stripped of meat and skin. Perhaps she'd take the tail and put it in her parents bed as a prank. Wouldn't that be funny. "Could I have the tail, do you think?" She didn't want anything else for her time. Just the tail for a bit of a laugh.

Lini found his strikers and quickly got a fire going. Mæva grinned, glad to have him back with her. While she could handle striking flint against the rocks she still wasn't very good at it and it would take her a lot longer than it did for him. Mæva started moving the meat onto the rocks around the fire, pausing as Aslatiel asked for the tail. Mæva grinned and nodded. "Sure! I don't really know what I would do with it and I really do appreciate all your help." She wondered what the girl would do with the tail but decided not to pry too much. Meat and hides was all she was really interested in herself.