After meeting the massive cat that thankfully wasn't going to eat him now that they successfully killed that polar bear, Grimshaw offered to help build a trap so that she could have another source of food. Since she was so large, Grim could only imagine what it would take to feed her and bears weren't walking around like the rabbits were. With a pitfall in mind, Grimshaw moved around the woods in search of a place worthy enough of building it. Far enough away from her herbivore companions that he questioned, but close enough that she wouldn't be traveling to the ends of the earth for a meal. Once built, all she would need to do is reset the trap. Anything from bears to moose could fall in and she'd be set for her meal. The real challenge was keeping her hoofed friends away from the trap. Hopefully they're weren't as ignorant as the hoofed animal he ate for breakfast.

When a location was found, Grimshaw pointed to a collection of fallen trees and branches. "We need to take a few of those, dig a hole, and stick them in there. Something falls in and dies, or is at least too wounded to get back out. You cover it so they don't see it coming, okay? Don't let your friends near it." He added, moving over towards the fallen trees. "You start digging a hole, I'll get the sticks over." She seemed better suited for digging, but if he were being honest he wasn't sure about getting the trees over yet.

"Speech."

The wolf was insistent on catching something aside from the bear. Taiga merely blinked at him at first, but shrugged and followed along. He clearly had a plan and, truthfully she preferred hoofed food over clawed food. So she went along, keeping pace with the smaller predator. As they moved, he was clearly looking for a particular place. In time, he found it.

Instructions were given and Taiga got a crude idea of what the wolf had in store. He left her to the task of digging and the feline wrinkled her pretty pink nose at first. She didn't want to get dirty, but her much larger paws would make shorter work of digging, she imagined. If they were putting spikes in the pit, it wouldn't have to be terrible deep now would it?

Getting to work, Taiga began to dig in the area that the wolf had pointed out. As she dug, the woman's claret gaze moved to the wolf. "This had better work," she said. There wasn't much threat in the words. She wouldn't eat the wolf either way. He'd spoken to her and so he'd become more than just predator or prey. He'd taken on a personality. Taiga didn't want to get this filthy for no reason though, and so his trap had better work.

Whether or not the big cat had faith in him was neither here nor there. He would never understand the friendship with hoofed animals, but he wouldn't begin to question and judge the giant cat for doing so. He'd leave his questions to himself and worry about himself. If helping this big cat build a trap she didn't know she wanted or needed then perhaps it would keep himself or even the whole Armada safe from her should something go awry, or perhaps they could rely on her help someday. It wasn't a pressuring thought, and lucky for the cat he needed something to do anyway. Better than running home to curl up with Malachai anyway, especially if it brought him some good fortune in the future.

Approaching the sticks, he settled with just using his own strength to being dragging them over one by one. Thankfully they wouldn't need many to get the job done, so he settled with the amount it took before he got too tired and it seemed to be plenty based on the size of the hole she had been digging, which looked plenty big enough to him. "There's no reason it shouldn't, it will just be a waiting game. Even if the stakes don't work at killing or even wounding the animal, it will be trapped." He was a little out of breath, but nothing a good sit wouldn't do. Relaxing near the edge of the hole she'd been digging, he assessed it's size. "That should be deep enough. We just need to carve the sharp ends on the sticks and drive them into the ground. I have a knife, so I can sharpen them if you think you can dig them into the dirt?"

"Speech."

Taiga continued to dig, dirt mucking up her claws and she grumbled in distaste as the hole widened and widened, deepened and deepened. The giant cat lost herself in her work and was only brought back to the present by the voice of the wolf, telling her that the pit was deep enough. The pure white of her underside was marred with muck and mud and as she looked down at it, she gave an irritated scoff. She deserved a long bath after this.

Powerful legs propelled the woman from the pit and she landed agilely on the ground near the wolf. He indicated the saplings that he'd been collecting and spoke of sharpening the points with a knife. Taking up one of the poles, Taiga unsheathed her massive claws and swiped at the edge, sheering off some of the wood. Not as uniform as whittling away with a knife, but it was still pointy.

Back down in the hole, Taiga began pushing the stakes into the ground. Her stomach growled loudly. She was more than ready for lunch.

Their work was mostly quiet, aside from Grimshaw pointing at things to ask for them or to tell her this or that stake was ready for the pit. She made quick work of sharpening the stakes and he quickly wondered why he even wanted to help her at all. Had he just given her the idea and plans, she would've made short work of this all on her own. Meanwhile, it would've taken him the better part of the day to dig a hole as quickly as she had, not to mention the collection of branches, sharpening the branches, and then placing the branches.

As he sharpened branches, he pushed them over to the pit so that she could reach them and bury them into the dirt pointy end up. Once his work on the branches was done, he moved over to the edge and studied it for a moment before finalizing it with a nod. "This should work just fine. A few more branches, then we can either leave it here and wait or we can chase some animals near it in hopes one will fall in." He couldn't argue that he was getting a bit hungry too, but his lunch would probably have to be to-go at this point. If he stayed for the meal, it'd be quite late by the time he got home.

"Speech."

Once the stakes were lodged solidly in the bottom of the pit, Taiga surveyed the work that had been done. The hole was dug, the stakes were pointy, they weren't going anywhere. The only thing that needed to be done was some cleanup. The big cat moved around the pit, using her wide, snowshoe paws to push chunks of earth back into the pit. A big, dark hole in the landscape was obvious, so it was best to clean the area around it as best as possible.

Again ears swiveled as the wolf spoke. Leave the pit and hope for the best or chase things into it? The cat's nose wrinkled. "Oh no. We did all of this work. We're eating now." With a pull of her blocky skull, she motioned for the wolf to follow. Her stomach growled loudly; loud enough for the canine to hear. Already she was scenting for nearby prey.

Grimshaw chuckled briefly at her response and moved to stand. Grabbing a few large leaves from a nearby bush, he covered the pitfall as nonchalantly as he could and quickly set off in search of a trail for something in the woods. After a few moments of tracking, he found the scent of a reindeer and soon the prints in the dirt. He waved Taiga over with a motion of his head and spoke quietly. "There's at least one reindeer nearby, maybe the whole herd." He smiled briefly before continuing to hunt for the reindeer.

After some moments, the herd was located. It wasn't a huge herd and mostly they were scattered among the trees. One, however, was standing a bit off from the most of the group and he targeted that one. It seemed to be the easiest to herd back in the direction of the trap anyway, and trying to wrangle more of this herd would be difficult in the trees. They'd scatter and probably still only get one catch, so may as well focus all of their attention on that one animal instead.

"There, we can chase that one back. If they don't scatter too much, maybe you'll get lucky and they'll start trapping themselves." It would be a nice thought, to have a trap with a constant supply of dumb animals falling in. Natural selection at it's finest.

"Speech."

After the wolf placed leaves and debris atop the pit to shield it from immediate view, the pair were off in search of prey. The wolf spoke of reindeer and Taiga had already smelled them. Their scat and prints were all over this place. As they moved, a single deer came into view, but that wasn't enough for the mighty feline. In her mind, the more deer, the more chances of something falling into the pit. Casting her ruby gaze to the wolf, she spoke. "Just stay here and watch out."

Taiga didn't care about catching more than one. Nor did she care about catching any here tomorrow or the day after. The 'herd' traveled, and so they would be far away from the pit the very next day. The lioness was intent on eating now and that was all that mattered.

Skirting through the trees, Taiga made her way behind the herd much more quietly than an animal her size had any right of being. Once there, she watched the herd until most of them were pointed in the direction of the pit. Then, inhaling deeply, the cave lioness released an earth shattering roar that sent the ungulates instantly fleeing for their lives. With a soft laugh of pleasure, Taiga rushed out behind them. Rush probably wasn't the right word. She languidly loped, knowing that they were all pointing in the direction of the pit. If they didn't catch one, she'd be surprised.

Grimshaw's ears pinned back when she told him to stay and his lips pursed, watching her walk off with narrowed eyes. Fine, then. he thought. Do it yourself. His eyes rolled briefly, but once her roar sent the herd running he was quick to jump out of the way before being trampled. This was what he wanted to avoid, a terrified herd running around rampant and probably all of them missing the hole. If they had just herded one, or even two or three, in the right direction their chances would be much higher.

As the herd moved, Grim picked up a pace near the side to make sure they didn't veer off too far away from the direction of the pit. He couldn't tell where the leading male was in the herd at this moment, but he knew that if a good amount started to change direction, the whole herd could as well and especially if the buck was around here. He snapped at the ankles of the reindeer to make sure they'd keep over, but he couldn't help but be slightly worried about the outcome of this.

"Speech."

The reindeer all ran in mostly the same direction. Taiga hoped that the wolf had enough sense to hide behind something when he saw them all running in his direction. The behemoth of a feline loped along behind them, not too worried about the ones that broke off. There were still a fair amount of deer running towards the pit.

As Taiga caught up, she could see the worry on the wolf's face. She rarely had issues with catching prey, but perhaps he did. That was the only real reason that he'd have such a sour look on his face, she surmised. With a sigh, she focused on their task. With the wolf on one side and the lioness on the other, it would be easier to funnel the herd towards the pit.

A big male broke off and Taiga was quick to throw on some speed, herding it back in with the rest of the group with a snarl and a swipe. At this rate, she could have simply caught one of the deer without the pit, but this was a learning experience. If she ever had to dig a pit for some reason, now she knew how to do it.

Grimshaw was only worried that with so many reindeer running towards the pit, they wouldn't be able to funnel them correctly in the right direction so their efforts were more chance than he'd like to expect. However, this trap wasn't for him and the future meals would be either. Just this one meal, and he supposed if he wanted enough for the journey home then they would need to trap more than one. The lioness did seem like she'd like to eat more than one, anyway, or just wanted to be prepared for it.

With the size of the herd and the sound of their running, he didn't know that Taiga had broken off with a runaway buck. Though it didn't seem to change much since the herd continued to easily move towards the pitfall. He knew then that some had fallen in when the herd suddenly parted and a few distressed cries called out. Grimshaw let the remaining deer figure their way around the pit, knowing now that with some of their herd down there and the covering removed, they couldn't be fooled into falling in now.

"Speech."

The terrified, pain filled screams of the rushing ungulates proved that the pit had worked on at least one of them. Taiga had herded the buck back so that the does didn't follow him, but now she let them all scatter. They could do whatever in the hell they wanted. She was ready to eat.

The wolf arrived at the pit first and Taiga arrived soon after. Looking down inside, she saw two nice sized reindeer impaled on the spikes. One was already dead, the other was almost there and was kicking feebly. The feline's brow furrowed. The prey was down in a stabby pit... how did you get them out without stabbing yourself?

Crouching down at the edge of the pit, the lioness reached down, claws extended. It took her a few tries to get a strong hold, but she latched into the dead reindeer and pulled it out of the pit. One of the stakes came up with it, but she didn't care. Tossing the kill on the ground, she moved to the other side of the pit to do the same to the reindeer that had just stopped kicking. With both of their kills safely out of the pit and ready to eat, the felines tail lashed back and forth happily. "Well done," she purred.

Still filthy from digging the pit, the cave lioness settled down on her belly and began her meal. If she didn't quiet her loud stomach, it was going to drive her crazy.

With two reindeers captured, Grimshaw decided that it would be much better to eat here and carry back anything else he wanted to take versus just not eating here. He was hungry and a lot of meat would go to waste, or to the lion, if he didn't eat. Besides, he kind of wanted the pelt and that alone would be heavy.

As she heaved the animals out of the pit, his stomach growled and he made quick work of digging his fangs in to the ungulate. Though he wasn't allowed to enjoy his meal for long as he heard something moving in the trees surrounding them. The fur on the back of his neck raised and his silver eyes looked around quickly until he found a pair of golden eyes staring back at him. Spotted, the feline moved from the foliage and began to stalk towards him and his kill. To his surprise, a second one followed a moment after the first cat had exited. Grimshaw snarled and reached towards his bracers for his knife, gripping it tightly between his teeth as he growled, warning the felines to back off.

"Speech."