Ash pulled away from the carcass, retreating a few paces to leave the stringy remains of the equine to the waiting carrion birds. He sat down to groom the blood from his paws, casting flickering shadows on the body behind him, then stood up to go further and find a stream for his face. The triumphant screams and caws behind him echoed on the still night as Ash wound through the shrubby trees beside an offshoot of the river. He crouched down, somewhat carefully, the way a giraffe has to gingerly place each forefoot to balance before leaning down to a waterhole. Ash was a powerful and heavy Lupe, and this part of the bank dipped down below the level of his paws a good three inches. The price Ash paid for all his brute force was a noticable lack of agility.
A sudden disturbance of the birds behind him brought his dripping muzzle skyward, ears pricking up. He caught a familair scent and understood, turning back to the remains of his hunt.
A thin ginger-coloured female was snarling and snapping left and right at the shadowy black birds that winged over the territory of the Bleeding Moon night and day, waiting for leftovers from the canine's kills. But the scavengers, having tasted flesh, were relectant to leave and some of the bolder birds were making leaps and short flights towards the female. She fended them off with snapping fangs, her temper and frustration obvious - but her ribcage was prominant, her eyes shone in the darkness with the start of fever. She needed to eat.
Ash bounded into the melee, his size scattering the birds at once. The female glanced at him, panting, then half-fell to the ground next to her prize and began devouring everything edible remaining. Ash turned his head away and folded his paws under him to wait.
Once she had gulped down several mouthfuls she looked up at the massive male, Lead Warrior of her pack, and lowered her ears, just slightly. Ash sighed softly, the sound no more adible than the the faint beating of wings waiting just beyond the line of sight.
"Dralmorde punished you by taking away your rations again, didn't he?"
He got no answer. She grabbed at a cracked bone to suck the marrow from inside.
"You can't go on like this, Gingera."
He was stating the obvious. He could see the constant lack of food was making her skinny, but lacked the training to tell she was also sickly, that her lowered immunue system had succumed to the inevitable.
"You know what Dralmorde would do to you if he could see you now. Slater would probably kill you outright."
His sister was not known for her views on forgiveness or pity.
She had finished everything she could. She stumbled up onto her paws, groaned softly, then staggered a few paces away. Ash sighed again to the sound of her retching, her shrunken stomach unable to handle the gulped meal. A waste.
When she was finished, her head hanging low from exhastion, he stood up and padded to her side. He hovered there for a second, uncertain, not touching her.
"Gingera. I'll be hunting, tomorrow night. On the lower western slopes."
He recieved no answer save but her laboured breathing as he turned to go. Eight steps away she turned towards him.
"Ash?"
He slowed, glanced back momentarily.
"Thank you."
He nodded his great skull and headed back to the dens. Gingera stumbled on until she came to a hollow under a thorn-bush, which she pushed her body into and fell instantly into a troubled, twitching sleep.
At the scene of the kill the carrion birds decended once again, screaming with anger to find only scraps of hide and bone wee all that remainded.