Jaden looked up and grinned at the sky. Today is another wonderful day in Ichika he thought before bringing his attention back to the deer sprawled out before him. Through its neck was a razor sharp arrow. Crimson nearly the same color of the Shishen’s belly bled into a glorious pool on the green of Dahlia Valley. The arrow shaft was bathed in gore. As Jaden cranked it from the dead animal a few flecks of blood spattered invisibly onto his dark fur. The smell was tempting and seemed to utterly fill every molecule of air around the man but he was not hungry in the least. Having already done his own personal hunting with Verloren a little while before, he was now completing his pack “chores”, though he would never call them that, while the younger tundra wolf decorated her little room in their home off the west of New Glasgow. She had seemed excited to have a place to call hers and would undoubtedly fill it with things to chew and small trophies just as a puppy would do in her mother’s den.

Jaden was not a mother. It was plain and simple. However, he was beginning to care for the little wolfess very much. She had nobody and neither did he. Similarly tortured souls coexisting in the same pack had to meet eventually. Jaden didn’t mind having to help her along in her puppy-hood. The poor girl was grappling with a speech barrier and learning lessons many pups learned at a much earlier age than she was now. His life seemed simple compared to the changes she must have been going through.

But the pup was bright and she was determined. So long as she didn’t go off and get herself lost exploring again, she’d be just fine alone while the Shishen hunted for Ichika. As thoughts of little Lost passed through Jaden’s pleasant disposition, he had shifted and begun to drag the large deer out of the direct light in Dahlia Valley. He pulled and jerked the carcass over shrubbery and around trees leaving a neat trail of blood until he was a decent distance from the grasses.

Once his large paws found soft, open ground he dropped the deer and began to dig. Digging a hole large enough to encompass the entire deer would take him the better part of an hour alone, but that didn’t bother the brute. This wasn’t his first cache of deer he’d buried and it would surly not be his last. During the move from the Dahlia de Mai lands to Ichika the pack had used most of its food stores and left behind what they didn’t. If they were to be ready for a drought or a hard winter this year, should they be struck by such misfortune, the lead hunter would have to work day in and day out, when he wasn’t training with his young companion, on caches all over the land so there would be enough to sustain the large wolf pack for any reasonable amount of time. It was a big job but he was determined. He began to think of all the reasons why Ichika was so great to pass by the time. There was a plentiful commodity of positive for him to mull over as he diligently worked the soft earth.

Jaden does. "Jaden speaks." Jaden thinks.

Digging was hard work. This was the first time Jaden had decided to try it in his optime form and it was not going well, but there was progress. He sat back on his knees after a time of strain and looked down at his work. It was just taking too long. He decided lupus paws did better and that he should probably shift.

But before he could begin the change, steps came wandering through the forest. The Shishen stood and turned to the she-wolf who appeared to be following the blood trail left by his handy work. He brushed debris from his fur as she introduced herself. Namaste, breathed Jaden in response and bowed respectfully. He found it odd that no one seemed to use the greeting system set by Nayru but him. Another few meetings without its presents and he would renounce it. Perhaps he would inquire about it to the Alphaess next time he saw her. My name is Jaden Ohanzee. It’s nice to meet you, he said sincerely. Then he looked over his shoulder at the deer laying still in the forest duff. Ah, yes. I should have figured someone might come to the smell of food. I’m building caches of food around Ichika in case we have a bad winter. We have next to nothing saved so there are still many to make.

Eclipse was young and pretty; a fine Ichikan pup just like Verloren but maybe a little older. It was hard to tell since little Lost was not a luperci. He then realized that she may have come after food with a hungry belly. It would be neglect of his duties as the pack hunter to let her leave in such a state or deny her what he had killed. But, If you are hungry, Eclipse, you are free to take this deer. I can kill another… or if you’d like to stay I could help you kill another? He motioned with a shrug to the bow and quiver of arrows on his back.

Jaden does. "Jaden speaks." Jaden thinks.