Blah post. Sorry for taking so long! / +357
The antler had to have belonged to a king.
Blinking and staring at the many-pointed thing, Vesper couldn’t help but imagine the beast that had held it up a season past. The neck muscles for the antler and its twin alone made her mouth water, and she had to swallow before trotting closer to sniff. The brow tine near the base of the cast-off antler was chipped, as were a few of the other points, but she wasn’t sure if that was a result of being locked in battle or the wear from other animals investigating it after it was dropped in the winter months.
She wondered briefly if the deer was still around, wandering through the snowy forest and browsing for sustenance now that the vegetation had died. If not, she supposed, its carcass would have been devoured long ago. But the single antler remained, lying in the snow, and with a decisive flick of her tail, the she-yote dipped her head to grab it. Her feral mind saw it as a prize to chew on, while the slightly more civilized part saw it more as a potential decoration, a gift that she could give to one of her comrades.
Heading back to Inferni was a good idea; she’d already gathered what information she could around the north and the east, and she missed the familiar scents of the territory. She would need to report to Ezekiel, and then maybe walk amongst the others in the Lumen tier to see if they needed any direction—the part of her job that she was least confident about. Patrolling could wait until the night; until then, she might pester Helotes or visit Myrika in her lonely village, as if she’d ever be able to work up the nerve.
She snorted at that, mouth clamped around the main offshoot of the antler, attempting to tug it through the snow. She ached for wolf jaws right now; as it was, she tugged and tugged, four paws moving slowly backwards as she headed toward the clan. The thought didn’t cross her mind that carrying the thing in optime hands would help.
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