I scent, Tabrika answered simply. This was something she could be proud of. I track. Nobody tracks better than I do in my whole tribe. Well, that was probably an exaggeration, as her tribe was pretty big, but it was certainly close. She hadn't met everyone and had a contest, but she was pretty cursed good. Give me a lead, she answered with less exaggeration, and I can track it even if it's three days old and went across a stream, or it's in the middle of six other scents. She gave her wounds another quick tongue-bath to get the blood from her fur, then added, I can climb pretty well, too, for above-ambushes. But mostly I track.
Now, if Tabrika was telling the truth, that would definitely be a good asset on both of their parts. None of the pack were particularly skilled with tracking -- not above and beyond your average Lykos, anyways. Svathe and Veret were better known for their muscle, Mosral for his uncanny relationship to the spiritual, and Bell for her... interpersonal skills. Luci was still human, which granted her other advantages... but having a good tracker was definitely important.
Which continued to beg the question: why had nobody else snagged her up before Svathe had found her?
The human-formed Lykos gave a thoughtful rumble. "Are you going to be able to run, pup? The pack is tracking down a buck right now; you'll need to catch up to them if you want to demonstrate your little talent." When he was finished, Svathe hunkered down to take on his own animal form, shrugging out of his furs as he did so and nosing the pile under the shelter of the rock. I will follow, he amended, watching her from a lower vantage point now.
If you let me keep to the trees, I'll be fine, Tabrika said with a little snort, and gave herself one last lick to make sure things were clotting all right, then scrambled up the nearest tree. Just point me in the right direction, and I'll find the rest of the pack. She just needed the direction to start off, and she'd pick out the newest scent going off that way to follow. She didn't know the packmembers' scents individually yet, and the room Svathe and the rest lived in had been so laden with scent that it hadn't helped at all.
That was good enough, he supposed. He'd hoped to see Tabrika find the rest of the pack on her own, but he couldn't reasonably expect her to exceed his expectations when she was so obviously second-class material. Svathe tilted his head to cast an eye up at her, catching the silhouette of her furred form against the setting sun in the leafless trees. He shook himself out, then, giving her a chance to gain her balance, and set off at a trot towards the pack.
Knowing that Tabrika was in the trees and that her loyalty was unproven and uncertain at best had the Lykos' hackles up the entire way. She had mentioned that she was proficient in above-ground ambushes, and that had stuck in the back of his mind. He wanted her to drop out of the night at him, to own up to her snarling and snapping and hesitating hatred. It recalled him to his time as an exile, during the brief stints of being hunted. For all that bloodlust was a blood-sucker kind of thing, Svathe possessed a deep well of rage that was probably never going to dry up. Reason dictated that Tabrika would follow him to the last known whereabouts of his pack and then the two would proceed on scent from there. The irrational part of him wanted to drop the hunt entirely, shake the unknown variable out of her damned tree and fight her, humiliate her, leave her with her tail between her legs such that she'd never toss him a cocky growl again.
Trust... as much as he hated it, he had at least come to realize that it was a necessity to get anything done in the compound... or out of it. So long as he didn't have to rely too heavily on it, he had even realized that he could probably toy around with it... but that meant that he'd have to hold off on all of the mindless but fulfilling fighting. Thank the spirits that tomorrow he had absolutely no obligations. Maybe he could stop over in the courtyard and trip up a few sparrers, there. Knowing that he'd soon have a chance to tear into prey helped, too.
Soon enough they reached the path where the Lykos and human scents separated. Svathe cast an eye around for Tabrika -- he wanted her to find Luci and stay there; as much as he wanted to see her scenting skill for himself, his pack was already on the trail, and Tabrika was already in the trees anyways. The pack would be running their buck downwind towards Luci anyways, so having backup in that direction would be useful if the deer wasn't so easily taken down.
Tabrika was annoyed that he didn't let her track them like she'd suggested, had just struck off and expected her to follow instead of pointing her in the right direction and letting her lead. Did he really think she was that incompetent? Didn't he want to test her claim about how well she tracked? Was he going to assume she was useless and just baby her, or worse, mock her? The thoughts had her growling to herself now and then with her own irritation as she leaped and scrambled and danced along the tree limbs after him. At least she didn't fall at all; that would have just cemented it.
When he stopped-- she could tell what scents he had been following, now, and could tell they were separating, but she didn't volunteer that; if he didn't want to make use of her one particularly useful skill, that was his problem, not hers-- she stopped, too, and looked down at him. It wasn't quite a glare, but it was close. Which one do we follow, then?
The glare was just as quickly returned, though Svathe forced himself not to snarl. Better to retain a sense of control than to climb up after her and knock her around, as tempting at it was. The Lykos needed to pick his battles; not all of them were worth fighting, even if he felt that he could take them all and then some.
He jerked his head after the scent of the single human just as a lonely howl echoed upland, a few minutes run away. You wait with the human. We'll drive the prey your way; your nose isn't needed, he chuffed, then, not this time, amended he.
Svathe disregarded the younger Lykos for a moment as he held his own nose to the wind, triangulating between sound and scent to locate the rest of the pack. Unless Tabrika had something she wanted to add, he set off at a ground-devouring pace through the forest, intent on joining the hunt.
Again, Tabrika felt insulted. Off to go sit with the human? To not even get to participate in a meaningful fashion except as a-- a what, an ambush to drive the prey back into the rest of the pack's claws, to not even get to help drive? To not even get to use her one real talent?
Frustrated, she growled at him once, then spun on her branch and launched herself irritably in the direction of the human smell. She wasn't quite insulted enough to do more than show her unhappiness, but who knew what'd happen if he kept it up. Tabrika thought glumly that she might well wind up in trouble, if he kept it up....
If he kept it up and she didn't say anything about it, there was little that was going to change, likely as not. Svathe had made his decision: the pack had scented their quarry, which meant that unless they were dealing with one particularly devious buck, Tabrika's olfactory genius wouldn't be needed tonight. If she couldn't handle being put on second fiddle tonight, then she really had a lesson coming.
Luckily, the human, Luci, was not necessarily open to conversation. She had been preparing the equipment that they'd be needing for after a successful hunt, and had since found herself a perch overlooking the clearing that Svathe had wanted the pack to worry the buck towards. A bow rested on her lap, knocked but not drawn. The woman was obviously meant to be back-up... everybody knew that humans had the night-sight of a mewling pup.
Being down wind, it was probably only a matter of time before Tabrika could scent the pack and their prey, though the sun had set and waxing face of Parnsehi, full and sickly green, was chasing the waning face of Anesiel across the sky before the hunt had made it to the clearing. The smell of blood was thick, and the deer that they'd singled out was tiring. The pack had simply been worrying it, herding it and snapping at it, taking the fight out of it bit by bit.
As soon as the lot of them had reached the clearing, Luci got to her feet -- she had obviously spent a lot of time out of doors, up in the gnarled trees of this part of the forest. Even dressed heavily for the freezing weather, the excited leap of her heart was audible as she came to action... she had drawn her bow, though didn't release the hardened arrow -- Svathe, having come with the rest into the clearing, sought out Tabrika's form in the trees. If she wanted to show off, then it was now or never.
Luci had gotten only an irritable growl in hello before Tabrika hunkered down on her branch and simply scowled down at the ground, waiting for ears and nose to pick up approaching prey and approaching pack. By the time they actually did get to her, she had worked herself up from simply offended to just plain mad, and since taking it out on Luci was out of the question, she didn't hesitate before she launched herself out of her tree and onto the source of that prey-blood-fear scent as soon as it was in range, hooking teeth into the back of its neck and hunting-claws into the front. She might not have been big, but something her size leaping out of a tree was enough to send the buck sprawling.
Tabrika felt like tearing the beast to shreds, but she wasn't sure she'd get the chance before Svathe or someone else beat her off it. At the very least, the kill was going to be hers. So there.
The young Rapemi snuffed the life of the buck well enough, though she was quickly pushed aside by the other packmembers who were eager to take their share of the treats before the animal was skinned and bled. Svathe was amongst them, ripping the stomach of the corpse open and snarling in pleasure as hot offal fell, steaming in the freezing night air, onto the ground. He'd watched Tabrika's expert tackle and deemed it a success, and for that he had snapped and snarled at the others to back off as he retrieved the most treasured of internal organs.
A slab of still hot muscle fell at the feet of the angry new pack member, blood draining from severed arteries and veins. You've got heart, Svathe teased, tail wagging. He was definitely pleased. Next time don't show up to the game late and maybe you'll get your place as tracker. He licked the blood from his snout, mostly preoccupied with the vicious sounding battle going on behind him as the pack divided up the best parts. He could see that Tabrika was unhappy well enough by scent and sight... but she was going to have to say something if she wanted to be treated differently. He didn't bend over backwards, especially not for new pack members.
Being shoved from the kill wasn't exactly uncommon; males usually chased Tabrika off before she'd finished, whenever she actually got to kill something. But that didn't mean she was ever happy about it, especially not lately. At home, with her pack, it was with her pack. People she'd grown up with, known most if not all of her life, with whom she knew her place and knew their places, and who when they shoved her off, it was usually more playfully than forcefully, and she always knew how much and what she'd be left.
Here, everything was different. The smells were all unfamiliar, the voices behind the growls and yips and whines all wrong, and half of her wanted to run and hide with her tail between her legs while the other half wanted to leap into the fray and start shredding as many ears and faces as she could.
What she did was lay there and do nothing, watching through narrowed eyes that saw very little, and half-glaring, half-staring at Svathe when he addressed her. I hate you, she thought but didn't say, didn't dare say-- wasn't even sure why she thought it; he was praising her, giving her one of the choicest pieces-- and she took her offering in her teeth and carried it away from the others. Maybe she'd put together a little fire and sear it. Seared heart was good... she'd see whether the rest cooked their meat before she decided.
Though whether it would mean she'd cook hers if they didn't, or vice versa, she had no idea.