Elias had never been in a place that had so many grisly treasures. So many bones. So many things to discover. The wolf weaved his way through the treasure trove on deft paws, his multi-hued face a blank canvas. His features lent him a kind of careless handsomeness that was classical and strong. His pelt was a panorama of metallic greys and blacks, dispersed over a base coat of thick, smooth fur and glinted like quicksilver underneath the moonlight. He moved silently, somehow managing not to touch the bones of the dead as he did. Picking up the skull with a paw, he examined it with clinical, cold amber eyes. It was fractured at the top, one line zigzagging across and appeared to be one that had belonged to a year old puppy. It was already yellowed, eroded and the marrow had been depleted completely leaving it brittle and fragile. A large chunk had been taken out of the lower jaw that connected it to the skull. It looked like the bone had eroded over time. And the bone was brittle, meaning that the bone had most likely suffered some iron deficiency. Setting it back down on the ground among a cluster of adult leg bones and pieces of cracked vertebrae, he continued on his way nose close to the ground. He had stumbled across the grave-yard after he’d finished eking out a meagre den for himself in the pack clearing. While he was there, he’d also sought out the kill pile to see if it was in need of replenishing. There was still ample food left to last a day or so but tomorrow he’d probably have to hunt as it would most likely be gone and perhaps, he would be able to meet some of his fellow hunters while doing so. It would provide an opportunity for him to assuage and glean some new knowledge from them if any of them had any imminent illnesses in them. And there was the practical reason of knowing who his pack-mates were by appearance and name. The hunting grounds, as it seemed, were in the opposite direction. He would make his way there bright and early in the morning.

For now, he was tracking a rabbit he’d spotted to satiate his own hunger which he hadn’t attended to until he’d made sure he knew where the hunting grounds and the residential places the pack called home were. His nose twitched as he spied a furry brown tail popping over a bison pelvis. There. He seemed to glide, paws barely touching the ground before his legs completed the movements in smooth, agile motions. Death clung to him and it would never leave. A movement caught his eye nearby. And he attacked, form darting through the air in one blur. Bones scattered. Blood spattered the earth. And Elias landed silently, a dead rabbit with a severed neck hanging by the seams in his jaws. He was home.