---

the trail tightens as they move. what had been a scatter of prints begins to sort itself into individual hooves in the mud, a small herd threading through the trees. a faint shift in her path nudges them wider, just as she’d said.

there—a break in pattern. one set lagging half a stride behind the others.

gjalla ghosts to a halt, lowering herself slightly against the brush. her head turns just enough for him to catch the line of her jaw, the direction of her focus without words. this one.

---

this is very late my bad :')

---

gjalla's body coils beneath the brush, dark fur swallowing the scant light, ears pitched forward as the herd breathes and shuffles somewhere beyond the trees. the lagging one flickers in and out between trunks, a loose seam in the moving dark. her muzzle tips once. now.

the brush gives under her first burst, a black blur unspooling from stillness, and the herd reacts a heartbeat too late. hooves punch at the mud, branches snap back against flanks, and the straggler startles off its line as gjalla drives straight for its shoulder, angling to cut it from the others before it can fold back into the safety of the herd.

the deer lunges aside, and gjalla veers with it, carving through the undergrowth in a hard black line, every muscle in her frame snapping taut with pursuit. the herd breaks in a scatter of motion ahead.

---

copper cuts clean through the musk of churned earth and frightened deer. one flick of her ear catches the hitch in seutonius' stride as a hoof glances his elbow, but she does not look. cannot. the opening lasts less than a breath.

gjalla surges from the animal's blind side with a violence that belongs to winter rivers breaking ice. her shoulder slams hard against its ribs, stealing balance as her jaws crash high around the base of its neck. she clamps where muscle knots thickest, forcing the head sideways as momentum carries all three of them through torn brush and flying mud.

the stag stumbles once, twice. its forelegs scramble beneath it, hooves gouging trenches into the forest floor, but panic has already unraveled whatever rhythm kept it upright. seutonius is there whenever it tries to recover, pressing, turning, denying every desperate line of escape until the animal's path folds tighter and tighter.

gjalla digs in.

her hindquarters bunch beneath her, claws biting deep. every muscle along her spine stands out beneath the raven-black curl of her coat as she wrenches with everything her frame can summon, dragging the animal's head sharply across its own chest.

the deer crashes sideways and she drives forward with it, crushing the fall beneath her own momentum, chest colliding against heaving ribs as her grip cinches tighter. ivory teeth dig and dig until the beast's cries are quelled. periwinkle irises flit up at the last moment, desperate to catch the man's own gaze as life is snuffed by her fang.

---

gjalla holds until there is nothing left to hold against. her jaws remain buried at the neck, breath punching hot through her nose while the animal's final shudder travels beneath her chest. seutonius' weight joins hers, closing every remaining avenue until the forest falls abruptly quiet around them.

her jaws loosen then, sides heaving against the carcass, raven fur dragged through mud and crushed leaves, blood darkening the pale edges of her muzzle. gjalla's ears twitch once. for a man claiming he needed practice, she did not think it so necessary after seeing him in chase.

her muzzle tips toward seutonius' elbow, eyes flitting to blood before her gaze returns to his face. aiming to lengthen your time with dawnbreak, seu?