Heartleaf Creek grandma got...well, y'know

Your Gift is: while out exploring you see a herd of reindeer running so fast you could swear that they were flying above the snow!
Not far outside of DEB! All welcome!

Hardly did she make it out beyond borders and when she did, it was frequently by accident, soon to stumble back into her home. Although today something had captured her attention longer than a few moments. The scent of prey thick on the lands and she bumbled along the trail of them. No intent to hunt them but...perhaps she could scout. Who would tell the matriarch no?

What she had not expected was to come upon them mid-rush. Whether they had been startled by her trailing or startled by another beast was uncertain. Regardless they moved at a speed that her failing sight struggled to keep up with.

It seemed as though they left the ground!

"Ah!" She blurted as she stumbled back some, the reindeer still rushed by in their mad dash to find a better clearing.

This would mark the first time Eros had left the pack's defending borders since he and @Archer discovered Walleye's body. He didn't want to, certainly wasn't ready, but his main priority as of late was leaving what was safe and he could only think one thing: Grandma was dying. Just like the sickly, pervasive feeling that had resided in his stomach since that day told him she would.

The math in his head was simple, full of fresh concepts but able to fully grapple with them, unlike just a few scant months ago. The fisherman had died, just like prey had to do for them to eat. Instead of teeth, old age had killed him. Old meant you'd been around a lot of years, which also meant it happened to every wolf and was inevitable. While Gramma Sita still appeared healthy and strong, even if in a different way from his parents, Gramma Katna had been incredibly similar to Walleye in that they were, words he now knew, frail and thinned. The likeness had been strong enough that Eros had definitely called his father's look-alike various forms of 'grandma' throughout the months, thinking thats just what older family members were called. It was difficult to come to any other conclusion.

So he had followed her, sometimes stuck right against her side, sometimes watching from a distance. There was nothing that could be done for her, but the thought of her being alone, almost lost and forgotten somewhere out there? He couldn't bear it, and while the anxiety never fully abated, it was so much worse when she was out of sight.

When he realized she was definitely leaving home, indecision had wracked his mind. Should he go for father, or spare the others something so... horrible? What did death look like, when it happened? Was it like falling asleep, as Walleye had appeared, like he'd been guaranteed by the adults that had comforted him? Because something inside him felt a deep dread that there was more to dying than closing one's eyes. In the end, he'd simply tailed her, quiet and out of the way, a deep sadness in the peach-colored eyes that watched her.

It was the scent of unfamiliar prey that spurred him from resignation to anxious action. He bristled, knowing fully well now the danger presented by other animals. That was definitely not how grandma was gonna go. The sound of their hooves got him running, and he didn't even see the spectacle of their speed; he just wanted his grandmother away from them and somewhere safe. He lunged between her and then, and began pushing on her shoulder and flank, trying to get her to move away.

You discover a half-eaten deer carcass. +5 Health

Suddenly, someone was upon her, a flash of fur.

Familiar. Family. Brother.

"VENKAT! LOOK!" She shouted above the rush of hooves that seemed to still float above the snowy surface. "I-I they're--!" She could not even form the thought as she stumbled back from the ushering. And the truth was she likely would not have stood still if she was any weaker or thinner, her hulking form still enough against a cub's push.

A hysteric sound escaped her in the form of a gasping cry.

Fear and awe, shock and wonder.

Katna was very quickly losing her grasp on the world around them as she witnessed the flying beasts.

katna is showing signs of mental decline
as such, she might be unreliable or confused

She shouted out with the same amount of energy as he felt in his scramble to keep her safe, something he was not used to from his grandmother. Venkat was not a word unfamiliar to him in contrast, having heard her call other males in the pack the name sparingly. All Eros had been able to assume was that it was what @Vasco referred to as a 'pet name', and in response he curled up protectively around the women without blocking her view of the monsters as they thundered through.

He obeyed, but he didn't see what she did. The soft white of the snow could trick, but his young eyes refused to be fooled, and he saw hooves upon the ground as they should be rather than floating magically above. Instead, he thought she was experiencing fearful awe simply because of what their tines of bone and crushing hooves could do to a wolf.

"It's alright," he encouraged, "I'm here."

No one would hurt his grandmother if he had anything to say about it. He stood with her, her personal sentinel against the herd of prey.