Maybe he had been lazy come the winter. Or rather, perhaps he had been more foolish than lazy. Ah, he had let that woman get away from him and now, spring had come to erase his chances of truly
having her. It was bothersome but he knew he would have more opportunities again - winter would be back soon enough. In the meantime, it gave him more chances to really understand this place he had come to. He had been negligent in that regard. Packs? He knew nothing about them. The loners? Ah, they were little more than strangers in the night. Maybe he had been truly lazy, after all.
In any case, he found himself thankful for the spring as he roamed deep into the free lands. The grotto had hardly been attractive beneath the snow but now that it had melted away to reveal the caverns and canyons, he had been tempted into their mouths. From below, he had been able to smell old flesh; deer, he discerned, perhaps even more than one. For now though, he had only roamed in deep enough to find one of them. Its corpse was old but it had been frozen fast, its body trapped beneath snow and ice so even now as he dragged it from its shadowy tombs, it was partially cool.