Elohim's brow cocked at the mention of slick, smooth mud. His eyes roamed around both she and him, and then to the doe. Ah, he couldn’t help but notice there was quite a lot of smooth mud around them. The doe had been struggling, after all, and had left streaks of smooth, sleek mud in the wake of her hooves; Avery’s own efforts had helped to creating slick patches too. In the right light, the mud in those patches seemed to reflect the light, glistening like dirty gold. Good, he thought. At least they were easy to see, and easy enough for him to dance his paws around as he took his position. At one point, he’d tested one of the smooth patches with a single paw, giving a tch! of frustration and a sheepish grin when it did, indeed, prove to be unexpectedly hard to grip. How had the Iromar wolves not lost more of their numbers to that alone?
There wasn’t much room for words. Between himself, Avery, the doe and all the streaks of glittering mud, he didn’t want to risk adding to the mess they were about to get themselves into. Instead, he exhaled sharply and let her take the lead. Once Avery was at the ready, Elohim found himself a solid grip on the doe’s upper leg, sinking his teeth deep into the meat and muscle before giving a quick jerk back to test his grip. He had her well and truly in his grasp, but his eyes widened in surprise at just how firmly she was in there. They didn’t have a choice though – it was either put in the work or be content watching the mud eat her up.
With that thought, he gave Avery one final look of ‘let’s get moving’ and then got to work. It was grueling work, to be sure. He shoved back, jerked his head, and used his entire body to shake the doe’s weight around. Elohim had to admit he felt just a little crazy doing so much work while the doe’s leg flopped around in response, her limp hoof hitting him from time to time. It made him roll his eyes, but at least he and Avery could look and feel a little foolish together. Hell, he imagined the sheer tenacity of their teamwork would surely earn him at least a little respect in Iromar. That would be useful, though the more he worked, the more he came to realize that a few bites of the doe would be useful too.
By the time the doe had been worked out of the mud, Elohim’s chest heaved with exertion. His tongue lolled out even when he tried to hold it back, afraid of looking less dignified than a wolf with questions like him ought to. He settled for turning away and acting as if he were examining the doe or the landscape while he caught his breath and breathed out the heat of hard work.
"Well,” he began once he finally felt he had his breath in order, "I hadn’t exactly come expecting to fight mud, but I must admit it did put up a good fight. I don’t suppose you have to put up this kind of fight every time you wish to eat, do you?” He grinned in jest, relieved to finally be able to get back to talking rather than...well, dismantling his body in the name of a meal. He had taken his place a little away from the doe itself, contented with allowing Avery to take her fill and divide the prey as needed for the pack. He had no true need to eat, and in fact, he wondered if it was solely instinct that told him he ought to rather than hunger. Eat to claim victory over the mud – he couldn’t help but grin to himself, amused. "We’ve less mud in Glorall, but it’s still quite a pain to swim out into the water to fetch an out-of-place fawn or a wayward pheasant.”
He stretched his legs out, flexing his toes. Then, he shook free the mud that had started to cling to him as he rose to stand. It felt better to stretch and move about after hauling the doe’s weight around – he paced a little, making an intentional effort to stretch out each limb and his back. He liked to make it clear that he hadn’t really come to laze about that much, but mostly to avoid giving Iromar the impression that he – or Glorall, he supposed – was some poor creature unable to recover from a little hard work. First impressions and all that, no? "If you’d like, I can help take the meat back to any caches you have for the pack,” he offered with a small motion towards the doe once more. "I’ve come from Glorall with some questions, you see, but I don’t expect answers to be free at all. For the hours of my company, consider me a wolf of Iromar and command me as needed, hm?”