The small group of fighters disbanded as they entered the Rotstalker pack's camp. They had spent most of the day patrolling the territory, so the sun hung low outside, giving the multicolored rays around the room a warm glow. Balder padded his way through the many dogs, until he reached the corner that was the least crowded, where he laid down and began to clean his dusty paws. The heat was already unbearable for the shaggy dog, his tongue hung out as long as it was most of the day, but the worst was the warm ground. Where the sun had shined long enough on the once so solid pavement, it turned scorching hot, resulting in sore paws. The dust didn't help much either, nor for his paws or his eyes. But he couldn't complain, his paws had been sorer, and his eyesight wasn't that good anyways.
Once his paws were clean from dust and gravel, he spread out on the ground with a soft grunt, resting his head just for a little bit. Well, that was the intention, but at the minute he slipped out a sigh, he soon drifted out and fell asleep. It was a heavy, dreamless sleep, yet, he didn't slumber for long. The sun was still up when he woke up with a mouth so dry, it felt like the heavy dust-clouds had ended up inside.
Smiley had the same patrol hang-over when she woke up, yawning and stretching as the shaggy dog she'd been sleeping against stirred. Her bones glowing dimly in the darkness of the den, the angular female stretched and mumbled at Balder, her eyes half shut.
"It's bullshit, isn't it? Too tired to do anything useful, and it's too bright out to sleep".
A second later her stomach growled, as if it didn't wnat to be forgotten and Smiley finally had an idea of what she wanted to do. The black husky looked down at the other male judgementally, with her weird, squinty milk-white eyes. She'd never really spoken to him much, except the occasional complaint but she'd slept beside him in the Fighter's den for months and really, if they were in the same Pack they ought to know eachother.
He wasn't surprised to see the strange female beside him once he woke up. They had slept beside each other for a while, so he was used to her now. His ear twitched to the sound of her voice and barely gave her a glance as he responded with a short "mhm" Before rubbing his bad eye against his paw. He was trying to rub the dryness away, but it only made it worse, so he stopped and let out a yawn instead.
The other dog then asked if they could check for prey in the foodpile. To this, Balder turned his head and nodded. It would do well with some food, and just as he thought about it, his stomach gave a grumble. Balder then stood up and stretched out his hind legs, before making his way towards the pile, but stopped after taking three steps to check if the female dog was coming too.
It only took Smiley a few seconds of lazy stretching before she all but bounded ahead of Balder. The black husky never had much use for trotting and always wanted to get where she wanted to go as fast as she could, even if it was a little overzealous for making it to the kill pile. Bending her head down and nosing around, she bypassed several rats and came upon something furry and huge, with a long skinny tail.
She looked back at the Shepherd, ears perking. "Hey, there's an Opossum in here. Let's share it" she barked with a lash of her bony tail. It was so fat it must've been a mother. She wondered briefly what had happened to all the babies as she hadn't seen them in the kill pile.
Damn cats probably got them. Leave it to them to steal all the juicy bits.