You grumble and nip at him at first, because you are perfectly comfortable where you are and don't see any need to move, but he's persistent. Eventually he gets you awake enough that you remember there's a whole park to explore, and that gets you going. It's chilly outside, everything edged with frost, and the smell of snow on the wind is exhilarating. You keep interrupting your stretching to go sniff things, because they smell different in the cold somehow. Even Erskin. You investigate him thoroughly, then tug his ear teasingly. "What do you wanna do tonight? I feel like I'm game for pretty much anything."
"Filet mignon at the finest restaurant in town followed by a show at the theater and an evening roll-around on silk sheets," you declare, bearing up bravely under the assault. "Or we could shove a deer into a pond, eat ourselves stupid, and pass out in the mud."
"You know what, I'm a little tired of filet mignon, let's try the mud thing just for funsies." Despite your attempt to sound laconic, you can't help bouncing a little. "Aren't deer all asleep right now? I have no clue how close to dawn it is, but I know they're crepuscular."
"If whoever we find really wants to have a lie-in, I'd be delighted," you laugh. "No, they're twitchy bastards with enormous ears, they'll hear us coming. Where's the lake from here? We can go back and forth parallel to the shore until we spook someone, then chase them towards the water. If they get away we try again. Don't expect as tidy a success rate as with ducks, we could be at this for a night or two."
"Where's the lake from here," you echo with a laugh. "I think there's like a hundred and thirty lakes in this park, it's called the Boundary Waters for a reason. But we can probably find the nearest one by following this stream." You set off to do that, dart back to tug the tent zipper closed so it doesn't rain in if it rains, then resume stream-following. "This is going to be fun!"
"That's too many lakes," you sniff. "Anything over a hundred and twenty is just showing off." You bounce ahead, then land in the stream with all four paws. Splashing around, you dare him, "I'll race you!"
You laugh your agreement and take off running. It's a fun challenge, in the dark and on slippery stones, not knowing precisely where you're going. His quick cornering doesn't help him any more than your longer stride helps you; the deciding factor seems to be the ability to pay attention to what's ahead and what's underfoot both at once, and run into fewer branches than the other guy. You win by a very small margin, simply because he gets tangled in a fallen branch just before the lake opens up ahead of you. You celebrate your victory with a whole lot of leaping and splashing in the shallow water, crunching lacy ice under your paws.
It takes a few tries, but you finally manage to lever up a thin, wide plate of muddy ice. Prancing awkwardly sideways, you get the heft of it, then smash it dramatically over Bel's shoulders. "Ha!" you go, "I didn't think I could do that." Then you run away very fast for completely coincidental reasons.
You chase and tussle back and forth along the shore until you've worked off your excess of energy. Then you flop down in some dead grass to roll yourself clean of mud. It doesn't work as well as you'd hoped; oh well. "Let's hunt," you propose. "Where would you look? I'm not altogether sure where deer bed down."
"Open, sunny space in the day time, and cozy hidden spots at night," you say. "Thick underbrush and conifers with low branches right now, since it's not winter yet but it's getting chilly. They don't actually sleep for very long at a stretch, but they do spend plenty of time resting up." You snuffle idly at the lakeside plants. "Well, let's go sniff around at pine trees, and make it a gamble as to which of us is going to smell the other first. When you hear an unholy crashing about, that means we've been rumbled and it's time to yell a lot and run really fast and try not to get kicked in the head. Cunning plan, eh?"
"You're like a canine General Patton," you agree with half a grin, and trot off into the woods to do your part. There's deer scent all over the place, it turns out. Which is going to make finding the deer themselves a little bit tricky.
It takes about an hour of poking at scent marks scratched into the ground and rubbed against trees before you flush anyone out, before you hear a faint huff. "There," you signal to Bel, paw frozen in midair, but it's too late. The look-out's gone and made a thunderous alarm snort: two does and a young stag burst off in all directions. You give a joyous whoop and take off after the stag, just for fun.
Welp. You're pretty sure that wasn't what he meant to do. Oh well, chasing is fun, and unlike a dog, you know better than to nip at the stag's heels and get kicked in the face. Instead, you pace yourself, swing wide, try to herd it into a curve back toward the lake. The cool thing about this kind of terrain is that even if it keeps running straight, it's bound to hit some kind of water eventually.
Before half a mile is up you know you're not even going to close in on this one. The frost isn't thick enough to make anything slippery, much less present snowbanks to slow the damn thing down, and when you hear splashing ahead it's far ahead. The stag's already floundered across the wide stream and gone on his way before you get to the bank. "Let's try again," you tell Bel, pulling back to a lope alongside the water. You're not bothered— it was an invigorating chase, and if you'd gotten the very first deer you flushed out, after having such success with the ducks, your fun would be over too soon.
You make a frustrated noise, half whine and half growl, and crow-hop sideways a few times in annoyance. You don't like giving up. But on reflection, he's right, this is mostly for fun and anyway, wolves aren't endurance hunters. The urge to keep after that deer for a week if you have to is a human urge. You asked Erskin for wolf lessons, and this is definitely one. Shaking off your annoyance, you find your good cheer again. You push Erskin into a puddle to share your happiness, and run off laughing when he tries to reciprocate.
You make it all the way to dawn without closing in on any deer, though you get as far as running one into the lake before it swims off, getting too far into the water for either of you to go drown it, which is a trifle insulting. Lying on your side on some nice ferns, you yawn, and watch the lovely spectacle of Bel stalking around like a personally affronted stormcloud. "One more go?" you ask.
"Oh, right, I forgot, His Majesty needs to solo a deer to be worthy of Wolf Throne," you say, and make a big show of curling up. "Right then, don't let me slow you down, just come back here on Thursday."
"What, no, that's no fun, I don't want to solo things. Come on, let's try again." You pounce at him, bouncing in the crunchy leaves all around the curl of him.
"No! I'm dead! I died of exhaustion and a broken heart. Come back Thursday to bury m—oof." That last bounce finished up with a foreleg the size of a redwood bopping you a good one between the ears. "Alright, you great big bloody clydesdale, have at you!" you yap, and jump to your feet. You drum your forelegs across his nape in retaliation, then hop clear over his back and dash off, tail held high as a particularly insulting flag. It takes awhile to refocus on getting a deer.
