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She didn't want to show up empty jawed.

Even if it was a hunting exercise, even if the point was that he caught enough to feed, at least modestly, the both of them, Edge didn't rely on others to make her kills for her. It was lazy. It was weak. So even if she'd told Longclaw to catch enough birds for a hearty lunch and he had until she woke up and found him, she wasn't going to show up with nothing for a free meal. He probably knew it too-- but he'd also know how much she'd chew him out for not catching enough.

Still, she had to catch something first. Like the thrush she had been tracking. There, shuffling under the branches of a bush, still fat from autumn but picking at the ground for a little something more. She slid lithely into a hunter's crouch, approaching it on silent hooves, but had the wind been in her favor, she would have known she wasn't the only one hunting the poor bird.

A small dark shape burst from the bush, startling the thrush and sending it aflight, fanged jaws snapping shut just an instant too late, a frustrated growl following the bird into the sky. As for Edge, she straightened up, bemused, taking in the pup and remembering another day a moon or so earlier, when she'd watch a colt attempt the same feat, but with greater success. "Wherever is your mother?" she asked aloud, which drew the pup's attention. Ears perked, head turned, and for a moment the two locked eyes.

Then, much to her surprise, the pup crouched down and bared it's fangs, standing it's ground.

"Curious," she murmured, pressing closer, peering down at the little wolf. "But foolish. You don't know- yow!" She reared back, sending the pup sprawling, but not before it had had a good hard n** at her nose. She didn't smell blood, but it was enough to hurt.

Enough to make an idea spark in her head. Quick as a flash, she scooped up the wolf by the scruff of its neck like an eaglehound would it's pups. It was only a yelp and a moment later before the wolf too went limp in her jaws, instinct demanding it to hang there, and Edge smirked around the fur in her mouth.

Now, to find her dear apprentice.

It took longer than it should have. A pup in her jaws, her mouth full of its taste, her nose full of its smell, made tracking her apprentice harder than she liked to admit. That and he was getting better at this, but mainly the former. She had even had to put the pup down when she reached the stream, which had led to a delightful chase to round it up again. Needless to say, when she finally reached Longclaw's hiding spot, she was tired, starving, and her neck was more sore.

"I bwhraught you shomthing," she announced brusquely as she shouldered through the reeds to his side. She gave him a second to process what was in her jaws, then promptly tossed-- yes, tossed--- the wolf pup at the colt and grabbed the rabbit for herself, settling to the ground with the carcass between her forelegs to observe the two young things she had brought together.

"A wolf," Edge replied matter-of-factly, stripping a piece of flesh off the bone and slurping it up, licking the blood from her lips. She was making good headway through the rabbit, and was starting to think of the thrushes beneath the ferns. She opened her jaws to take another bite, then paused, as if having a second thought.

"Don't kill it. It was a pain in the rear to get it here."

"Is it, now?" She replied with one arched brow. And she would have left it at that but for the denseness of her apprentice -- the undertones of her sarcasm were lost on him without explanation.

"A wolf is a hunter, much like you and myself. You are my apprentice for the respect you bear me and the skills I teach you. That wolf is not yours until you've shown it likewise." She paused, glancing from colt to the bristling pup, and a slow, almost wicked grin spread across her maw.

"Good luck with that." This would be fun.