The Crows, she had been taught, were wary of kills not their own. Her sitters talked of a plague that had brought the pack to the lowest point in its history in the not so distant past, and how now no gift of food would be acceptable as payments for job. When Dead Reckoning asked her father about it, Shadelight had forced her to drop the topic with a simple, "What's done is done." He never liked to talk to her much anyway, but that obstruction in particular bothered her. Why would an assassin not want to talk about that? Death was basically his job anyway. Was he uncomfortable about something?
Whatever. She'd find her own answers in due time, with Deadlight's help.
In the meantime, however, the party was fast approaching. Dead Reckoning felt a little nervous about it, though she would never admit it. This would be her very first outing among multiple wolves at once, allies she had been told but strangers nonetheless. Even if she hadn't been a seer, she would have wanted to make a good impression; because she was, that want became a need. What if there were other seers there, ready to judge her? Or non-seers, the judgey bastards? No, Dead Reckoning had to be ready, and to do that, she had to bring something like all the others had to.
Puppies were not required to, of course, but she wasn't a puppy; she was an adult that just happened to be young and small, Thank You Very Much.
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The bat was already dying. It crawled weakly away from her, chittering nonsense and bleeding out. Dead Reckoning wasn't sure what had struck out at it before she had come across the thing: another bat? a wolf? Something with claws had gouged it at any rate, and it was struggling to breathe.
She stepped closer, and its squealing grew louder. She pressed a paw down on its back to silence it, but not enough to kill. Its wings flailed to no avail around her.
Dead Reckoning had yet to hunt. She wasn't old enough, she was told, though it was getting close, and she had been allowed to practice on the den mothers. That wasn't the same. That was boring. But this...Knowing she was in control of someone's life, at least partially? A strange thrill went up her spine, and she pressed harder. Something gave with a crack, and the bat began to gurgle and stilled.
She immediately took her paw off and watched its death throes in quiet fascination.
When the bat was finally and truly dead, Dead Reckoning began to sniff about it, looking for clues as to its fate prior to her arrival. Blood, and the smell of something unfamiliar and musky...A wolf? Maybe? But what would just attack a possible meal and then leave it be, if not to be sadistic? And this close to the packlands? Or...Was this part of the Redwoods curse somehow? The pup's head buzzed with questions as she nosed about, careful not to get its blood on her just in case.
A secondary question cropped up: would this count for the feast? She killed it technically, but it had not been hers to hunt. No...Dead Reckoning didn't want to give something that would be cause for doubt. No meat, then. The bones, though, those might be interesting...Bones were white and pretty and clean, unlike the questionable meat cocooning it. Or its wings might make for a lovely fashion choice. Creatures of the night, just as the Crows were.
Dragging the bat by its less bloody wing, Dead Reckoning brought it to the river to wash. Then it was a trip to one of the pack's raccoons for some help with the dismembering. Yes, the wings would be lovely earrings, she assured them, for herself and for one of her siblings. But the skull - leave the skull clean and white for her. She had ideas.
It wasn't technically a physical gift to the tri-pack alliance feast, but Dead Reckoning did want to present something nonetheless: a confident, future seer that others would want to ally with. She would be the gift. One couldn't be too early starting to amass contacts, after all...
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