[Flashback] Tooth and Claw [Private]

[Mao]

Timestamp: 50th of Winter 508AV

Day 1:

It had been a long and arduous process, trekking her way past the unforgiving terrain that was the Wildlands, but the young kelvic had her mind set, and it was to escape the events that transpired in Zeltiva. She was trembling, lost and alone, clutching the last piece of her origin as if it was a lifeline, and to her it was. What more could be said of the claw that identified her wolf father? It still smelled of her mother, of her pack, her people, and everything she held dear. It ingrained the imagery that kept her bestial self at bay, but it wouldn’t last long.

It was the cover of night, and Mao had grown accustomed to shedding her clothes, hiding her belongings within the folds and storing that in a location marked by a stone or something of the sort. She would use her natural camouflage to slink past shrubs, trees and boulders, watching hunters chase game or humans practicing archery, swordsmanship or brawling. Mao didn’t care much for such things, she found it useless, for she was far more comfortable donning her black fur riddled with rosettes than she was her clothes, but a human guise made it all the more easier to pass settlements undetected.

It had been 25 days since her bloodthirsty demeanor reared it’s ugly head, and she was hungry. Hungry for flesh and revenge, and a primal fury that burned deep in the pit of her soul. But alas! She was but a child, an adult in body alone, but her mentality was still that of a teenager at best. She had killed, but it had been born from her jaguar self, her claws were not her own, nor were the fangs that had torn his flesh and painted the ground red. If she was to survive (and she planned to), she had to learn to hunt, to kill prey that was far more difficult to down than humans were, and she needed to be cautious, for not all of the vile mortal race were as deceptively easy as they appeared. Hailing from Zeltiva, she had heard of magi and magic wielders, and she had heard rumors of their destructive personalities and the horror the people wrought upon others.

Inwardly, she shook her head. This was no time to fear these men! She would focus on the small, and build up to the large, and hope that with each passing death, something good would come of it. A full belly and experience being primary.

There then she sat, body crouched low behind dark foliage, shaded by the veil night. Only her eyes shone brightly under the light of the moon, but her target was not as aware as it should have been. A doe, most probably an adolescent, but whatever age it was, Mao didn’t particularly care. It was meat, and that was the most important fact. Whether it was alone was difficult for Mao to determine, she watched with eyes transfixed on the gangly legs, the expanded torso, and it’s small mouth clamping on a patch of grass in front of it.

Then the breeze rustled the leaves overhead, and brought the sent of the predator to the animal almost instantly. It’s head reared up, ears flared, large brown irises fixed on the shadows. Mao held her breath, watching, but when it began to bound off, she immediately gave chase. Tearing through the brush and pounding her paws into the ground, she followed the doe deeper into the wild. The hunger willed her forward, and her dark coat was easily merging with the shadows of the trees around her. At one point, she had propelled herself forward, clamped her claws around the bark of a sturdy tree and settled on the branch. The doe had stopped in a copse of trees, surrounded utterly, and that was when the lithe jaguar struck.

She leaped from the branch, claws spread, catching the poor creature off guard and paralyzed in fear. Large fangs clamped onto the skull and applied so much force that she crushed it, the blood spewing from her maw in a grotesque display. What a shame, not knowing her own strength she had ruined a potential chewy meal, but either way, she ate contentedly.

She would continue to hunt small to medium sized animals in the span of several days.