Hunter's Delight

[Nia]

While Nia did enjoy the mildly settled feeling that had come over her when she reached Riverfall, she did not at all enjoy the heat. She was used to colder climates and this heatwave nonsense was unacceptable as far as she was concerned. But she was hungry and rather tired of fish. So she had wondered into the forest near the city. She had come here before to escape the heat in the shade of the trees and to hunt Navira Pigeons. But today she was tracking down some comfort food; a young deer. And with no need to be overly careful of the condition of the meat as she would be the only one dining on her kill, she found a small hollow in a tree's roots and hid her robes and gold collar inside before transforming into her mountain lion form.

She was instantly reminded of why she hadn't been taking her wild cat form since her arrival in Riverfall. The heat was far worse and harder to regulate as a cat. She gave an irritated shake of her head before stretching out and digging her claws into the very tree she'd left her clothes tucked in. The marks left were partly a visual marker for her to return to and partly to sharpen her claws. With her senses clearer now, she found it much easier to sniff out her prey.

She took her time stalking through the only mildly familiar territory. She kept carefully low to the ground as she eased up on the deer. As a child, she had much preferred to gently herd animals into rocky crevices and small paths between split rocks so she could leap down on them and crush their necks so tightly between her jaws that they could not draw breath (though smaller prey simply received a shattered neck from the crushing grip and instant death). But here, that terrain was not so easy to come by and she had to make due with stalking her prey until she could find slightly elevated ground. While the veritable molehill she crept upon made her feel just a little sour, a good meal was so close she couldn't really be bothered to linger on the feeling. She hunkered down, aimed carefully. Then, in a flash of movement, was across the distance separating her and her dinner and upon her prey. The small herd scattered but she had what she wanted. The deer was smaller than what she was used to and she felt its neck snap the moment she crushed down on the thing.

She adored the flash of adrenaline in her system and instinct would not allow her to release the deer's neck for some time before she could finally dig into her catch. Once she ate her fill and cleaned herself of gore, she would return to gather her robes and collar before returning to the city with a fully belly.