A Natural Born Hunter... And Kulde [Closed]

[Viktor]

As Viktor watched the hunter move the spear aside, he struggled to keep his predatorial side from finishing the job. Instead he remained as he was, waiting for the hunter's next move. He was mildly surprised by his question, and although he couldn't respond verbally, he still managed to roll his eyes and slump forward, resting his head on his paws while his animal side calmed down to the point where he could move without trying to kill him. Once he had calmed down, he slowly got up and walked around the hunter, in the direction of his clothes. After he got a few feet ahead, he looked back at the hunter and nodded his head in the direction he was heading, encouraging him to follow.

[Kulde]

Kulde almost dropped to his knees to apologize the bear when it rolled with its eyes. A very human thing to do. He almost decided to run away, but that would just make things worse and perhaps make the Polar bear chase him down and eat him. So he just stood there, with ever-changing eye-colors. Going from his usual calm brown color, to blue and yellow out of pity and regret for hurting the big animal. He almost didn't notice as the bear circled him. Only too late did he realize that the bear could easily have mauled him then without him having a chance to defend himself. When he turned to look where the bear was going, he saw it motioned for him to follow. "I'm sorry..." Kulde said lowly. As he bent down and picked up his composite short bow with his free left hand. Walking with the spear in his right hand and the bow in his left. He would run a little to catch up with the big bear. Looking for the injury he had caused it, also noticing that it was no longer limping. Wondering if the bear could ignore pain or if it had been faking. "I'm really sorry..." He said again, this time louder as he had gathered courage to speak again. He couldn't blame the bear if it wanted to maul him for attacking it. If the roles had been reversed, Kulde would probably have eaten the person.

[Viktor]

Viktor was glad he had shown restraint, the hunter was regreting his actions to the point where he wanted to say something. Instead he nudge the hunter with the side he had been faking the injury on, trying to show that nothing had happened. Once they had made it back to his backpack he tried to pull the clothes as far out as he could before changing to minimize his exposure to the cold. A sudden flash and a change of clothes later a man stood where the bear had been moments before with something close to a grin on his face. He turned back to face the man who had only chimes ago been trying to kill him. "You really need to work on your aim!"

[Kulde]

Kulde stumbled to the side when the bear nudged him. Wondering for a moment why the bear had nudged him, then realizing that was where he had hit the bear. Or the Kelvic, or whatever the hell it was. Most likely a Kelvic. But even in his guilt, he couldn't help but be mesmerized by the bear. It's large and strong body. The beautiful white fur. The pure power this animal could unleash. If Kulde ever was unlucky enough to be in a real battle with one of these, he would be considered lucky if he managed to escape with his life. The bear trudged over to what resembled a backpack and pushed some clothes out of it. Definitely a Kelvic. Kulde had tried to murder a Kelvic. The bear transformed into a large man and Kulde couldn't but look at it mesmerized. He had rarely seen a Kelvic transform and never been this close. The man, though large, was far from as impressive as the Polar Bear he had been only moments ago. Still, the man was big. Much bigger than the ordinary Vantha. The bear-man-Kelvic! Talked to Kulde who shook his head a little. "It seems I do... If I had known.. I wo... would never... Have fired upon you..." Kulde said, having trouble talking and getting the words out.

[Viktor]

Viktor couldn't help but grin and hold up a hand to try and silence the muttering hunter. "You think you are the first one to try and kill me? I have been hunted by far greater opponents than you." He said with a hearty laugh. He walked over to the shorter vantha and threw an arm around his shoulders. "But I must admit, you do seem to know what you are doing out there." He conceded, still grinning. "However, you scared away my seal, so if you get some crazy notion in your head that you need to makeup for attacking me, you could always get us some food." And with that he strided back over to his backpack and slid it over his shoulder. "Or I could just change back and eat you instead." He said with a slightly sarcastic tone, leaving a doubt as to whether or not he was serious.

[Kulde]

The bear tried to comfort him, or that was they way Kulde felt about the manbear's words. They did little to ease his guilt. If Kulde had been just a little better archer, or been a little more merciless, then he would have been murderer. Depending on Kelvics and if they changed to humans when they died, he would never have been any wiser. Even not when parting the flesh from the skin. It almost made him throw up. But the bear was quick to cheer him up with an arm around his shoulder. Damn the manbear was heavy. "Err, right. I get some dried meat in my kit..." Kulde reached into his kit that was on the back of his belt, whenever he went hunting he brought enough food for a day or two, along with the fire kit and what not. He would fish out the last of his rations, 2 meager pieces of dried meat. He would hand it to the bearman. "And if that's not enough, I suppose we can go sit by each our breathing hole and wait for another seal to come up?" Kulde offered. Since he really didn't want to get eaten.

[Viktor]

"For some reason, I don't see you having the patience for 'still hunting' as I call it." Viktor grinned, quickly wolfing down one of the pieces of meat, leaving the other in the hunter's hand. "I suppose I should introduce myself. My name is Viktor." He said with an exagerated bow. "We should still head back there though, I'm sure you would want those arrows back." He suggested, motioning back towards the breathing holes. "Also, I had an idea, you are fairly good with that bow yes? How about we team up? I may be good at taking down seals, but elk and deer are a little too fast, an issue I doubt you have with that." He explained, pointing at the bow. "But given your smaller frame, I doubt you could bring more than a single animal back. In my bear form, I could likely carry back up to four . So between my heightened sense of smell and strength, and your archery, I think we could bring back quite a bit of food for the city". As he ended his proposition, he started back towards the holes, slowing his pace to give the hunter a chance to respond.

[Kulde]

Kulde was surprised how easily the bear shrugged off the fact that Kulde had tried to kill him. Kulde shuddered a little, not because of the cold, Morwen protected him from the worst of that. The bear suggested that they go find the arrows that had missed him, of course, Kulde hadn't even thought of that, he had been too occupied feeling miserable. "Kulde." He said, as a response to Viktor. "My name is Kulde." Weird to have the manbe- Viktor bow like that. He certainly had a relaxed relationship with his own mortality. Kulde followed Viktor, walking in a very fast pace to keep up with the larger steps taken by Viktor. Kulde listened as Viktor proposed a different plan than his own idea of sitting by the breathing holes. He was quite pleased, and his eyes changed colors to show this, that he wasn't going to sit by a dumb hole waiting for a seal. "It sounds like a deal." Kulde ran a little ahead, trying to remember where his second arrow had hit. Naturally, the first arrow was lost due to it falling into the breathing hole. Maybe he was lucky and it was floating on the water. Nope. No such luck. But he soon found the second arrow, it was sticking out of the ice. Kulde pulled it out. "Do you smell anything?" Kulde asked as he followed the bear's tracks when it had been circling. Finding all of his arrows, except the first.

[Viktor]

Viktor found it odd at how Kulde seemed so shocked at his indifference to attacking him. It wasn't a very hard mistake to make, and he had seen how much the hides of other polar bears were worth, and he couldn't begin to calculate how much his own giant hide would go for, even if you didn't factor in his poor math skills. Even he could remember that three arrows had been loosed instead of two however, the first falling into the hole, the second "wounding" him, and the third that went over his head during the charge. Maybe it was easier to keep track when you were the intended target. He gathered up the arrow that had gone over his head, almost in another hole, then returned it to the hunter. He turned into the wind, trying to pick up any traces of life on the wind, however, aside from the occasional seal, he couldn't pick up anything near the holes. "The smell of seals is too strong here, I can't pick up any-" He stopped midsentence as the wind shifted slightly, bringing in a new, although unpleasant scent. "Droppings, fresh, that way." He said in a nearly monotone voice, pointing upwind. Judging by the faintness of the odor, it was too far for them to catch the sorce of the droppings in the area, but it wasn't snowing too heavily, and everything leaves tracks in the snow. He took off at a jogging pace, waiting to see how fast Kulde would go before adjusting to match his speed. As they arrived, Viktor stopped to cover the droppings with snow too help him focus more on the scent of the animal that had been there instead of what it left behind. "I can't get anything, not with the smell still in the air". The smell wasn't bad enough to detect with the average nose, but it was just enough to throw off any chances of Vik picking up the scent, so he turned instead to the tracks. "Either deer or elk, more than that I don't know, I stick to seals usually". The tracks took off in two different directions, one the path the deer/elk had used to get there, the other the path it took to leave. "I can't tell the difference, what about you?" He asked, hoping that the archer's sharper eyes, or greater experience hunting these animals would show him something the kelvic had missed.

[Kulde]

Kulde accepted the arrow from the Kelvic with a low mutter of thanks. Kulde waited patiently for Viktor to respond to his question. Knowing that scent worked much differently than sight and hearing. Which Kulde more often relied upon than his nose. Mainly because his nose wasn't very good for hunting. He could barely imagine what kind of hunter he would become if he had a bear's nose. The ability to find the scent of an animal from far away. Or, in this case, droppings. That must be the downside to having that great a nose, and Kulde immediately began to wonder if such a nose would be a godsend. He secured his bow to his body, so he had both hands available for the spear, should they be attacked. He knew that Viktor could handle almost anything thrown at them, but still, it was best to be prepared. He didn't respond to Viktor, he just followed in the bear's speed. He could go faster than this, but knowing that he would need Viktor to find the animal after locating the droppings, he decided to match his speed. They soon reached the droppings and Kulde took a look at them. He couldn't tell much by looking at them, but he also knew that in the time that they had come here, it would be cold already, so he wouldn't be able to determine the time. So, instead he began to look for tracks. Kulde went down close to the ground, a hand brushing over the snow. Viktor pointed out it was either elk or deer. Which was pretty simple to determine from the droppings themselves. But Kulde stayed quiet. Looking for a deeper set of prints, where the animal would have stood still for a longer time, to let go of the brown bomb. He found them. From there, it wasn't hard to determine which way the animal had gone. Kulde couldn't determine the animal from the prints, it was indeed either a deer or an elk. But they left too similar set of prints for Kulde's untrained eyes to spot any difference. "This direction." Kulde said staying close to the ground as he moved forward, following the tracks. Making sure that the prints were facing the right away. After 10 feets, he was almost 100% sure that they were going in the right direction. "Do tell me if you smell them in the vicinity..." Kulde said as he moved forward, moving faster than before when he was still checking the direction of the prints.