The Bind

A Good Day

CLAIRE POV

Seline and I stalked the stag in wolf form.

Following the mouth watering scent from where it had stopped by the cool river so as to satiate its thirst earlier in the afternoon. Seline had shown me how to let my wolf instincts take over to hunt, and I watched from the back of my mind like a particularly gruesome National Geographic documentary.

Since Seline stepped down from a position of authority her dull brown coat had blossomed into a lustrous chocolate mane of shining beauty. She seemed infinitely happier. Which was interesting, because though officially she was just another member of the pack, she still resumed the same responsibilities as her previous 'role' as gamma wolf. At the end of the day she simply wanted what was best for everyone, and could not help herself.

That extended to myself, so she was the closest thing I had to a friend in the pack.

The smell was scarlet; Hot. With a gamey brown overcoating. A summer breeze flowed full in our faces, providing a scented map to prowl after through the crackling underbrush, hiding the scent of our own predatory signature from the wary creature. At first my heart jumped around in excited bursts of fluttering, eager to run, straining to leap, ravenous for the chase, and..the kill.

As the afternoon wore its way into longer, cooler, darker shadows my instincts calmed and focused on what was, instead of what would be. It was lost in the focus of stalking the scent, placing our paws with silent, light footfalls. Moving with deadly grace. Consumed by the dance between the hunted and the hunters.

Eventually the magnificent creature emerged from the dense brush of the forest into a clearing, and stopped. Washed with a bright sunlight denied to the surrounding forest. In moments the shafts of heat warmed the oil in his lustrous coat and set my mouth to watering all over again.

Strong antlers had grown into proud velvet covered prongs, and he held a suspicious nose to the air ascertaining if danger was near. Heightened senses picking up what natural ones could not. In time, he lowered his confused nose to the grass, hesitantly picking at the tough summer hardened strands with strong teeth.

We circled around to allow our predatory scent to flow from us to the deer now. He caught the terrible message, leaped from the clearing in one majestic bound, and the chase was on! We steered the wild beast, mad with desperate fear through the forest in the direction of the town. Every iota of focus trained on the frantic animal, tailoring his escape to our benefit. My world narrowed down to instinct and purpose. Human problems falling by the wayside with all of the other irrelevant things.

He darted through the trees, bellowing frantically to warn off all other deer, even as he raced for his own life.

Short of the trail we needed to drag the beast home I launched with mighty bunching and release of my haunches. Arching between ancient trunks to intercept the stag, and sink powerful jaws around his muscular neck. One bite ripping through a pulsating artery, filling my mouth with warm salty blood that was laced with his brown gamey flavor.

My snowy pelt was covered in arterial spurt after arterial spurt before letting go and watching him slow, stagger, and fall as he bled out on the trail. The thirsty ground absorbed the blood, drinking the moisture before it had a chance to pool.

We howled in triumph and release. A discordant harmony reveling in the sheer unbridled climax of wild expression. 

It was exhilarating.

The pack shared in butchering the fallen stag. A gross laughing production line dividing up the edible meat from the refuse. Portioning out the exciting bits like pelt, antlers, hooves and skull. It took messy hours. Children dared each other to race through the production line, snaring choice prizes to proffer before their peers. The danger of the game was that if the prize snagged was too dear, you were likely to be scooped up and put to work.