Rat Race

Elias continued to herd the capybara toward the shore of Cloud for as much as he needed to. His long limbs didn't mind powering against the current, even if it wasn't the most graceful of efforts. He continued to steer himself so that he remained between the capybara and the deeper waters until the thing had no other choice but to join the shallows with Cloud.

Still unable to reach the bed of the river, Elias witnessed as the defenseless capybara had to simply watch while Cloud came to deliver its inevitable fate. Once Cloud managed to pull himself on top of the capybara and sink his teeth into the lethal parts of his neck, Elias moved to pull himself out of the water and onto shore while he continued to watch. The growling and the crazed look in the young man's eyes made Elias fall deathly quiet, and the memory of something familiar started to reel in the projector that ran near constantly in his mind.

Flashback

He remembered his first hunt with Eliana, when they were just four months old. It was shortly after the death of their father, and everything had been weighing down on all of them quite heavily back then. He'd raced ahead of her, wanting to lose her, as soon as he found the scent of a doe with a fawn. Without caring at all about what happened to him, he dove right in between the two of them with the speed of a demon and came down on the fawn with enough ferocity, he was quite sure the poor thing died on impact. He barely remembered what was to come next, as his world grayed and everything around him seemed to blur. Only the taste of blood in his mouth and the feeling of flesh sating his snapping teeth stuck out in his memory.

He remembered when everything calmed, both mother and fawn had successfully been brought to their demise- their corpses mutilated messes in pools of blood. A dismembered hoof of the doe was gripped in his maw, and the wide-eyed and fearful look of his bloodied sister seemed to be staring into his eyes. He remembered dropping the hoof immediately and running away from the scene of what they had done, pain radiating from several points of severe bruising and contusions along his body. He didn't care, he just needed to run.

End.

Elias lifted his chin as he watched the man before him give into his demons, just like Elias had done so many times in the past. He watched with an eerie sense of pride as blood made pools in the steps Cloud left behind in the mud. He was strong, and though his rage may need to be directed... Elias could feel promise within his son as he watched him. "Well done," he said, breaking the silence as he stood just a few feet away from Cloud. "I'm sure your demons are very... very proud of your work here today."

Medium Prey Hunt | Capybara | Round Three