Are You Hungry?

Spring, Year 13 Seasonal Hunting Prompt.

This gulley was a little bit of a challenge for her hunting - unlike her usual method, of waiting prey out from the trees, this time she was actively stalking prey. Or at least, planned to. Her nose had led her to this gulley: devoid of snow, it was already blooming with a variety of plants that she'd never seen before. And they... smelled weird. So she avoided most of it, as much as she could, careful to only walk through delicately and precisely. It wouldn't do any good to fuck with plants that could kill you, especially when you didn't know what those plants would even look like. Of course, it wouldn't make a difference when she was actually in the chase of the hunt, but she pretended like it mattered.

Truthfully, it helped her think. It made each step deliberate, moreso than it even needed to be, and her nose was already working over-time to follow the trails of the deer that she was following. It was, after all, spring time, and this area was lush with vegetation the deer would love to eat. Which was great, because SHE loved to eat deer. Especially baby deer; for some reason that meat was just much more delicious to her. More tender, more sweet. Less gristle. And this was the season that such a deer would exist... though right now it might be too young for that. Phooey. She'd likely have to settle for an older deer, for they'd be slower than the rest and wouldn't have an angry over-protective mother that she'd have to face in addition to the baby.

She already knew that she wasn't going to go after a healthy, middle-aged deer - the risk was too great. The risk of injury, AND the risk of failure. It just wasn't worth it, not when there were the sick, the old, and the young in the herd. Sure, a healthy member wasn't as gristly as an old fart, but the power in those kicking hooves more than countered the taste. On top of that, but they were much more quick, much more agile, and took far more energy. Why waste energy like that? She could capture two from the young or old in the time it took to catch one mature, healthy deer; it just made no sense at all to target the healthy in that case.

Unfortunately, though, it was too early in the season for a young deer. Deerling. Baby yums. Just born, the young would not provide much of a meal. But moreso, it was Lyra's belief and hypothesis that early in the season, the mothers were much more protective. She'd only be able to risk the young if she noticed it had wandered off... but ideally, for planning, she ought to go after an older deer.

Ahh, well. She paused as she finally spotted the deer: in the distance, they looked somewhat tiny, but they were as large as her, so they were tiny to begin with. Worth it, though. Even if it took half of one or more to satiate her appetite.

Nose flaring as she breathed in deeply, she moved closer: carefully, so as to not to send alarm through the herd, and cautiously, to keep her scent upwind. Even an old fart of a deer would be able to outrun her from this distance, most likely. Of course, she didn't remain at a distance for long; she crept ever closer with ease. Patience was the key. Patience wasn't something Lyra normally had, but she definitely had it while hunting. It helped that with the focus she had, it didn't FEEL like it was taking forever. It felt much more quick than it actually was going.

Eventually, though, she stopped walking forward, and studied the deer closest to her. She aimed for the back edges of the herd, in hopes she could spot an older one. It was hard for her to tell with doe, truthfully. Bucks were easier, but this was a herd with doe, not a lot of bucks, so she had to make due with her guesses. They didn't age like wolves, with the white frosted muzzles, but they had the same... stiffness. A saging gut, a weak back. Those were the signs she looked for; she wanted slow, and easy.

Her eyes skimmed over the few does hanging in the back. None of them had fawn, which that in itself was a good sign. And none looked pregnant, which was even better. She didn't know when deer stopped reproducing, but she figured the lack of babies back here was rather good. Which... basically meant she didn't have much debating left to do. Nighttime made the deer more wary; she wasn't sure if it was because they couldn't see as well, or if they just somehow knew that night was when the skilled predators came out. Ears were twitching, and eyes seemed to scan the nearby vegetation for any sign of a predator, but this is where her mutation came in. This is where a normal wolf would struggle, but she excelled.

Every paw step was silent. She was crouched, quite similar to a jaguar's hunting pose, and slunk through the underbrush with care. A snap of a twig would be enough to alert the entire herd to her, and she couldn't afford that. Stop start, stop start: she moved when they weren't paying attention, scooting ever so closer. When suspicion arose, she froze, waiting for nervousness to die down once more. And so this continued, until she was only meters away: close enough, that a single leap would be enough to clear the distance between her and her prey.

Man, she loved her weirdness. It was great.

With a deep breath - and a small grin - the woman burst out of the undergrowth, her eyes set on the deer that she had crept towards. Old, senile, and unable to react or run as well as the others, she easily latched her claws into it's back. It was a smaller one - standing under her shoulder - and it went down under her weight. In a second, she was already lunging towards it's face, teeth first scraping the muzzle of the deer, before closing on the jugular and ripping it in a swift movement of her jaws. There.

Done.

She leaped off of the dying creature with ease, her heart pounding from the burst of adrenaline. All the other deer were gone, but that was fine; this was more than enough. And, truthfully, she was quite pleased with the results.