Rahne and Catseye, in the wee hours of Thursday morning

[x-rahne.livejournal.com]

The deer Rahne and Kyle brought down in the afternoon is mostly eaten, given the abundance of adolescents and recently-exerted energy projectors. Catseye is still hungry. So Rahne gets company on her night hunt as well....

Warning: Perhaps slightly bloodthirsty.

Totally OOC note: Icon! Look at the icon! Ferox made it from this picture, isn't it gorgeous? A little premature, but since it's a log...



The first deer of the day (and Kyle's first deer ever, which Rahne
felt absurdly pleased over) had been a definite success at dinner.
Since part of her evidence for this was that there was not all that
much left of it, she had gone to bed immediately after her evening
stint in the medlab. Now, in the wee hours of the morning, before the
runners were out, she slipped back out of bed and exchanged her
nightclothes for fur and sharpened teeth and senses. She stopped for
the hunting knife in its waterproof sheath before she went outside;
she'd leave that out of the way before shifting all the way to wolf,
so that she wouldn't have to go all the way back to the house before
she could dress it.

The smaller animals were still too frightened to return, leaving a
distinct feeling of something missing as soon as she stepped out the
door. But the deer had evidently not yet been thinned out enough to
develop the sense or ability to avoid a place for long, and Rahne
rather thought she ought to be able to get one in time for breakfast.

There was a scrabbling sound as the door nearly closed behind her, but
not quite, After a few seconds the opening widened just enough for a
lavender cat to pop through the opening, padding after Rahne with the
determined look of the starved and not willing to put up with it much
longer. Catseye is hungry. AGAIN. Clicking her teeth in
irritation, she swarmed over to Rahne, sitting down on the girl's foot
with a decidedly stubborn air about her, and firmly butted her leg
with her forehead. "Mrrr!" With that, Catseye clicked her teeth at
Rahne again, a decidedly pleading air in her eyes. Catseye go hunt
too! Even if not BIG now!

Rahne blinked and bent down to smoothe the fur on top of her
roommate's head with her free hand. "Och, hungry again already?" she
half-whispered, tilting her head out toward the woods. Her ears
couldn't move quite freely enough to perk on their own, but the idea
got through. "Come along then. I think everything from rabbit on down
is asleep or half scared to death, but if ye want some of a deer...."
She grinned, looking briefly away from Catseye since it was rather too
predatory expression to be either politely or wisely directed at a
friend. "They doona taste any worse for being silly."

With a low sound which started as a purr and shifted to something
which hinted to a definite keeness for more food, Catseye moved away
from Rahne's foot, padding away from the mansion with her stomach low
to the ground, that hungry gleam still tucked away in her eyes. And
paused a few feet away to look over her shoulder - patiently because
Rahne wouldbe the one providing food, despite any ambition Catseye
might bring to the cause, and because as hungry as she was, Rahne was
her friend and room mate and being polite while hunting was the very
least she could do. Foooood. She clicked her teeth
again, then forced herself to stop on the next sound - silence would
be important.

Rahne nodded and set off across the snow at a loping jog, stopping at
the first convenient tree to put her knife out of the way and then
dropping down onto all fours. And then the hunt began in
earnest, moonlight and shadow fading in importance next to the sound
and scent on the cold wind. There was a nervous buck browsing
ice-coated leaves at what was left of a favorite spot. Favorite partly
because there was enough shelter on three sides to make it hard to
approach, and the deer could jump higher; Rahne would usually have had
to spook it and then make a mad dash around to harry it. This time,
she paused and turned thoughtfully toward the purple cat, then pricked
her muzzle and ears toward the tangle of small trees and undergrowth,
and finally indicated a curved route around to the side and picked up
a paw. If you startle him from there, I could be waiting along the
way.

Hungry, hungry, hungry... huh? Ooh. Catseye lifted her head
carefully just a bit, eyeing the area Rahne-as-a-wolf was indicating.
A very uncatlike nod greeted Rahne gesture - it was a hunter's plan
after all and hardly hard to guess and even with the different species
body language the idea came across quite nicely.

And if there was anything a very hungry Catseye was ready to do, it
was help with catching food. Belly back to the ground again,
Catseye carefully picked out a long route towards the undergrowth. As
hungry as she was, she wasn't about to risk spooking the deer too
early, either, and after the previous early morning fracas, the deer
would likely be very easy to spook.

She finally hit the tangle of branches and and trees, and snuck
steadily into position, careful to be silent the entire time. After a
while, she verified that Rahne was ready too, and then tilted her
whiskers forward into the silence - the deer was there, all right, the
occasional dry crackle of snow confirming it's presence. With an
almost serene expression on her face, Catseye crouched down - and then
lept out from concealment with a loud, piercing yowl, paws flailing
widly at the deer, resisting the urge to actually go anywhere close
enough to get kicked while doing her best to scare it silly.

The deer jerked and bolted, an unfamiliar but unmistakably predatory
shriek ringing in his ears as stay moonbeams glittered off sharp teeth
and claws. He went the right direction, too. Rahne twitched in shock
herself at the yowl, heard hooves hammer snow, and started running
herself, getting up enough speed to leap at the buck without just
being bowled over by the larger animal. A little larger than she'd
ever taken on alone, actually.

She was thrown back down, but not before opening her prey's
throat, and not far. She rolled back onto her feet, taking a glancing
blow as he thrashed, and jumped again, opening the wound further and
then dropping and twisting to crack the bones in one slender leg.

The buck tried once more to get away when Rahne leaped aside, but with
one leg, his jugular, and his windpipe all seriously damaged, he
wasn't going much of anywhere. Rahne stretched cautiously as the
adrenalin waned, testing to see how hard he'd caught her side. She was
going to have a bruise, but it didn't feel significantly worse than
when Mr. Logan had been trying to teach her to fight.

She swallowed some of the blood, licking her jaws clean of the deer's
before inspecting her own side. Shallow cut there. She'd have to tell
one of the doctors, she supposed, even if it closed on its own. For
now she'd just go back for the knife and make sure not to drain the
deer on it.

The faint trashings of the buck had all but stilled by the time
Catseye arrived, trotting up in the direction of both wolf and deer
with single-minded intent. And then stopped politely just a bit
further away than Rahne was, leaving her first say on the prey since
the russet colored wolf had been the one to bring it down, after all.

As hard as it was to do.

To distract herself from the nearly overwhelming urge to eat
something, especially with food nearby like that just waiting
to be devoured, Catseye tilted her head and looked over Rahne
carefully, having noticed the brief inspection of the light wound at
her side. It wasn't anything to be unexpected from a hunt, though
Catseye had to try not to purr in pride. It was a big buck that
she had helped Rahne bring down. And a good take-down too, even though
Rahne had done that part entirely on her own.

If Catseye had been BIG then Catseye could have helped better.

The look of pleasure at the catch faded, turning into irritation in
the space of a heartbeat. Stupid body. BIG CAT! Predictably,
nothing happened.

Rahne noticed the concentration and annoyance practically radiate from
the cat and puzzled briefly before tearing the hide open further down
the deer's throat and shoulder. She then trotted over to touch noses
briefly with Catseye, gestured with her head in the direction of the
catch, and wagged her tail before trotting off. There was no reason
Catseye couldn't get started while Rahne went to get the knife, after
all -- whatever the exact protocol was with cats, Rahne had really
digested dinner just enough to run comfortably, not to be hungry
again. Even if the deer did smell delicious.

"Mrf." It was the only sound that accompnied Rahne's departure, along
with a scrabbling of paws and claws digging into snow as Catseye made
a beeline for the deer. Food food food food FOOD! Time took a
break as Catseye began the process of eating her full, and then a bit
more just because shecould.

Needless to say, Rahne's return was greeted by the sight of a very
replete looking cat with a smug, satisfied air about her, licking one
paw meticulously before taking a swipe at her face with it. Catseye
stuffed now. Needs to be rolled home. There was a trace of paw
marks not far away from the carcass, zig zagging about before heading
straight back for the deer - apparently one of the critters in the
area had gotten a bit too daring for its own good, and had fled when
faced with the very possessive lavender cat now purring lazily in
contentment.

Rahne, now in transitional form and equipped with the dressing knife,
looked from deer to cat and back again, wondering just how much of
Catseye was stomach and whether some of the food went wherever the
rest of the mass from her human form did. "Good guarding," she
murmured, crouching over the carcass to remove the musk glands and
digestive tract so the meat would stay edible for everyone else. "And
good work before, too. Ye nearly scared me, and I doona think
the buck knew I was there until I bit him, he was that frighted. I'm
glad ye wanted to come." She looked over from her work. "Though I
admit I'm wondering what's got ye so hungry! I saw ye at dinner;
between then and just now, I'd think ye ate at least as much meat as
there is cat."

"Mreeow," was the lazy answer, half hampered by the fact that Catseye
was busy fussily cleaning off her paw just a bit more. She'd dived in
a bit more than she'd meant to, but now that she'd had food she felt
so much better disposed towards the world in general. After a
moment's reflection, Catseye rolled over slowly to sit - and then
shifted, bare legs in the snow and wearing only the shorts and shirt
that Forge had designed her collar to change to.

"Catseye was hungry," she whispered lowly, as though imparting
one of the great secrets of the world, while seemingly unbothered by
the snow other than for a light shifting from knee to knee, one hand
on the ground. "Catseye became a very big cat last night and
Catseye has been hungry since! FixingHands says this is normal, but
Catseye still has to eat.And when Catseye can do it again,
Catseye will be able to hunt even bigger things!" She nodded at this,
and then looked at her stomach - she wasn't quite as not hungry in
human shape, which meant shifting back was imperative. Being not
hungry was very very good. And the cold was starting to get to her in
this shape - just a bit. With that she shifted back to cat shape,
after gifting Rahne with a brilliant smile and a parting sentence.
"But RedFurFriend must keep it a secret!"

Rahne blinked. Well, FixingHands meant Dr. Bartlet, which meant that
she didn't need to worry about something coming up where a
teacher needed to know. So she didn't hesitate before agreeing, "I can
keep it secret if ye want, aye." She tilted her head, fascinated. "How
big is a very big cat? Do ye mean ye were the same size as a cat as ye
are when ye turn human, or bigger than that?" If Catseye kept the same
mass when she went from girl to cat, she'd make quite a substantial
cat. If she gained as much as in the usual transition from cat to
girl... she'd make a gigantic cat.

BIG CAT! Catseye purred, yawning widely and showing off every
teeth, neat and perfect. With a small grunt of effort - being back in
cat shape meant being nearly waddling more than anything else when
motion was required at this particular moment, Catseye considered the
question. Finally she dove one paw straight through the snow, making a
short line, then trotted back and made another line. Then flopped back
down again, in the pose the length she'd described would take,
proportionally speaking. It was not exactly a small shape she was
hinting at - definitely more along the lines of one of the larger
predators of the feline family, as opposed to cat like.

Okay, then. Definitely mass gain. "I see," Rahne said. "Wow."

A smug purr started to steadily fill the area they were in,
reverberating up and down the path. Big. Cat. Blinking slowly,
Catseye seemed perfectly content to watch while letting Rahne take
care of the deer. She flicked an ear just a bit, the slugishness of
having eaten too much not bothering her in the least, the need for
sleep present but held back. She could do that once they got back to
the mansion, food and all. And maybe eat a bit more when they arrived.
Maybe.

Rahne wasn't yet practiced enough at this part to be truly quick, but
she was at least reasonably neat and efficient. She'd have to come
back to the site to clean it up a bit after the bulk of the deer was
in.

Dani might be happy. They could marinate this one.