Summary:Hank lets his inner beast out to play, and meets a rather fuzzier friend. Which takes doing! Log Info:Storyteller: None |
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Hank has been rather anxious, in fact he's just /not/ in the mood to be cooped up indoors, the thought is utterly repugnant. With the temperature approaching fifty degrees, he doesn't even bother to get more dressed, presently just wearing knee length stretchy shorts. He lopes out into the hall, and then up into the institute grounds, and then, yellow eyes bright and focused, he heads for the Moutain King Park, running on all fours at a lazy thirty or so miles an hour.
After a while he catches a scent, nostrils flare and his hackles ripple a bit. "Mmm…boar…" His voice? A rather guttural growl.
Instincts flare to life, suddenly he /hungers/.
And off he goes in pursuit of his prey, moving to be sure he's always downwind of the intended prey.
There's a certain freedom in just being. In just doing. In just living.
Elsewhere on the mountain, another beastial creature has emerged upon the hunt. Free of catnip-creating elder abonination girls with kitty fetishes, Amur Khatun needed to get out of the city. Needed to get away from missions with mouth-sounding bipeds full of their own importance. Needed to just get away!
Is it the warmth that has wrought this? Siberian, Amur Khatun craves the ice, snow and cold. But exposed to such warmth and other biochemical reactions get started. And Amur Khatun should not go breaking into the Zoo. That would be bad.
So … a hunt!
And then she come across a scent. It is familiar, in ways, but much changed. Very different from what she knew. Curious, the massive tigress decides to go stalking after the source of this scent. Swift, silent and upwind, she is in stalking pursuit.
A curious game gets played out, Hank chasing the boar, though lazily. He is actually fairly adept at tracking, though -stalking- is something newish to him, and he makes a few mistakes. Like being where the boar can smell him, oops.
Hank is a little surprised when he finds himself facing a rather angry boar, a fairly sizable brute with massive tusks. He's a beaut, this boar, just over two-hundred pounds of meat and bone and gristle, and at least twice that in surly fury.
Hank pulls up short, blinking, and then the boar charges and manages to slash one of Hank's arms well as the Beast avoids getting himself disemboweled and rolls on his shoulder, then twisting to slid backwards on the grass and leaves, one hand slammed down with claws extended to halt the slide.
The boar squeals with rage, and then turns, preparing to charge again.
Hank's eyes are bright, and his lip curls as he bares his fangs - and /growls/ in low challenge.
And Amur Khatun is there, watching this. She has found the thing she could smell, and tracked it here to this open clearing, to witness the newly beastial Beast do battle with the mighty boar.
Yum. Tasty.
She could interfere. She could pounce upon the boar. But instead she stays upwind of the Beast and watches all of this transpire. It is as if Amur Khatun is being a mother tigress, watching her cub flail about and make mistakes. It is the best way to learn, after all.
Or maybe watching this is just entertaining?
Eyes of yellow narrow when the boar, moronically, charges again. Then again, nobody ever accused a boar of being an intellectual giant.
It charges, and Beast just waits, he rolls to one side at the last moment, one massive hand slapping down on the boar's tusks, driving them into the ground. Fueled by instincts he wasn't even aware he had Hank then bites at the base of the neck, his bit managing to crush the boar's spine, and then he worries at it, hurling it to one side and into a tree.
Panting, blood staining his maw, the Beast manages a credible roar of triumph.
No doubt Amur Khatun will have her own ideas of what just happened. Either way, Hank returns to himself, his eyes a little wide as he looks at the broken body of the boar. A hand moving to wipe some of the blood from his mouth with a fastidious little shiver.
What a curious blend he is.
And as the hunt is now over, the kill has been made, the tigress now slinks out of the cover of the surroundings and approaches the beastial Beast, stalking around until she makes herself visible. Lets her scent reach his blood-obscured nostrils. Lets him fully experience, in the aftermath of his visceral triumph, that he is not alone.
That another powerful, terrible predator is nearby. Watching him. That she has in fact been stalking and observing him.
That the hunter, finished with his prey, has been hunted in turn.
Hank's first instinct is to crouch low once more, lips curling away from far more impressive fangs than the old version had, a warning rumble throbbing in his chest. A moment to shake his head, to mostly clear his nostrils with a vigorous blow, and then he blinks as he remembers this scent. This cat.
"Amur…Khatun?" He growls out, eyes a little wide, and heart /thumping/ in the wake of his first kill with his new form. His scent is a mix of excited and distressed. He is absolutely an emotional mess, and a LOT more bestial looking.
That momma-cat instinct might well find him vastly amusing. He's a POWERFUL predator, and yet…knows nearly nothing about /being/ such.
Amur Khatun eyes the growling, possessive, cranky, confused beastling and continues circling around him, compelling those new instincts to demand he turn and turn and turn to keep watching her. And then she spirals in closer, within reach of Beast. One paw comes up, claws completely sheathed … and she bops him on the nose, soft and fuzzy, with just enough force to turn his head slightly. Then she just sits down and faces him, watching. Not one attempt is made to reach for fresh kill. She has attention only for Beast.
Hank turns, he can't /not/ turn…instincts are too new, and the kill too recent - his blood is up. Eyes of yellow narrow at the raised paw, his rumble growing into a full growl…until she baps him lightly on the nose.
His head turns and he hops back, the surprise actually helping him focuse his thoughts a bit.
"Was I being impertinent?" He asks the Empress Tiger. His voice is /Hank/, though a bit rough at the moment. A shiver ripples through him, and then he moves back to within Amur Khatun's reach, before he hunkers down. "You are welcome to the kill." A rumble from his stomach. "Or…welcome to share it." He adds with a faintly chagrinned smile, and definitely smells of embarrassment.
But the tigress just watches him, ears swiveling to follow his words. She apparently shows no fear at all that he would attack her. Neither does she, immediately, move for the kill. It is Hank's. He caught it, he killed it. Part of him is hungry for it. So … for now, she busies herself watching him. Evaluating him. Coming to understand better, from her perspective, what has changed. How or why is beyond her. But nature? Nature is hers. and she evaluates.
A good mistress does not starve those in her care, not even as a show of power. A good … alpha? Is that what Amur Khatun is? She certainly has learned to care for more than just herself and those of her loins. Just ask a certain squidgirl.
In truth no part of Hank really /wants/ to attack her, she's a friend. One he respects and likes in more than one form. Even IF the two-leg version finds him annoyingly verbose. Yellow eyes lose some of their more wild sheen, and he nods. It is funny - Hank can be very alpha in a host of situations, a classroom for example, or a training session in the danger room, or any sort of medical situation. He doesn't lack for assertiveness, or confidence - not usually, but Amur Khatun is well named. She's a proud, majestic Matriarch, and he responds to that on a visceral level.
He moves over to the fallen boar, and dresses the kill, offering Amur Khatun the organs and a haunch to start with, then begins making a fire. Bestial or not, Hank is not keen on raw meat, not yet anyway. Maybe someday, but not today.
Amur Khatun accepts the gifts regally - as if she could do anything else - but she does not eat right away. Instead she continues to observe Hank, including his cooking. Cooking?! Such blasphemy! Apparently Hank has not figured out how to properly embrace his beast yet. So sad. But she will wait. It's amusing, and interesting. Watching his thoughts as they show; his emotions; his movements and posture; all tell her more about the changes wrought in him. By comparison, of course, Amur Khatun has not changed one iota.
Blasphemer and heathen, Hank continues to cook things. He's actually quite adept at cooking out of doors, sure, human past time but he's able to find herbs and some wild onions to work with, and easily gets a fire started. His old Boyscout Master would be so proud! Apparently Hank really did earn his merit badges.
Only once the meat is cooking, does he regard his regal guest. "Please, don't wait on me, eat it while it is fresh, my friend." He does seem a lot more sorted, the acts of gathering and starting the fire, and cooking soothing him to the point he is civilized once more, the man ascendant.
Amur Khatun seriously considers pinning Hank down and grooming him within an inch of his life; but he's being so biped-like, she decides to leave that to him to find a stream. Doesn't mean she didn't think of it! But once he insists, she finally starts nomming on her torn-off haunch, and then the choice viscera offered up. She is thorough; nothing is left. By the time his meal is cooked, Amur Khatun is cracking bones and sucking out marrow. She won't have to go hunting for food later, at this rate.
Oh, Hank definitely spends some time grooming his fur. He is FASTIDIOUS about grooming. Getting clean is actually one of the things that helps him focus on the cookery and being all biped. Amur Khatun pinning and grooming him would probably be hilarious, he's no kitten - even if his beast is a noob to beasting! Still, he remembers their first meeting, he remembers how nice it felt to be groomed then, he'd probably allow it.
She did the the Khatun's share of the kill, Hank eats a lot, but even can't eat an entire boar in one sitting. He settles down, and enjoys the time spent with a friend.
It is nice sometimes to just /be/.