table © Alaine
ooc: Join if you dare! Caillen is in a very unpredictable mood. Haven't marked it M, but there is a bit of predatory gore in this post - Don't read if you can't handle it.
His hands were warm with blood.
The manchild had changed back into his Optime form naught moments before, and stained paws had become stained palms with the ease of practice. Sitting cross legged, now, the giant of a fellow turned them over slowly, observing the way that the beads of ruby dribbling from his large, wickedly-curved claws.
Caillen had hunted before. He'd needed to, being a loner and a wanderer, and hunting had never been a bad thing; Prey fed predator. It was the circle of life that he'd been taught to respect from his very first lesson. Prey was not a toy, it was a living animal just like himself, and it deserved as much respect as any canine and high-speaker.
The body of the stag steamed in the cool morning, a meter from where he sat. Caillen imagined it's souls twining in confusion in the air around him, and his nape prickled uneasily. The rage had bubbled down now, right down, till all he had left was a strange and aching numbness, and a mutilated corpse before him. The creature's throat had been crushed, slit side to side and nearly severed from muscular withers. The slate and ivory giant shuddered, suddenly repulsed with himself. He had taken down prey much larger than he needed - That went against everything his mother had ever taught him. Hunt only the weak, the old, the young, she said. That was the way of the carnivore. But in his estranged and unleashed anger, Caillen had hunted the proudest of prey - The antlered one, the stag. Protector of the harem.
It was wrong, wrong, wrong. But it had been done, and the most sacrilegious thing he could have done now was to waste the kill. Besides, his stomach gurgled and contracted painfully in hunger, and the youth didn't want to think about why he'd done what he had. The methodical curing of the carcass would clear his mind of such things.
Withdrawing his primitive dagger, the adolescent male began to skin the stag, peeling back the precious hide. Nothing would be wasted from the kill; that would be the only way to appease the stag's spirits. As he worked, the tall male muttered apologies beneath his breath, and little rites his mother had taught him to ward the prey's souls on their was to the other side. Once the hide had been removed, he began to scrape the fat from it. The succulent scent of the meat permeated the heavy, misty air, but the boy was not wary of other predators. His immense size offered a shield that his inability to fight could not, and it was a bluff that had worked almost his whole life. At 8"0, Caillen was a mammoth hybrid, but the intimidating appearance was only the husk of a gentle and passive giant.
Well, that had been before... Before the knowing. And now he was on his way home to set right the evils that had been done.
The thoughts made his large hands shake, and he did a poor job of cleaning the hide. Setting is aside, the young male began to strip long slices of meat. They would have to be dried or cooked if they were to last, which would delay his progress a whole day. To sustain himself while he worked, Caillen ate some of the still-warm strips raw, occasionally cleansing his bloody chops with a lick and a glint of huge ivory incisors.
The stag was a good kill, still strong from autumn feed, but he would never be able to make use of the entire thing on his own. Perhaps he would leave the bones and scraps to the ravens and the smaller predators of the forest, but he would keep the hide and the antlers and possibly the stronger thigh-bones, as well as the largest amount of meat he could carry.
Speak think walk
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