Meteor

Coming in at a clip through the dense forest hills, her heart pounds like it wants to leap from her chest. The prey at her knees thrashes relentlessly and still draws ragged gasps, kiln-hot breath met with the ice-cold forest air as it flares from its nostrils, giving rise to a fine white mist.

Stooping low, she leans to its ear, and speaks a few soft words of comfort.

'Shh, it'll be fine soon. Calm down, calm down.'

Heeding her warm caress, the prey's struggles slowly cease, and it stares at her with its deep black gaze. In the pool of its stagnant eye, its pupil still tremors and quakes, stirring a whirlpool in its sclera, tenaciously seeking to draw one last drop of mercy from the two eyes staring back.

Yet her voice is a ruthless gust that coils through dead leaves.

'It'll all be over soon.'

With a draw of a hunter's knife from her rear hip, slitting the prey's throat is both quick and clean. Fresh blood gushes from the incision and stains the earth, leaving behind a thick iron stench which mixes with the rotting autumn leaves and lingers for a good while in her nose.

This month shows signs of spring, winter having only just thawed, and the ice-littered creeks chill her fingers to a deep red swell while the blood hardened on the knife washes and melts away in the current. Like red threads needling through the water, flowing with the creek to the forest's edge.

Behind her, a full beastskin hangs on a branch, with a bonfire lit below to cook the moisture from it. The prey's carcass has been split, one half skewered above the fire, wafting an enticing aroma of grease as it roasts. The other half she's left by the creek, soon to be found by scavenging animals following the scent of blood, and dragged away in their mouths.

Daytime follows in the departing footsteps of night, early morn filtering through the forest in slanted beams from the east. Perfectly pale light glances again and again off the creek's shimmering waves, stabbing at her undefended eyes still adjusted to the earlier darkness. Her hand quickly shields them as she waits for them to adapt to the sun's sting. Warmth takes to the fine veins in her eyelids, inviting her to open her eyes again and see the beautiful sight. Letting out a deep sigh, she experimentally opens her tightly curled fingers. Her eyelashes tremble, she opens her eyes, and that which filters through the cracks between her fingers is the faint green of a rich forest. Deep in the trees, a kyebeast wanders through the cover, chewing leisurely at the grass, unaware that it's already been trapped in that frigid forest, and of the keen arrow nocked in a bow aimed at the hollow of its throat.