Worries of a First-time Werewolf

Following his instincts, Graham snarled and leapt at the deer's side. "Grr..." Reaching out with his forelimbs he tried to grab and slash at the deer, but his instincts had been wrong. Human hands were suited to grasping objects, but his wolf paws were not. Graham's short claws raked the deer's side, but any damage he did to the animal's thick hide was superficial. His misguided jump made him bounce off the deer's side and ungracefully tumble into the snow, and he only narrowly managed to avoid getting trampled by the deer's hooves.

Graham snapped his head up and tried to scramble back to his feet, even as his wild wolf companion sprinted past him and made her second attack on the deer. Graham's leaping claw swipe had not injured the deer, but the impact of his body had still thrown it off balance and slowed it down. That was enough for Sticks to strike--she knew how to hunt, even if Graham didn't. The wolf used jaws instead of claws, biting and tearing at the deer's hindlegs from an angle that made it difficult for the deer to kick backwards at her. This was not a debilitating injury, but it made the deer slow down even further and bought enough time for Graham to recover from his fall and catch up with them again.

Graham almost laughed at the sight as the deer kept running, dragging Sticks along even as she kept up her crushing bite on the deer's upper hindleg. He wanted to help, but he wasn't quite sure how to. Sticks was finally dislodged after having been pulled through multiple body-lengths of snow, but she was up on her feet and back on the chase in an instant. The deer was injured, but it was still able to run with a limp, and the hunt was not yet decided.

Predators and prey kept running, moving through the forest. Graham wasn't keeping track of time. How long had they been running? Instinctively he wanted to check his wristwatch, but that was impossible unless he stopped, and he was not going to stop.

Suddenly the forest all around opened into a familiar expanse. They were at the frozen lake. The deer kept running straight out onto the lake, but its hooves slipped up on the smooth, icy surface and it fell. Wolf and werewolf were in hot pursuit, running out onto the ice right after their prey. Graham spotted his opportunity, and he took it. Imitating what Sticks had done just a moment ago, he leapt at the deer's hindlegs and snapped his jaws. His fangs sank in deep--now more than just smelling the deer, he could taste its hide and its blood as he bit in.

The deer kicked its legs and tried to struggle back upright, but Graham held on tight and refused to let go. Then he heard a growl as his wolf companion attacked too. Instead of biting at deer's legs or its side, Sticks went right for the neck and closed her jaws around the deer's throat, dragging the animal down onto its side. This wasn't the playful, gentle bite that she had used when biting at Graham's throat, but a forceful, crushing bite meant to inflict grievous damage.

Blood openly poured from the deer's neck wound, yet even this too was not an instant kill--the deer kept struggling with its hooves and antlers scraping against the ice, but Sticks kept her bite firm. Graham was still biting the deer's hindleg too, and he helped to hold the animal down as the fight slowly faded from its body and it died. Its struggles slowed and stopped, then so did its breathing. The hunt was over.

---

After the furious, frantic motion of the chase, everything suddenly was calm and quiet again. Even without releasing his bite, Graham panted tiredly, and he could feel his heart racing. The deer's flesh was warm and bloody in his jaws. Abruptly he felt alive in a way he never had before. The deer was dead yet he was alive, because he was predator and it was prey--and that felt good.

Graham's gaze shifted from the deer to looking at his hunting partner. Sticks was also still biting on the deer's neck, and Graham could see her breathing heavily too, looking tired from the chase but powerful and victorious. Blood stained her muzzle and some of her fur--the mark of a successful hunt. Even as Graham kept staring at her, he had a moment of odd introspection. Was that how he looked? If someone had been out in the forest in the night, they might have looked across the frozen lake to see this primal scene of two wolves standing over a fallen deer, claiming their kill.

Finally the wild wolf released her bite and let the deer's head drop limply down against the ice. She licked her lips and her teeth, and when she turned to look at Graham, she looked so wolfish that he let out an amused huff. "Hah..."

Following her lead, Graham released his bite hold on the deer's leg and inhaled deeply of the frigid winter air. He wanted to say something, but at first he couldn't find the words to express himself--not because he had lost his mind or his vocabulary, but because in that singular instant he was engrossed in the moment. Everything he could see, hear, feel, smell, or even taste--it all seared into his memory, and experiencing was more important than talking. Instead he just stood there, mouth open and tongue dangling out, panting softly as he enjoyed their victory.

"Wow," was what Graham finally said, when he could find his voice. "That was intense."

Sticks tilted her head to the side, and her ears perked up. The wild wolf couldn't understand his words, but Graham got the sense that she understood his meaning, at least a little bit. In response she made a soft, happy whine. "Hnnh!"

"That was much more fun than just eating berries." Graham stood up and put a front paw down on the deer carcass, and he straightened his body into a victorious pose. "Hunting is definitely more tiring than just eating packed food, but what a thrill. I'm an apex predator, yes I am! A true carnivore. Rawr."

"Hmmnh." Sticks whined again, and she padded over to bump her snout against Graham's. Then she licked at his face, which made him laugh.

"Haha, hey. Ok, maybe you're the alpha wolf, but I still helped. Heh. I did not expect this hunt to go as well as it did. We make a good team." Graham nudged at the deer carcass, and he glanced at the ice around them. They were modest distance from the lakeside, but the ice everywhere seemed thick and fully solid. "So, what do wolves normally do now? I guess you eat this thing, obviously. But there's no... butchery or anything. And do you eat right here, or do you drag it back to a den or something first--"

"Grrrrr..." Suddenly Sticks cut him off with a loud, low-pitched, rumbly growl that instinctively made Graham jump. He glanced at her and found that she was baring her teeth and her hackles were all raised--but not at him. The wolf was glaring towards the shore of the lake and growling continuously in a threatening, dangerous way that sent a chill down his spine.

A huge, furry, four-legged creature was standing next to the trees, staring out at them. Covered in brown shaggy fur all over, it had a stocky, bulky form and stood on four thick limbs, with a short tail that was only visible because it was half turned sideways.

It was a bear, and it was easily double the size of either werewolf or wolf. The bear sniffed at the air, then it reared up on its hindlegs and roared at them. "Grraahhh!" Standing up, even from a distance, the bear looked massive. Dropping heavily back to all fours, it stepped out onto the solid ice and began lumbering slowly towards them.

---

Graham went still. A strange emotion ran through him, causing his fur to puff up around his body and making his tail quiver. It was not a familiar emotion state for him to experience, and he genuinely could not recall ever having felt this way before--a dose of shock but not enough to make him confused, a dash of panic but not enough to make him run, and an overwhelming sense of uncertainty and concern.

The bear was big. It was so dreadfully big, easily twice Graham's size, and it was clearly closing in on them. What was a bear even doing out in the middle of winter? Didn't bears hibernate during this season? Graham didn't know, and he didn't know how to react. What did the bear want?

For that last question at least, Graham could guess. His gaze dropped down to the deer carcass that he was standing over--this was what the bear wanted. It was seeking food, and now that they had taken all the trouble to chase and bring down a deer, the bear could just take that from them.

"Grrrr..." Sticks was still growling, but the sound she made sounded feeble just by comparison with the bear's vocalizations.

"Hhhraahh!!" The bear let loose another deafening, threatening roar, and Graham's ears flattened against his head. Standing beside him, he saw his wolf companion also react--Sticks was glaring at the bear and her teeth were bared in a snarl, but just a brief instant, her aggressive, confident posture faltered. Her ears twitched and she glanced to the side just to check he was still beside her, but then she growled again and even took a few steps towards the bear as it continued to approach.

Sticks moved forward away from the deer as if planning to intercept the bear, but then she changed course towards the left, moving perpendicular while still staying a distance away from the bear. Graham recognized the move. It was the same manoeuvre she had used while preparing to pounce at the deer herd. Sticks was splitting up to attack from a different direction, and it worked--the bear had to shift its focus between the deer carcass and the wolf as she moved to surround and outflank it.

Still standing next to the deer carcass, Graham remained frozen. He instinctively wanted to follow his wolf companion and stick close to her, but he had to stay here and guard the deer. That food resource was what the bear was after, and they couldn't just give it up. Or could they? A tremble ran through Graham's body, but he took a step forward and bared his own teeth to growl at the bear too. "Grrrr!"

"Hnnhrrrraaah!!!" The bear roared again in response, and it did not halt its slow, relentless approach. Graham reversed his step forward and then he took a further step backwards. The bear was monstrously huge. Its limbs and body were thick and robust, with heavy muscle under all that brown fur. Graham's canine teeth were longer than his human teeth had been, but the bear's teeth were far larger still. Its claws were long and dangerously sharp as it strolled forward over the frozen lake.

Graham recognized the emotion he was feeling. It was fear. In the past his only experience with large animals had been seeing horse-drawn carriages in his home city, but never had he felt the focused, threatening, predatory gaze of a wild creature such as this bear. The herd of deer had been prey animals who had done nothing but flee, but now this bear made Graham feel like he was the prey.

His instincts all told him to run, but Graham stayed right where he was standing. He looked to Sticks for guidance, yet he could see fear in her posture as well, despite how she kept defiantly growling at the bear. She was still standing off to the side, trying to surround the bear and scare it off, to no success at all. Graham wanted to follow her lead--if Sticks had attacked, he would have instantly done so too, and if she had run away, he would have instantly fled as well--but she only held back and growled, so Graham growled too, but the bear showed no fear. It was outnumbered two to one, yet it surely weighed much more than both of its opponents combined.

Graham overwhelmingly wanted to run, but he also didn't want to abandon the deer meat after all the effort they had taken to get it. Was there any other alternative? Bending low, Graham closed his jaws around the deer's neck and started trying to drag the carcass back. He wasn't even thinking about where he was trying to go, since the bear was in between him and the frozen lake's shoreline, not that this mattered.

"Hnnh. Hrraaah!!" With a huff and another growling roar, the bear charged. It had still been a modest distance away, but abruptly it rushed forward with unbelievable acceleration for a creature so large. With terrifying speed, it took just seconds to close the distance. Graham only had enough time to let go of the deer and raise his head.

A huge paw with curved, wicked sharp claws each as long as a human finger smacked Graham on the side of his head and neck, brutally knocking him to the side and sending him sliding across the ice. Graham couldn't even remember seeing the bear start to attack--the sheer force of the impact dazed him and knocked his thoughts all asunder. Before he could try to get up, or before he could even fully comprehend what was happening, the bear was on him again.

"Rnnaah!" Violent impacts struck him again and again, with white-hot streaks of pain cutting in lines across his body as the bear mauled him with its claws. It was standing over him, raking, slashing, and growling repeatedly. Agonizing pain arced across Graham's body--he would have screamed, but he couldn't even draw enough breath as the bear smashed him down against the ice. The bear was so close he could smell the odour of its fur, and certainly he heard and felt it as it struck him. "Grraaaah! Raaah!"

"Hnn! Whuff! Raff!" The assault halted as Graham heard a series of furious whines and barks. Blinking his eyes open, the world spun for a moment and everything was out of focus, but then his vision sharped and he saw Sticks madly biting and nipping at the bear's hindquarters. The bear tried to swipe a paw at her, but the wild wolf skittered back as soon as the far larger creature started to turn around, and she just barely managed to avoid getting hit.

Everything hurt. Graham could feel dampness on the left side of his body. For a moment he thought the bear's attack had been so violent as to have broken some of the ice and exposed the lake water, but then he realized it wasn't water but blood that was staining his fur. It wasn't the blood of the deer, and it certainly wasn't the bear's blood--it was his.

Graham managed to struggle to his four feet and he tried to run, but his wolf companion had only briefly managed to distract the bear from its assault. "Hrraaahhh!" Again that was that dreadful roaring, then the bear's paws clobbered him down to the ground before he could take more than a couple of steps. The ice was painfully hard and unforgiving as Graham crashed down against it. Then suddenly he felt a stab of terrible pain at his upper back as the bear bit into his fur and skin. It just grabbed him and shook, trashing him from side to side with unrelenting, primal violence.

It bit him, shook him, put him down to scratch and bash him with its claws, then it bit him again and kept shaking. The bear was roaring loudly. "Raahh! Raaahh!" If it had just been trying to scare him off it would have done so many times over, but it kept going. And why would it stop? It was the top predator, and now why would it need to be satisfied with eating deer when it could have wolf meat as well?

Graham was jostled so hard that it was a struggle to even breathe. Adrenaline ran through his veins, but not like before. The hunt had been thrilling and exciting, but this was terrifying. This was fear. This was death.

"Hnnhh!" Again he heard a whining, keening sound from Sticks. She was still nearby, even if he couldn't see her. Blood was dripping into his eyes as the bear kept shaking him. He could hear Sticks' yapping and snarling as she tried biting at the bear to get it to let go of him, but this time it wasn't to be distracted from its brutal assault until Graham was done for.

The world was a blur of movement and pain, and all he could smell was the iron taste of his own blood on his tongue. "No..." Graham managed to choke out, and then fire exploded from within.

---

Flames burst out over his body, completely engulfing the werewolf as all his fur came alight with brilliant magical fire.

"Grah!" The bear let out a pained sound and it finally let go of him, stumbling backwards as heat poured out from Graham's body and singed the bear's mouth and paws.

"Enough." Graham dropped to his belly, but one leg at a time he forced himself back into a stand even as power rushed through him. "That is... quite... enough!" he repeated in a growl, as all his fear and terror compressed into a smouldering fury. First of all, he was furious about this stupid bear that didn't know bears were supposed to be hibernating in the winter; and second of all, he was even more furious that the stupid bear had the arrogance to steal their food after all the time and effort that he and his hunting partner had expended. But most of all, Graham was furious with himself since clearly he was very, very stupid himself for letting any of this happen. He'd been so curious and engrossed with exploring his new werewolf form that he had forgotten a simple fact--before he had become a werewolf, he had been a magician, and fire was his to command.

Instinctually he turned emotion and desire into magical will. Orange flames surrounded his four-legged form, then spread out in a roaring, scorching wave that encircled him in all directions--all directions except for one, in the direction of Sticks who was standing off to one side, cowering back from him but watching in wide-eyed awe. The raging circle of fire engulfed everything all around other than the wild wolf, fuelled not by firewood but by the burning magical energies that ran through Graham's blood.

The bear had turned to run, but the fiery wave still singed its fur which made it run even faster, fleeing back to the shore and away from the unexpected threat. The magical fires danced furiously across the ice for a moment more, but then they evaporated into nothing as Graham ran out of strength to maintain them. Bright orange flames continued to roll over his body for another few seconds, but then those too halted, leaving behind bloody but unburnt fur.

The moonlit ice was abruptly dark compared to the brilliant flames that had been there just a moment before, and the roar of fire faded and left behind a stark quiet. Graham turned to glance at Sticks, who was still staring at him. She was in a half crouch, with her ears flat against her head and her tail firmly between her legs. "I... I told you I was a magician, Sticks."

The wild wolf jerked back upright and her ears perked up again. "Woah, whaoao, aawaoah!" Sticks whined, noisily complaining to Graham, and though she wasn't saying anything he suspected he still knew exactly what she meant.

"Sorry. I should have... I should have done that earlier, right? I should have used a flame spell to scare off the bear before... before I let it... hit me..."

A wave of dizziness swept over Graham, and he toppled over and slumped onto the ice. His vision was tunnelling, but dimly he was aware of dull creaking sounds coming from the frozen surface of the lake. Just before the world faded away entirely, Graham heard a sharp cruunk-crack. Damaged by his fire, the ice gave way under him, and he felt a sensation of falling as his limp body plunged into the dark, frigid waters.

---

Deep in winter's grasp, the water was near freezing as Graham fell into the lake. His perception had been greying out and fading, yet the sudden drop into the water hurt so much that he was forced back into some semblance of consciousness. His werewolf fur had been sufficient to keep him well insulated against the snow and the chill of frosty air, but it wasn't enough for this. The icy water felt like needles against his skin, and it leeched heat from his body with incredible speed.

"Huhhk..." Graham drew an instinctual breath, and he kicked all four legs, trying desperately to keep himself afloat. The lake water was still and calm, but it was horrifically cold. His outburst of flame magic had melted a large, jagged circle in the ice around him, and the young werewolf tried to reach for the edge to pull himself up. But there was nothing to grab on that smooth surface and his claws slid against the wet ice without digging in. The water was so cold that it was rapidly stealing all his heat and making his muscles shiver uncontrollably, which made it hard to coordinate any movement, let alone paddle and keep his head above the water.