undergrounds | Hungry for the kill, but this hunger, it isn't you

01
"You gonna eat that?"

Guy looks (and smells) homeless. Ratty hoodie over similarly ratty jeans; but he's big, brawny, face dirt and grease-smeared as if he's been rooting around in the Underground tunnels. But despite his altogether imposing physique and absolute inability to ken the social laws which govern personal space, he projects an air of almost polite harmlessness. Like an over-friendly dog who can't help but shove his big nose into someone else's business.

And he's staring hard at whatever nosh you happen to be mid-bite of.

02 / Full Moon
So he didn't get to see his witch in time for a dose to calm the beast, or duck onto a train headed outward of London. And now he's paying the price, and making others pay it too, hunting hard in the derelict shipping quarter he uses for his home in the unclaimed lands northeast of the river bend. You might come across the snarling, savage thing muzzle-deep in someone's loose dog, white teeth crunching through meat and bone.

Or worse: he could be hunting you.

[ Hop in with whatever you like, will certainly be adding more, and can do so on request! ]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Foxes were opportunistic animals, not strictly predators, but nevertheless, Heiji's senses were sharp. Not that they would have to be to pick up the sound of crunching bone. Or the coppery smell of fresh blood.

He padded quietly along the streets. He was much bigger than an average fox -- about as long as a loveseat, with black fur that blended into the darkness. His ears were pricked for changes in the soundscape, but he was curious by nature...

hunger hunger hunger hunger hunger hunger

It cramped through his stomach 'til it made an ache in his spine, a blind, red need. Red smeared up from black lips and into the pale fur of his muzzle. His dark, wet nose shivered, drawing in another breath; heavy with the rain-dampened scents of the river, motor exhaust, birds and low animals, the lingering scents of what few men worked in and traversed the area over day.

And fox.

Already beginning to slaver again, he lowered his head, lapping hard along the torn-open ribcage of what small creature had failed to satisfy his hunger, chasing the fading warmth of blood, chasing after the last of the easy meat before he left it discarded.

And prowled out of the shadows to hunt this other, familiar scent.

Heiji had never actually been nose-to-nose with a transformed werewolf; rather, he knew of them mostly from secondhand descriptions. There were few, if any, wolves where he'd grown up. Certainly no real ones, not since the start of the twentieth century at least. It was instinct that made his fur stand on end in the night air.

He could run, but the werewolf would then likely target someone else. So he circled around, not wanting to be downwind when the confrontation happened. He stopped by a parked Volkswagon Beetle -- just big enough to keep himself out of sight.

Cooper's in mid-bite of a chicken Cesar salad when he's asked the question. He could smell Tal before he ever saw him. He looks the man up, down, and all around, wondering where's the hole he crawled out of and why he didn't stay there. He's got very little sympathy for him. When will he learn not to judge a book by its cover?

"That depends on how good your sob story is."

Tal blinked; the question seemed awfully non-sequitur. But then, he only had a passable education by human standards, and most of that he'd neatly filed away under the mental file, 'upworlder human trash nonsense'.

Without missing a beat, "What's a sob story?"

"People who beg for food always have one." He ticks off the usual reasons on his fingers. "I'm homeless, I haven't eaten in days, I'm alcoholic or addicted t'drugs. So--" He pointedly spears another bite of salad while he fixes Tal with a challenging look. "--what's yours?"

Much as she didn't like Mr. Tuppen for his cranky ways, she felt bad that he lost one of his dogs. Happened to be a beloved one too since the dog was new but scrappy, making the old man smile now and then as they ran around him as they took walks around the neighbourhood.

Seeing him so distressed to lose his companion this morning moved her to search for the fella, hoping she could perhaps spook him back to the residence.

She followed after the dog's trail, tracking down clues and hints to their whereabouts. The further she went, the further she got away from the nice neighbourhood to more questionable places, the more she felt concerned but yet she pushed forward. All in hopes to do the job before it got any later and return the dog home. She never suspected him to be so far away from home and she wonders what he's doing all the way here when she catches sight of--

--Oh.

Her foot crunched on loose gravel over the old road, and he lifted his great head from where it'd been buried ears-deep in the abdominal cavity of the selfsame dog she'd been searching for. The body was so fresh that its ripped body steamed in the dark, too warm for the chill which came after a fresh drizzle.

The wolf's face was gore-splattered, and his red tongue compulsively licked noisily at his chops. Even the blood was too good to waste on these fat-fed, mostly-sedentary city creatures.

But his yellow eyes lit on the girl, and his hackles rose stiffly up over his back and neck, his back hunching while his head lowered in clear menace. Black lips lifted off of teeth licked cleanly white again, and a growl rumbled between his ribs, loud and low as distant thunder.

Human instincts are hard to let go, dead or not. She was concentrating looking so hard for the missing canine, she's became more focused on the real world and, as a byproduct of her drive, that made her more connected to her environment. She should have kept track of that. It meant she was making more noise, drawing more attention to herself but she doesn't and now its too late.

Did you ever just regret making a choice?

She does in the moment the wolf's -- are they a wolf? that can't be a wolf. they're so big and vicious looking and she knows animals around here are tough but goodness the size of their teeth and their everything -- eyes lock on hers.

Freezing up, wide-eyed, Clara does the next best thing she thinks to do: Immediately flee from sight and danger by zipping behind the closest thing she can hide, something big and hulking and completely shields her from that yellow-eyed gaze. In the back of her mind, there's the knowledge that she can simply pop right back into the safety of the coffee shop, her original haunting grounds, but the basic and born human instincts she has is hard to deny. More so if in the face of danger that comes in the form of claws and fur.

Hungry for the kill, but this hunger, it isn't you

02

no subject

no subject

1

no subject

no subject

[ 2 ]

c: yesss

i'm not sorry one bit