Post by Deleted on Dec 19, 2013 10:25:20 GMT -5
A colossal wolf passed silently through the tall grasses, the tangled green foliage flattening under the weight of his sturdy paws. The grass was pliant and bowed wilfully to his approach, softening the sound of his presence, but the need for stealth was an unneeded formality at this point in the hunt. His daunting height loomed far above the cover provided by the grass, his mottled grey form glaringly obvious even at a far distance.
An elk stood at attention a few hundred feet away, its ears flicking in observant unrest whilst its eyes, dulled by exhaustion, watched the steady advances of the stalking wolf with a dreading acceptance. Despite his immense stature, which encumbered his speed and agility a great deal, Goliath was shrewd in selecting his prey. The elk was old, having almost reached its natural expiry, and was accompanied by a hobbling gait that implied lameness in at least one of its legs. Perhaps it had been injured by another predator at some point in its life, but had escaped due the fickle and fortunate mercy of nature. Today, however, her luck had reached its grand finale.
The brute let his lethal jaws gape in anticipation, unsheathing the discoloured fangs that glistened menacingly with foamed saliva. His tail swayed with false calm. This wolf was not one for demonstrating the swiftness and haste of a hunter, but instead showed the patience and power of a honed killer, evidenced by the fact that he had spent the last three consecutive days without sleep to shadow the elk and deny her any opportunity to rest or eat. Despite his own fatigue, his senses were sharpened by the adrenaline steeling his veins like an invigorating poison.
The elk snorted loudly in desperate unease as the wolf suddenly launched forward, abandoning his last efforts to remain covert as he sprinted as fast as his burly limbs would permit. The elderly prey reared her head high, the whites of her eyes illuminated by a sheen of panic as she capered sideways, over-tiredness apparent in the laboured heaving of her lungs. There was no purpose in running, nor did she have any energy remaining to do so. As Goliath advanced suddenly upon her, he wasted no time in snapping at the flank of her lamed leg, and when her balance finally wavered at the culmination of their tousle, he dove for the exposed jugular and brought her body to the ground with a drone of pain and a flailing of hooves. Compressing his teeth unpityingly, her struggle enervated with gradual weakness as she suffocated under his grip. Her death occurred gracelessly, without the inherent beauty often encompassed by nature. The body was brittle and limp as the elk’s eyes glazed vacantly in unseeing, her mortality the proof of life’s dualism; a cruelty for the elk was a mercy for the wolf, whose hunger was an unrelenting force of survival.
Despite the burning emptiness in his stomach, Goliath’s exhaustion overrode his immediate desire to eat as he released his jaws from the corpse’s neck and stood proudly over his kill, howling his triumph with a brief but powerful warning, cautioning other predators from approaching him unless they wished to suffer the same fate. With an airy, satisfied growl, his solid muscles weakened from their exertion as he laid his enormous body possessively over the carcass, intent on reclaiming his much-needed rest before rewarding himself with a meal. Blood stained his maw with tantalizing sweetness, almost tempting him to forgo his sleep, but within moments, relaxation slackened his body as he slipped into a mid-afternoon doze, partly aware of his surroundings and partly deaf the world.
WORDS: 611 | MUSE: Average | TAGGED: @aurelia
Sorry this took me so long, Chai!!
Sorry this took me so long, Chai!!