Nature

Who: Porter
Where: Presque Isle
When: afternoon

He was getting better, but he was also getting worse. Better at lying, mainly; it had seemed so easy and natural to tell his mom he was going to hang out with Tad, and all he'd needed to back the claim up was the prop of a videogame controller. She'd given Porter the keys without batting an eye, all friendly smiles and encouragement for him to go spend time with a friend. A friend who wasn't Medea.

But even if he could slip simple lies into his life now? Porter was getting worse. He'd been feeling weak again, sick and frail, hollowed out. The mice from Wade's cage didn't even seem to dent the hunger in comparison to the fierce power the werewolf had given him, he'd drained six of them before leaving and felt like a starving man who could only smell fresh bread nearby. But what were his options? It wasn't like there were werewolves all over the city, and... And what happened to it? To whoever it was?

He'd killed someone that night. Porter knew it. If it hadn't been in self defense, he wasn't sure he could've lived with it. But it had been for Medea, to defend her, to keep her safe in all her delicate wonder. She loved him, and he needed her. She needed him too, but she needed him strong. So there had to be something, some way he could feed. There had to be. And that insistent line of thinking had woven into Porter's actions without him even realizing.

He'd picked a white hoodie to blend in with the snow, warm shoes, gloves. He'd stopped to buy carrots. And before Porter quite realized, he was at the island. It was already mostly barren of greenery, just a landscape of snowy hills and skeletal trees, but it wasn't devoid of life. In all of his pre-move research, Porter had seen plenty of pictures online of people posing here with the handful of deer that lived on the island. Domesticated, tame deer. It wasn't a werewolf, sure, but it would be far more than a mouse if he could make it happen.

So, with treats stuffed in his pockets, Porter had started hunting. The trick, he figured, was to watch the area itself and make sure that the traffic and hikers and nature lovers were gone, or at least elsewhere. Which would've been easier if he wasn't so cold. It took somewhere close to a half hour of waiting, walking around a little gazebo with snow crunching underfoot, before Porter thought he might have a clear shot.

Not wanting to waste it, he left his car parked down along the curve of the main road, trudging up a short hill and turning left to plunge into the woods. The immediate change in the snow's depth was a surprise, but he had to remember that the roads got plowed, and the woods? Not so much, he thought chidingly, eyes fixed on the vertical strips of brown that were trees all around him.

It was still, quiet, cold. He breathed deep, weight shifting as Porter ducked under a tree limb and stretched his legs across a little rut in the snow, standing tall again. He turned back to look at the tracks that had been left by his passage, frowning in consternation. Tracks that probably wouldn't be a problem, but still... he needed to be sure.

Resolving to drag them away once he left, Porter turned to look back the way he'd been heading, freezing suddenly as he caught sight of a deer nearby, its' own head aimed warily in his direction. Porter moved slow, shivering from the chill as he reached into the folds of his sweatshirt, grabbing a carrot. He cracked it in two, tossing one half out ahead of him and holding his breath as the deer tensed up, seeming to weigh the option of running.

Porter still didn't exhale much at all as the deer took slow steps towards the food he'd tossed, instead watching the animal and how it wove through the trees. Some people might have appreciated the grace of the deer's long limbs, but Porter? He was thinking of where it might run, if it tried.

He managed a flutter of a smile as it crunched down on the carrot hunk, dimly thinking that it was a doe. A deer, a female deer, he thought oddly, wondering why that snippet of a song would flit into his mind at that moment. Porter didn't pursue the thought, extending his arm to offer over the rest of the carrot. He had to breathe eventually, but even when he did, it was a slow whisper of an exhale.

Porter's free hand was shaking as the doe trod closer, sniffing at the carrot warily and leaning its' head in to bite down. "Shhh," he murmured soothingly, encouraging the doe as it ate and slipping another carrot from his pocket. Obligingly, the doe moved to the new meal, nibbling and eventually pulling the carrot from Porter's hand entirely. Which was, unfortunately, perfect.

"Clobberin' time," Porter whispered, stretching both hands out and down as they flared and snapped twin arcs of energy out. Even the bare whisper was enough to startle the doe, and the sudden impact of one burst of power on it's leg was more than enough to make it run. Or try to. The strike of energy broke the doe's foreleg with a snap, earning a strained sound of agony as it whipped its' head sideways into Porter, dropping him in a heap in the snow, then turned and tried its' best to flee.

Ignoring the pain in his arm, Porter sat up with a dark look in his eyes, scrambling to his feet and starting after the doe. His year in track helped against the cold stiffness in his legs as Porter ran, eyes on the hoofprints in the snow and ears perked for the scrambling sound ahead of him. More than once he caught sight of his prey, a dot of brown weaving through the trees, stumbling, righting itself, veering to try and lose him, but he never got close.

Never, that is, until he fell. Porter thought he'd gotten turned around, that he'd doubled back on the deer's erratic tracks or perhaps lost them entirely. He could still hear it bleating somewhere close, but the sound didn't seem to move. Edging closer towards it at a jog, he was actually anticipating the thrill of draining the animal for making him run like this and suddenly he saw sky.

His feet crossed the edge of a small gully effortlessly, dropping Porter down in a sprawl to land face first in the snow and flinch as a buried stick raked across his cheek. The sound of the pained deer was right next to him, he could feel the ground buzz with the animal's thrashing, and Porter pushed up in bewilderment. He'd nearly landed on top of the deer, which would have been bad, to say the least.

It had broken its' other foreleg in the fall, but the two hind ones were scrambling wildly in the snow as Porter staggered away from the doe, pushing his hair back in damp, frozen hands. The anticipation was gone, replaced by a sick awareness of what he was doing, how desperate he was for this. But the awareness wasn't alone, it shared the confines of his mind with a cruel, greedy hunger. A need that pushed him forward towards the deer, hands curling closed in anticipation.

Porter felt almost detached, akin to a spectator as he railed a gloved hand into the side of the deer's head and quickly tugged both gloves off. The punch likely didn't hurt the doe, but it was enough of a stunner to give him the access he needed. His breath came in low pants and growls as Porter wrapped both hands around the doe's neck, savoring the softness and warmth of the fur before he forced his way past the chakra there.

He drank in the energy with a gasp and a shiver that had nothing to do with the cold, letting it wash over him like a benediction. It was still so small in comparison to the werewolf, but it was substantial in its' own right. Strong and healthy, this one would've endured the winter just fine. Now it was nearly silent, its' limbs weaker as they kicked at the snow. Porter drank it in, pulling the life force from the deer without thought, which was his mistake.

No thought meant no focus, which in turn meant no control. All he was aware of was a sudden tingle down his arms as the last scraps of the doe's life flared the wrong way, coalescing in his hands and surging outwards. Porter had enough time for a heartbeat of panic before the power flowed up and out, rupturing the doe's now-dead eyes and splattering him in gore.

He fell back in disgust, choking back bile and nausea as he scrambled up out of the gully, frantically grabbing fistfuls of snow and wiping at his bloodied cheeks and neck. He gagged repeatedly, looking down at the corpse left after his feeding, and knew if he lingered he'd definitely be throwing up.

Porter fled from the woods in a faltering rush, sometimes thinking clearly enough to drag his feet and obscure his tracks, other times just moving back towards where he thought the road was as quick as he could. There was too much to think about, like where to hide the sweatshirt he had on, with its' faint drops of blood along the collar. Or, as he reached the road and saw his car in the distance, why anyone would be texting him right now.

"Tad, Kaysen, whoever, fucking wait!" Porter snapped to no one in particular, digging his phone free and forcing a slower, less freaked out pace back towards his car. That pace stopped entirely as he saw the message onscreen.

Hello. How are you today?

Blinking in confusion, Porter scrolled through menus in search of the sender's name, the blink turning into a frown when there simply wasn't one. Was he being hacked? Who is this? he typed back quickly, glancing back the way he'd come as a wave of paranoia hit him. No answer. Wrong number? Leave. Leave now.