#swaying

Natalia crept through the forest silently, gun in hand. Her eyes flicked around, but she saw nothing. There were no flashing eyes watching her, no monstrous forms hidden in the trees. That was a bit odd, but she wouldn't doubt that it was here somewhere, hiding and waiting for her to let her guard down enough for it to attack.

As if she'd let that happen.

The beast had been terrorizing the village that had hired her for about a week now. It had already killed four people for sure, and one other had vanished two days ago and was presumably dead. The people were terrified, and were willing to pay a hefty sum of money to get the beast killed, despite being a fairly poor village.

Natalia didn't mind. She knew what it was like to lose people to these monsters.

Unfortunately for her, though, she'd come at just the right — or wrong, really — time. It was a full moon, which meant the beast would be at its strongest right now. But, she had to track it down at night or she would never be able to lure it out, so she couldn't wait until daytime, or even until another night. She needed to stop it from killing more people.

She'd done this many times before, so she wasn't too worried, but she knew better than to believe she couldn't be taken down easily. Overconfidence got Hunters killed, no matter how good they were at their jobs.

She was fairly deep into the forest when she saw something odd. There was an arrow embedded in a tree. Not necessarily unusual, per se, but she would've thought that any hunters in this village would collect their arrows to use again, not just leave them in the forest. That's what all the poor villages she knew of did.

She looked around, and she noticed that there was another arrow in a tree and a bow on the ground. That was even more strange.

In fact… the more she looked around, the more things she found. Spilled arrows, the archer's quiver… even their clothes, which were ripped and torn. She realized quickly that this was probably the missing villager she'd been told about. He had clearly been attacked, most likely by the beast.

The strangest thing, though, was that she only found a small amount of blood near the outer ring of the clearing.

Something wasn't right.

She heard a twig snap, and she turned her head to the noise, but didn't raise her gun yet. When these things hunted, they were silent unless they had a reason not to be. Either something else made the noise — unlikely. She hadn't seen any animals in these woods yet. They'd probably been scared off — or it was trying to bait her into a trap.

She wouldn't fall for it.

She scanned the area again. It was hard to see through the trees, even in the decently bright light of the moon, but she could still make out some things, at least.

The leaves rustled, and she caught a glimpse of fur through the brush. It was not at all stealthy, and she wondered how this could be a trap if it was attracting her attention to itself like this. Unless there were more than one in the area? The beast she was hunting could have a mate, but that was rare. Still, she couldn't rule out the possibility of that, so she kept looking and listening for signs of another.

She couldn't find anything, though.

She finally raised her gun as the bushes rustled again, and a russet wolf stepped out.

There it was.

~*~

Clint wasn't a capital H Hunter, but he was a regular, lowercase H hunter, and a pretty good one at that, so he figured he could at least try to hunt this monster that had been killing the people in his village. How hard could it be? Those Hunters did it all the time, and they often went after several at once, so surely he could handle just one.

And, hey. Maybe if a Hunter did show up — he doubted it, but still — and he killed the monster before them, they'd be impressed and would train him. He'd do anything to get out of this place, even if it wasn't likely to happen.

With this hope in his mind, he grabbed his bow and headed out into the woods.

The moon only somewhat illuminated the dark woods, and he mostly had to rely on his memory of the paths he usually took to make his way through. He didn't know where he would find the monster, but it had to be around here somewhere; knowing his luck, it would probably find him first.

He had almost gotten to the end of his usual route, a small clearing he used to trap big animals, when something moved in front of him. He paused and gripped the nock of his arrow a little tighter, raising his bow and pointing in that direction. Nothing moved again, but he didn't relax. Had that been the monster, or was he just being paranoid? There could still be other animals out, even if he hadn't seen any yet. It had looked pretty big, though…

After several long moments, he let out a soft sigh and lowered his bow. Maybe it had just been some other animal. He needed to move on.

The only thing that saved him was pure luck. He turned and caught movement out of the corner of his eye, and he barely rolled out of the way of the lunging wolf. He immediately pointed his bow and let go of the arrow. It should have hit the wolf in the side at the very least, but it was fast. Scarily fast — it moved to the side quicker than Clint could blink, and the arrow hit a tree.

The wolf stopped and turned towards him, and as it stepped into the moonlight, he finally got a good look at it.

It was black like a shadow, so dark that it almost seemed to suck in the little light around it. Its eyes glowed red, and scars marred its face, making the already terrifying creature look even worse. It was also huge, its head level with his even on all fours. Its lips pulled back, showing off fangs sharper than daggers.

This was the monster that had been killing his village.

Clint now realized just how stupid of an idea this was.

There was a moment where neither of them moved, just staring each other down. Then, the monster lunged, and while Clint managed to dive out of the way, its claws still caught his shoulder. He cursed as he tumbled to the ground a little harder than he'd intended.

He grabbed another arrow and nocked it, then shot at the monster's head, shoulder screaming in pain. It moved out of the way, because of course it couldn't be that easy, but the arrow nearly grazed its ear. So close…

He got to his feet while it was distracted and tried to grab another arrow, but the wolf rammed into him hard enough to knock the wind out of him and send him flying. His back slammed into a tree, the force sending his bow across the clearing, and he crumpled to the ground, wheezing.

This was bad. Really, really bad.

As the wolf advanced on him, and he fumbled for another arrow, he realized that he was going to die here, all because he'd been stupid enough to believe he could take on this thing by himself, with no training, and make it out of this horrible village alive. But that had never been in the cards for him, had it? He shouldn't have even tried.

Hunting this monster was never going to save him.

But, if he was going to die… he would at least go down fighting.

As the monster loomed over him, Clint gripped the arrow and drove it into the creature's eye. It howled in pain and jerked back, and he grabbed his hunting knife and went straight for its throat. His hand just barely brushed its fur — coarse and matted — when its jaws snapped around his arm. He couldn't bite back his scream as it yanked him forward and shook him around. He squeezed his eyes shut and waited for it to kill him, but after a few agonizing moments, it dropped him.

He cracked open his eyes and slowly lifted his head. The monster was nowhere to be found.

What?

He dragged himself to his feet and pressed his hand to his arm. It wasn't bleeding as much as he'd thought it would, which was weird. That thing had bit him hard. He should be bleeding a lot, right?

He stumbled over to the middle of the clearing, looking around for any sign of the monster. It really did seem to be gone, though, but why? It could have killed him just as easily as it did the other three villagers.

He suddenly swayed, legs giving out and sending him crashing to the ground. He gasped in pain as fire lit up beneath his skin, spreading from the bite all the way throughout his body. Something was very, very wrong.

There was a crack, and he yelped as he watched his injured arm break. His other arm followed suit, then other bones, all breaking and twisting and contorting his body into some other shape. His skin prickled painfully, and fur began sprouting out of it, agonizingly slow. He screamed, both out of pain and terror, but there wasn't anything he could do except watch and pray that this was just a horrible nightmare.

It felt like hours before the pain stopped and he was left trembling on the ground. Slowly, he lifted his head, breaths coming out in sharp pants. His limbs were still tingling, but at least it didn't hurt anymore. Somehow.

Now that he wasn't in a pain-filled haze, he realized just how off his body felt. Nothing felt like it should, and he struggled to move his arms and legs. What had that bite done to him? Was his body so broken and mangled that he couldn't move anymore? But if that was the case, why was the pain gone?

He could actually see in the darkness now, too, and several different scents were assaulting his nose — had the woods always looked and smelled like this? They hadn't, right? But maybe it was just the adrenaline heightening everything. That had to be it.

He tried to drag himself to his feet, but he still couldn't get anything to work properly. He growled in frustration and turned his head to look at his body to see what was wrong — and he froze.

He was a wolf.

Just like that monster.

He really, really hoped this was a bad dream.

~*~

Two days later, and Clint still hadn't figured out how to reverse his transformation. He was pretty sure he was going to die before he figured it out — he had learned how to move around, but he was struggling to move quick enough to actually catch anything to eat. He didn't know how long whatever he'd been turned into could go without food, but at this rate, maybe it would be better if he starved. Then he wouldn't have to live as this monster.

Was he going to start attacking people, if given the chance? He didn't want to kill his village, even if they'd never been kind to him. It could be instinctual to these monsters, though, and if he couldn't fight it…

Yeah, it was better if he died.

At least he wouldn't have to worry about anyone coming to look for him. They probably wouldn't even notice he was gone.

He didn't venture far from where he'd been attacked. He wasn't entirely sure why he didn't go farther from the village, but maybe he had some hope that someone — the monster or another person — would come here and finish him off. It wasn't likely; he hadn't even caught a whiff of the monster's scent nearby and he doubted anyone would come out here, so the chances of anyone coming across him were slim.

As he wandered back to the clearing that night, a new scent caught his attention. He paused and lifted his head, sniffing the air. He couldn't quite figure out the smell — he definitely wasn't very good at that yet — so he moved closer, peeking through the bushes into the clearing.

A red-haired woman was standing there with a gun in her hand, looking right at where he was. She looked calm and calculating, definitely not someone from around here, and there was a very familiar symbol on the side of the gun.

She was a Hunter.

So, his village had managed to hire one after all.

He slowly stepped out, locking eyes with her as she raised her gun. He lowered his head and braced himself, waiting for her to shoot. At least he wouldn't have to live like this any longer.

But darkness never came.

~*~

Natalia knew many things about werewolves. One of the biggest things was that they were never submissive. They would rather fight until they died than submit to others, especially humans.

But for some reason, this one was submitting to her.

Against her best judgment, she lowered her gun slightly. Something wasn't right about this. It was almost like the beast wanted her to kill it. But that didn't match what she knew about them, and it certainly didn't match what the one killing the villagers would have done. This werewolf also didn't fit the descriptions she'd been given — the one attacking the village was much bigger and black, supposedly. She wasn't sure how much she trusted the descriptions of terrified bystanders, but this was definitely not the same werewolf.

She should kill it. It was her job to kill it, regardless of whether or not it was currently attacking anyone. It would eventually turn vicious and kill people anyway. But, she hesitated.

It opened its eyes and looked up at her, and the confusion in its eyes just looked so… human.

She quickly raised her gun again. What was she thinking? This thing wasn't human. It was a dangerous monster, even if it was submissive now. And it wanted to die, if it was just standing there and not leaving. She should just kill it and move on.

But she couldn't make herself pull the trigger.

Why was she so weak?

"Why are you just standing there?" she snapped. "Leave or I'll shoot you."

It just laid down and rested its head on its paws, looking quite pitiful.

Why wasn't it leaving? Was it just distracting her so that the other werewolf could come and kill her? But that didn't make sense.

None of this made sense.

It slowly scooted forward, and she took a step back to maintain distance. It stopped and watched her before standing and going over to the bow. It nudged the weapon with its nose and looked up at her.

She paused. Was it—? But that wasn't possible.

A bite. Cracking bones, twisting features. A look of terror in her sister's eyes, then animalistic hunger. Gunshots ringing out, blood on the ground. All of them dead. Her fault.

She flinched back. "Get out of here."

The werewolf whined and nudged the bow again. Its eyes flicked over to the gun as it ducked its head, clearly waiting.

"You're the hunter," she forced out. "It bit you, didn't it?"

It nodded its head.

She needed to get it together. She couldn't get distracted. "Are you trying to get me to kill you?" She needed to know what was happening.

It nodded again.

Okay. Okay, fine. She could work with this. "Can you track down the werewolf killing the villagers?"

It didn't nod this time, but the answer was obvious. A werewolf had the best senses of any other creature. Of course it could track down another werewolf.

Natalia took a deep breath. "I'll kill you if you take me to the werewolf." It was so absurd to say that. But if this werewolf actually wanted her to kill it… this would make her hunt much easier.

It slowly nodded and started walking around the edge of the clearing, nose to the ground. After a bit, it glanced at her before slipping into the trees.