Discover Top Posts Tagged with #bladesbounties

Jun 22, 2025

@bladesbounties replied to your post “[pm] Vibe check! How are your cats?”:

[pm] Awww shucks. Oh, a cat on a walk! We'll have to do some walkies with her sometimes, change it up a bit. Love all those pics. They're such babies. I will never become a cat person but I understand it more now, and that's all because of you. They're doing great! Fries is still crying, but he's become fond of hairties. Nugget is just the best boy, as per. Yep! Got some charming tree worms, got my bag, all a good day of work tbh.

[pm] She's been an indoor girly for far too long, so it's defo a work in progress, but she's curious and so well behaved, the world will be her oyster <3 I'm defo scheduling walkies with her. Wowowow, that's a huge honor. The highest compliment, even. It should be my whole purpose to show the world cats are just victims of propaganda :/ [user feels a weird belly ache about her actual purpose] Hairties, like... to eat? or play? Cause I have a bunch I can bring over next time. Nugget is the goodest boy, that's right.

What are those charming tree worms, btw? The name fascinates me. I wonder if Regan And you know me, a forest hater. But that doesn't mean I wanna be ignorant about the dangers there, obvi.

#bladesbounties #dm: daiyu #dm #i wrote dairy instead of daiyu

incatsclothing

Apr 19

TIMING: current. LOCATION: the woods. PARTIES: @bladesbounties & @incatsclothing. SUMMARY: daiyu is after a bounty. rory is after daiyu. CONTENT WARNINGS: gun violence.

The moon was not full. That didn’t matter as much as it once had, to the wolf. While it had once been bound with limitations that meant freedom only came when the moon was full in the sky, that had not been the case for some months now. The wolf never quite knew what brought about its shifts if not the moon — sometimes, it thought Rory brought the shift on intentionally, but others, it could feel her trying to cling to her humanity in the quick beats between her control and the wolf’s — but it did not matter much. The wolf was free; that was the only thing that meant anything.

It was glad to be in the woods, this time. Its last few ventures into the town had not ended quite as it might have hoped. It was not built for cement ground and brick walls, but for dirt and grass and trees. There was less of its favorite prey in the woods, perhaps (it thought humans had been venturing out less in recent weeks, though it could not comprehend why), but that mattered less than the comforting familiarity of the mud beneath its paws. If it found something to hunt, it would hunt. If it did not, it would enjoy its freedom all the same.

Right now, that freedom brought the wolf to a stream. It dipped its snout in, lapping up cold water with its ears perked up to listen. It paused in its drinking at the sound of something approaching, lifting its head to sniff the air. Human. Perhaps it would have its hunt after all.

—

Daiyu was also glad to be in the woods. Like this, she felt at her strongest. She had her weapons on her, was moving familiar paths and was in a place that was not hers. She’d been avoiding home these past weeks, the scene of a crime that had not been committed. In stead she had been in the woods. Sometimes with Nugget, just to run. More often to hunt. It was a poor coping mechanism, but it was one.

She’d been tracking a werewolf. In the back of her mind sat the bounty board and all the werewolves on it. Some with vague pictures, some with a poor drawing, most with just descriptors of their coat. What was more prominently on her mind was Talia Shaw, whose coat she had not yet seen, and whose twin’s coat she could not recall in detail. Daiyu hadn’t felt the itch for murder like this in quite some time.

The wolf was pausing. And so did she once she’d gotten closer. She squinted, figuring that the coat was similar enough to something that had been described on the board. She leveled her crossbow, breathed out, and shot a bolt forward without hesitation.

—

The human scent came closer, and the wolf was intrigued. Was this a foolish human who did not know they were stumbling upon a predator? Or, more foolish still, was this someone who thought the wolf a pet, something to play with? It did not occur to the wolf, of course, that this human might mean it harm. Rory had learned of hunters now, had been told in quiet tones with some urgency, but this knowledge did not extend to the wolf, who knew only what it had experienced directly. To this wolf, humans existed only as fun playthings to be tossed around and taken apart piece by piece, or meals to swallow with hungry teeth.

And so, there was no fear dwelling within the wolf as the human approached. There was no feeling of apprehension, no nervousness. The wolf thought itself an apex predator with no natural enemies to speak of, and it acted in accordance with this. As the scent of the human wafted closer to the beast, its muscles tensed minutely. It pretended to be unaware. And when the human got close enough, it leapt into action.

It was luck, then, that saw the projectile miss the wolf. It did not dodge intentionally so much as it happened to move just the right way at just the right time as it turned its full attention on the woman and dropped the charade it had been clumsily upkeeping. It was surprised at the thud of the crossbow bolt embedding itself into the trunk of the tree it had been standing beside, but it did not fully understand it. What it understood was that there was prey. What it understood was its hunger.

The wolf howled, bounding towards the woman. It hoped she would run. It liked it when they ran.

—

As the projectile missed its mark, Daiyu cursed under her breath. No need to hold those kinds of things in now, as the whizzing bolt had made her presence known already. She was quick to reload her crossbow, ears sharp to keep track of the wolf as her eyes were pointed at the weapon. She had to be swift, but she had practiced reloading a crossbow so much as a child that she managed with ease. Those had been how much of her childhood had been spent before she’d been allowed to tag along on large hunts, after all: repeating the process of reloading weapons, over and over again.

She pointed the crossbow at the wolf as it bound towards her, and released the trigger. Another bolt shot through the air, the whizzing sound joining the chorus of the howl. Once that was done, she threw the weapon over her shoulder, tightening the strap as she turned to run. She needed distance to keep the upper hand, because if this were to become a scrap, she’d lack the claws and teeth to fight the large beast. Silver knives could do plenty damage, as could the loaded gun strapped to her leg — but she was better off with some distance.

Having seen the wolf closer though, she could at least confirm that it was on the board. Responsible for plenty of death. Not that it seemed to matter much. There was no part of her that suddenly wanted to kill the beast more. She just wanted to kill it. Daiyu rushed past trees and bushes, pulling her pistol from her holster and undoing the safety.

—

The woman pointed something at the wolf, though it paid no mind as it bounded towards her. Something shot out, and while instinct had the wolf curve its body to avoid it, the bold grazed its side all the same. The feeling was a strange, fiery thing. It remembered something similar in the plant shop, with the coin on its back; it hated it just as much now as it had then, and it let out a howl that was half pain, half rage. It had not been able to get its jaws around the man with the coin; the roots he had controlled had tied the wolf down, made shifting into a smaller form its only reprieve. That was not the case here. That was not the case now. Now, the wolf could fight back.

And it intended to do just that.

The woman ran, and the wolf chased. She put away the weapon, and the wolf resolved to crush that between its jaws when it was finished crushing her. She was fast; faster than most the wolf had pursued, on par with the girl in the alley who had scrambled up the metal ladder to get away from it. This time, the wolf would not let its prey escape. This time, it would dirty its teeth on human flesh. It was certain of it.

The woman was pulling something from her side; it mattered little to the wolf. The only thing it knew could hurt it was the crossbow strewn over the woman’s shoulder. So long as that went untouched, the wolf had little to no concern about anything else she might carry. With no context for what a weapon was, the wolf did not know to fear it. The wolf did not know to fear anything. Arrogance was a dangerous thing; the wolf did not know that, either. It picked up its pace after the woman, another howl ripping from its throat.

—

Swiftness was a skill she had learned from necessity. As a child, she had been smallest and the least skilled, but she had made up for up with speed. Daiyu remembered all the miles she’d ran in the woods close to home, all the sprints she’d done on the drive way to beat her personal record (and that of her sister and brother, too). Though her legs weren’t as long as those of some other runners, she was still able to move fast. To be agile. To jump over roots and move through terrain that hadn’t been prepared for human feet.

But being faster than her siblings was not the same as being faster than a werewolf. She only had two legs to run on, but a werewolf could pick up the speed by running on all fours. And while the werewolf was on just two legs now, she was aware of the possibility. Daiyu had spent most of her life being bested, though. She was used to it. She knew that it wasn’t about being fastest, most of the time. That in stead, it was about taking the right opportunity. Shooting at the right moment and going for a leg in stead of the head, because immobilization was a one way ticket to death for most beasts. There was no shame in playing dirty with feral animals thrice your size.

She made a swift turn when she passed a tree, pressing her back against it and hoping to throw the wolf off. She exhaled sharply, inhaled and got control of her breath. No room for messy shots, now. She had already missed way too many. She awaited the arrival of the wolf, steadying her stance and pointing her gun to where she assumed it would come.

—

Normally, the wolf might find this sort of thing entertaining. It enjoyed the hunt, enjoyed the chase. Often, that was more important to the beast than the meal that followed. This wolf was not one that hunted only in the interest of filling its stomach; it was well fed enough in human form, was not a thing that needed to worry about starving. This creature hunted not necessarily out of necessity, but in the interest of entertainment. It enjoyed the sensation of tearing things to pieces, liked the flash of joyful stimulation that came with taking something apart piece by bloody piece. The wolf had no frame of mind to wonder what this said of it, was not capable of deep enough thought to wonder whether this made it some version of evil. At least, not in this form. In its other form, perhaps the question would arise. But for now, the wolf thought nothing of it. For now, the wolf thought only of how badly it wanted to rip into its prey.

There was something lacking, though. Where the wolf might normally feel exhilarated by the chase, tonight it felt something else. There was a certain level of rage taking the place of some of that desperation for entertainment, the memory of the burning in its side sparking a fire deep in its chest. The wolf was not familiar with pain, and the sensation was not one it enjoyed. It was an arrogant creature, in its own way; it thought itself the top of any food chain. The idea that something could hurt it — worse still, the idea that a human could do so — didn’t sit well in the creature’s mind.

It would show its worth when it tore the woman limb from limb, would return whatever pain she had caused it tenfold. She passed a tree and disappeared, and the wolf paused long enough to sniff the air and catch her scent. The smell of sweet sweat and sharp metal rose to meet the monster’s nostrils, and it moved towards it, catching sight of the woman with a howl. She stood against the tree, pointing an object it did not recognize in the wolf’s direction. The creature paid this no mind. It would swallow the object when it swallowed her hand; it would all be inconsequential then. The wolf bounded towards the woman, drool pooling on its tongue.

—

The wolf did as she had hoped, pausing to try and relocate Daiyu. There was no outrunning the beast, but there was outsmarting it. Werewolves acted on crude instinct, lacked the tactical skill that humans could have. That was the advantage she had, and it was a small one. She dipped into her own instincts, her senses of smell and hearing sharpened as she tried to anticipate when she had to loosen her shot. It would be preferable to shoot the creature in its chest or head, but she knew she might not be so lucky. The legs or stomach would be okay too, as long as she hit flesh. The silver would cause enough damage for her to gain the upperhand.

The werewolf turned on her eventually, her own smell heavy in the air along with the scents of beast, pine needles and earth. In a way, Daiyu’s scent was as much part of the woods as the rest of it all, her sweat and weapons at home among the earthy smells. But it stood apart enough for a beast to know it, just like the werewolf had a distinct enough smell to be told apart from the rest. She watched the werewolf bound towards her, hunger and rage present in every move it made.

There was no room for hesitation. Daiyu hadn’t felt hesitation in moments like these in years, anyway, and today she was all the more happy to shoot her gun at a feral werewolf. She took aim and shot, the bullet burrowing in the beast. She did not know where, and she did not know if it was enough, because it happened mid air, and before she could loosen another shot, the beast had thrown itself on her. Against the ground they crashed, her fingers trying to hold onto her gun but failing.

—

There was no thought to the way the wolf attacked; there never really was. Perhaps some shifted werewolves were capable of more strategy in the way they moved, but this one was not. This was a beast that knew only how to be monstrous, a thing with thoughts that did not tend to expand beyond whatever moment it was living when the thought occurred. It knew the woman had done something to hurt it, though it would not have mattered even if she hadn’t. More than anything, the wolf knew how the woman would taste. It knew how her blood would feel coating its tongue, knew how sweet her organs would be and how well her limbs would tear. That was all that went through the beast’s mind as it pounced.

And then — pain. It surged through the wolf all at once, originating somewhere in its midsection and radiating through it. It had no way to describe the bullet that slammed into its gut just below its chest, no way to communicate how the silver felt as it lodged into its ribcage. It knew only that it hurt. The wolf dropped from its pounce with a pained howl, landing on top of the woman. Whatever she had used to hurt it slipped away, though the wolf was hardly aware of that. The pain was all that existed; even thoughts of killing the woman seemed to fade with the sensation, the world narrowing to nothing more than the silver bullet lodged in its guts.

Clumsy claws were scrambling with no real intention to injure, only to stand. It did not know if those claws found flesh or ground, did not know if it was blood or dirt that got beneath them. The wolf no longer wanted the hunt, because the hunt no longer served it. The wolf no longer wanted to make the woman its prey, because the wolf no longer felt like a predator. The wolf wanted to escape. It wanted to get away from the new and unfamiliar pain rolling over it like waves aiming to drown. It howled and whimpered and jerked, trying to get enough traction to run.

—

The wolf landed on top of her, which was very far from ideal indeed. Daiyu felt her breath push from her lungs at the force that crashed down on her, inhaling sharply as a reflex. She needed to get out from under it — a hurt beast so often became feral and if this wolf was the type to choose fight over flight, she was in a precarious position. Her gun was out of reach, and though her hand was making way to her knife, she had to put in effort to get it, whereas the wolf had razor sharp claws on it.

Luckily the beast was choosing flight. It scrambled, knife-like claws tearing at Daiyu’s skin. She got a hold of her silver knife, but did not manage to do any damage to the wolf as her own skin tore. First priority was survival, second came getting her victory over the beast and bagging her prize. She crawled away from underneath the wolf, watching it want to get away. She looked at her own injuries, at the claw marks that had undone the already marred and replaced skin of her arms, then scanned the ground for her gun.

Diving for it, she put her focus ahead. She was winning this fight. She had to win this fight. Her skin hurt, the rips in her arm hissing at her, reminding her that her skin was not as tough as it had once been. She heard herself breathe with more effort than she should as she checked her gun. It was jammed, the stupid old thing, and Daiyu cursed herself for not putting in the effort to clean and repair it sooner. She worked fast, fingers moving laboriously as she breathed through the aches and once she figured she had fixed the issue, she aimed at a tree and loosened a shot. With a bang, her gun confirmed it was working again and she moved to aim it at the wolf once more.

—

When pain was an unfamiliar notion, even a small amount of it could be overwhelming. In this form, the wolf rarely experienced anything remotely unpleasant. Up until very recently, its world had begun and ended with the full moon in the sky, its only real ‘existence’ happening under the pale light of the celestial body. And, also up until very recently, it had never come across anything more dangerous than itself in those thin hours where it was free. There had been no danger, even if the inverse had meant there had been no real entertainment, either. It had certainly never felt anything close to this before, never experienced pain like what was shooting through its body now.

Was this normal? The way the pain seemed to exist all over, as if its entire body was nothing but the sensation. Was this how pain was for others, too? Or had something been done to the wolf to make it feel this way when it should have been less? The thought made it angry, though the pain made it impossible to truly focus on that anger. It wanted to rip the woman apart but, mostly, it wanted the pain to end. It did not think it could guarantee an ending where it tore the woman’s throat out to ensure that, but it was confident it could get away if it ran. The wolf had some advantage there, at least; it could navigate the woods far better than any human.

But the human did not seem willing to give up. The wolf stood, blood staining its claws and its fur. Not the same blood on both; the wolf’s blood and the woman’s blood mingled, dancing together where they met. A bang like the one that had injured the wolf echoed through the forest; it snapped its head towards the woman to find the same object that had caused it pain before facing it once again. The wolf bellowed, rage building in its chest as it charged. A vicious swipe at the woman’s arm aimed to knock away the weapon. If it shattered bone or broke skin in the process, all the better. The wolf was no longer in search of a hunt; it only wanted to ensure that the woman would not follow it when it ran, would not hurt it again.

—

Adrenaline kept her up, the urge to fulfill the kill stronger than any pain ever could be. Though she bled, though her skin screamed, Daiyu had a task ahead and something to fulfill. It was in moments like these that she felt most focused, most in charge. It was why she could never let go of hunting — what else could ever make her feel like this? So honed in, so focused, so determined to reach her goal and so sure that she could? The aftermath, that was the ugly part. When she had to sever a head or leave a body to nature’s mercy or cut out an organ. When she had to take a picture for proof of death. When she had to go home and shower off the guts and blood.

She aimed her gun at the wolf, intending to finish it now, but as she loosened her shot the wolf swiped out. Sometimes adrenaline caused tunnel vision. Sometimes her focus only went to the head she was trying to pierce with her bullet and not the rest. Claws tore through cloth and skin and her gun never rang out before it crashed to the ground. Daiyu let out a bellow of rage, almost bestial in its immediate response, as pain shot through her arm. She had no time to look at the injury, she had to get her gun and finish the job.

Her focus remained as sharp as the claws that had swiped at her, her gaze sweeping over the ground to find the gun once more. She found it eventually, rushing for it as her arm ached with a shooting pain. She knew that all of this was lost time, that every hitched breath of hers she exhaled from pain was wasted moments she could be finishing what she’d started. She got her gun from the ground and found it jammed again, frustration building within. Daiyu hoped the wolf was continuing to choose fight over flight, that it would not use its speed to its advantage against her as she scrambled for another weapon.

—

The woman was injured, and some part of the wolf wanted to label her as weak, as pathetic, as prey. Blood dripped from the wounds the wolf had left her with, bruises would form if she survived long enough for them to do so. Normally, the wolf would have prevented this from occurring. She was injured because the wolf was stronger, was bleeding because it had made it so. It wanted to finish the job, wanted to tear her throat out and lick up the blood that spilled from it until not a drop was left inside of her, wanted to pick her up and shake her around in its jaws like a ragdoll, wanted to break every bone in her body. The woman was injured.

But the wolf was injured, too.

Pain might have been familiar to the woman, who fought through it as if it was little more than an inconvenient pond she needed to wade through, but it was not familiar to the wolf. To the wolf, pain was a thing it had only ever inflicted in the past. Any real discomfort on itself had been so easily shaken off, small things that mattered little in the grand scheme of things. It had never felt anything like the woman’s projectile lodging itself inside its gut, never experienced a sensation quite like the continued burning. It hurt. The wolf hurt. It did not think it could rip the woman’s throat out, did not think it could roll around in her blood when so much of its own blood was staining its fur.

And so, the wolf did not fight back as the woman scrambled for her weapon. It did not take the opportunity to throw her to the ground, did not close its jaws around her and shake her until she stilled. The wolf got its swipe in and, while the woman was distracted looking for her tools, it ran. Slower than it might have without its injury, but with long strides that would be difficult for any human, even an uninjured one, to follow.

—

The gun was a lost cause. She tried for as long as she allowed herself, working with the machinery in an attempt to get it to unblock, and then cast it aside. All the while she did that, she realized the absence of claws and teeth and a beast panting in her face. Daiyu looked up to see the wolf running, opting for the cowardly survival instinct (and yet the more effective one). Cursing, she went for one of her throwing knives and tossed it after the beast, though it landed in the bushes near it in stead. Her aim was off, blood trickling down her arm, pain growing more present as her adrenaline faded.

She had to think. She would lose the pursuit — she needed to use range to her advantage. She loosened the crossbow’s strap, returning the weapon to her hands with practiced flourish and loaded another bolt into the thing. She looked through trees and bushes, tracking movement until she found the wolf. It was far off now, but she still took aim and shot. Giving up as not yet an option.

She missed, as should be expected, but reloaded. Daiyu watched another bolt miss and let out a sound of frustration, loud and aggressive. It echoed through the woods. She went at it again, but by the time she had loaded her bow and was aiming it, the wolf had left her line of sight and she had no choice but to give up for now. She’d swallow her pride, bandage her arm and follow the scent the wolf would leave in the woods, hoping she’d get to it before it could get to help and its human form. Luck, it seemed, was not on her side these days.

#bladesbounties #daiyu: hunter and hunted #s1 writing #wickedswriting #TY MAR FOR MAKING THE BANNER AND FOR WRITING W ME