The young changeling has no idea that she has long since encroached on a territory that was not her own usual hunting grounds. With bow in hand and head down she made her way deeper into the dappled darkness of the forest. To be human always had the caveat of lacking finely tuned animal senses, like the ability to track scents or hear the faintest of sounds especially in the modern world. Yet, if failed to bother her as she merely tapped into subtleties of her true nature. Teal, dilated feline eyes yielded her enough night vision to see cloven tracks through soft earth.
So she followed. And followed. Until a clearing, and flank of tan, presented itself. Slowly settling upon a nearby stone feet were nigh a whisper as arrow was nocked and string drawn. Focusing down the sights the woman drew in a breath to steady aim - and let loose when tapered ears twitched. [gckotails]
Bular lies in wait. He's been stationed in his spot for several hours, somewhere he knows the deer come through on their way between foraging and water. He is a famously impatient troll, but for this one task, his patience is endless. It has to be.
If it isn't, he doesn't eat.
It has been nearly a year since he has claimed this territory as his own. Unlike most trolls, however, Bular does not mark his borders. He knows where they are, down to the inch, but he doesn't hang bones or claw the trees or stack stones as markers. It's better if no one knows for certain where he lives.
So it's really no wonder the young changeling has stumbled into his lands. It's public land, by human law, part of the Angeles National Park only a few miles north of Arcadia. But the area has been marked as bear territory due to the number of attacks and disappearances, and humans rarely wander there.
A doe ventures closer, using a well-trodden path in the dense forest. She pauses, looking at the unfamiliar stone nearby; wet nose twitches softly, scenting the air, but she smells nothing but rock. And so she continues, with a twitch of her ear.
Bular leaps with a snarl, snatching his quarry by the haunch. Confusion falls over his face as the mule deer fails to struggle as they all do; instead, it falls limply to the ground, hanging from his grasp. Bright, glowing ember eyes lock onto the feathers of the protruding arrow, which skewers the thing through both lungs, ensuring it suffered a swift death.
A growl rattles somewhere in his throat, and that gaze is cast about. Who hunts here? Who dares?
