Notes

"It's time for you to attempt a transformation," Paul answered as he stood from the log, remaining a quiet and subdued being as Richard immediately sprang into a panic. He was expecting such a reaction, and he prepared himself for it while he ate his share of Christoph's catches and studied the man gulping his portion down beside him.

"Transformation?!" Richard squawked, rising with Paul and whipping around to glare at him. "I don't know how! I- I've only known that I was a werewolf for a few <em>minutes</em>, how can you expect me to try such a thing so soon?!" He sighed in defeat when he registered that the other man wasn't going to budge, and he looked down at the white cloak he was wearing and frowned. "You're acting like this is an easy thing to just <em>adapt</em> to, Paul."

Paul was silent as he began to walk away from the campfire and the cottage, stepping into what appeared to be an uncharted and undisturbed part of the forestland around them. Richard worriedly followed, staying a few steps away from him as they eventually stopped in their tracks. "Shh," Paul had hushed as his eye caught onto something shifting in the chaparrals; his senses were much sharper than his acquaintance's, and it was evident by the man's confusion and lack of acknowledgment of what they were looking at.

"There's a deer in the bushes," he clarified as he glanced at Richard. "What are your intuitions telling you?"

Richard thought about the prompt for a moment, tapping his finger against his chin before he came up with a response. "Not much, to be honest with you," he replied, "but I <em>am</em> getting an urge to... kill it?"

"Good," the elder wolf muttered, turning back to the moving scrubs. "Open your mind to what it wants. Your instincts crave to hunt, and preying on something our canine relatives would typically prey on allows you to explore your other form." He moved back a little, keeping an observant eye on his assumed pupil while giving him space to experiment. "Go ahead... kill it."

Richard heftily gulped and exclaimed, "But I've never done this before!" and at the sound of his complaint, the nearby animal curiously staggered its head around in an attempt to locate where the noise came from. The man slapped a hand over his mouth and attempted to calm himself down, his eyes fluttering closed for a moment before he turned his undivided attention to his prey. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry..."

"You <em>have</em> done this before," Paul corrected, "Last night, when we led you away from your village. You must not remember because of it being your first shift..."

Richard looked at him with a frightened expression, nodding with understanding before glancing at the deer again. He took a deep breath and tried to gather his inner desires to <em>hunt</em> the poor animal simply minding its business in its habitat, building up the courage to take such an innocent life in the form of a wild beast. Roughly, he huffed, and his mind seemed to switch onto autopilot once he did — his feet began to carry him towards the deer, and suddenly, a familiar blast of light brightened the grasses around him as he combust into a state of feral.

Paul blinked with surprise, for he wasn't expecting Richard to get the hang of transforming so quickly; he chuckled and watched the younger wolf chasing the deer and hoping to get a kill during its first fully conscious moment as itself. Suddenly, however, the hound pounced and then yelped, and the sound of snapping branches and crunching leaves trailed away from where it was last seen. Paul's eyes widened as he heard the commotion, just before he flashed into his mutually canine form and ran off to locate the presumably injured pack member.