The Last of Her Kind (hobbit fanfic)

Prologue

Niatha padded across the dead plant matter coating the forest floor, paws silent in the shadowy cloak of night. The hunt was on. An elk herd, oblivious to their follower, were like fish in a fountain: right where she wanted them. Trapped. Having scouted the area beforehand, Niatha knew of a small cliff face into which she could drive the group before choosing her prey and going in for the kill. Carefully, she stalked to the east side of the herd for a better position of attack.

Suddenly, a twig, off to the north of the herd, snapped. A flurry of pounding hooves and terrified grunts cascaded southwards, not the direction she had intended. However, being in the unfortunate circumstance of not having eaten a proper meal for four days, meant that this meal was crucial for Niatha's survival. So, despite the lack of opportunities to trap prey in that direction, she gave chase nonetheless. A yowl from her feline throat rippled towards the elk, causing them to panic in an extra burst of fear. The hunt was on.

Swiftly, Niatha manoeuvred herself around a slalom of trees in persuit of her prey--in a rushed decision she had chosen a sickly youngling unable to find its way into the protection of the heart of the herd. With the agility of the great cat she was, Niatha sprang into the the air to bounce off a tree and back out, claws extracted and fangs bared, in a grim display of death to the youngling. No longer did that calf live once Niatha's strong jaws clamped down upon it's struggling throat.

Dragging the carcass of the dead calf back to her den was not as hard as it used to be (she'd had to get stronger to survive out here in the wild) but it still weighed a few hundred pounds. This boded well for her not-so-future meal that night. Upon arriving at the well-concealed cave she now called home, Niatha pulled the body to the entrance before retreating back inside to get her equipment.

Back in the deaths of the shallow hole in the rock, Niatha's bones began to pop out and back into place, morphing and changing shape into an entirely different form. The form of a girl. From her curled up position only the fair skin and bony flesh of her back was visible beneath the cascading strands of straight, ebony hair that fell to her hips. Unfurling from her protective position, Niatha shook the agony of transformation from her mind and stood up, glancing around her home. There her sapphire-blue eyes rested on her clothes: a long-sleeved, deep blue under-shirt; a short-sleeved, brown over-shirt; dark beige breeches and black leather boot that came up all the way past her knee. Dressing quickly, Niatha then donned her umber cloak and pulled the hood up to shield from the night's unrelenting chill.

Clasping the sapphire broach pin in place to hold the cloak on, she strode over to where her lean meal lay. As the girl knelt beside the body she said a quick prayer to the Beast Lords that the young animal's soul would be at peace before taking her worn knife and making the first incision at the base of the gullet. From there she drew the knife along the belly of the beast right up to between its hind legs. Through the now gaping hole Niatha extracted the elk's innards of guts and lungs and the like--of course she discarded these by hauling them out into the woods and leaving them for the wolves to find. Afterwards, she came back to the fiddly task of skinning. Carefully, oh so carefully not to puncture the muscle, Niatha made small cuts in the membrane to separate meat from skin. In this way she continued until the body and legs were bare of hide. Slicing off the head, she skinned that also, the girl took the miniature horns of the calf for use later on.

In monotonous routine, Niatha hung the skin out on a branch to dry and gathered herbs and salt with which to cure the meat for keeping. Only a meagre ration of the meat did she roast for that night, since she had to make it last, while the rest was salted, dried or boiled into broth.

Slumping down beside the warmth of the fire, a wooden plate of elk meat beside her, Niatha grabbed one of the horns and began to carve it into a sharper, more knifelike shape. Once finished, the girl unrolled her blanket and lay upon it, yanking warm furs over to keep herself toasty and warm.