Chapter Text
A small boy trudges through the woods barefoot. Rays of early morning sun peek through the canopy, making the dying leaves glow amber and gold. Bugs whizz and buzz. Birds swoop around in an elegant dance, catching the unsuspecting insects then sing a merry tune for a well-earned meal; high in the branches comes the persistent chirping of their young chicks as they wait for breakfast.
Ranboo has been alone for a long time. If anyone were to ask him for just how long, he would be unable to answer. He didn’t have any memories of a before, if that helps at all to tell how much time has passed since he’s had a family.
If he ever had a family; but he supposes everyone has a family at some point, right?
Even the foxes watch their kits until they’re able to catch a meal on their own. The birds know to not let their young leave the nest until they are good and ready, and the deer always have their babies close by their side as they flee from the slightest hint of danger.
There was no way for Ranboo to know though, if he ever had one (at least, one that had wanted him).
His stomach growls.
Instead of focusing on pointless things, he turns his attention to survival. One of the most important, but most difficult, daily tasks he needs to complete today: get food into his belly.
There are only so many days in a row where he can try to fill up on the sparse fall berries and water from the nearby creek. He needs meat, he can feel himself getting slower by the day. Any longer without a proper meal and Ranboo doesn’t think he’ll have the speed to hunt at all soon.
First things first - this form would do him no good at catching anything.
With a shaky breath, he gets on all fours and prepares himself. He wills the change: his heart picks up and his body tenses, his skin stretches and pulls, everything is pins and needles as fur sprouts all over his body. He whines as his face lengthens into a muzzle and his bones morph with a few dull-sounding cracks.
A full-body shake takes the lingering sensation of the change out of his mind and he makes a mental note to his future self to remember to stretch before doing it next time.
Chances are he won’t remember; he never does.
After a couple snuffs at the well-traveled game trails and a few flicks of his ears, The wolf pup is on the hunt. He tracks as best he can through the bushes, head low and pace steady. Not too long after starting he finds his target; a hare, looking as skinny as he probably does. But meat is still meat.
He slinks forward slowly, can’t help the way his tongue darts out to lick his lips as the scent of prey takes over his senses. The hare continues to forage, its little ears swiveling every which way. Just as he is in range to pounce, a thin branch snaps under his paw.
The hare’s head shoots up and zeroes in on his focused gaze, lingering half a second more before it springs into the underbrush.
With a yelp Ranboo takes off after it; an aching stomach and heavy limbs are forgotten behind him as adrenaline shoots him forward, ears back, body lunging ever closer to his prey.
The hare doesn’t look back at him; instincts driving it onward as much as they do Ranboo.
He sees its destination a few yards in front of them - a deep burrow that would be too narrow for him to ever reach the hare before it could inevitably get away through a hidden exit, so with a burst of desperation just as the hare goes air-born and pins its ears back to dive to its escape, Ranboo shoves off the ground and bites at it.
Teeth tear through a scrawny pelt with ease, followed quickly by the sweet wafting scent of blood.
Ranboo’s body thumps back onto solid ground. The hare spasms in his mouth, putting everything into one last fight for freedom.
He feels some regret as he lowers it and awkwardly grasps it under a paw to adjust his jaw’s hold, closing it quickly over its neck.
With a snap, the hare stops moving.
As much as Ranboo wants to eat it right here, he knows there are predators lurking around. A tired wolf pup is no match for a hungry mountain lion; even a lone coyote’s been able to get the jump on him in the past.
He slowly pads toward his den. Paws burn and his sides heave from the chase, the pitiful hare dangling from his mouth getting heavier with each step and its hairs tickling the roof of his mouth.
By midday Ranboo’s curled back up in his little hollowed out dirt home, the hare clasped between his paws as it’s stripped of all flesh. The meal is gone too quickly. His belly is sated, for now, but he knows it will be yelling at him for more food before the day’s end. He huffs, laying his head down and idly chewing on a leg bone. The only other food he could probably manage to catch today might be fish, as much as he dislikes fishing.
He doesn’t like water. Ranboo can always remember that.
But fishing can happen later, a nap first then more food.
Once his aches and pains have become bearable and the meager bit of meat is settled in his stomach, he’s off slinking through the trees again. All too soon, he can hear the sounds of the creek.
It isn’t too big, probably the length of two Ranboos placed nose to tail. It’s large enough though that fish use it to travel to the nearby river, which he never goes near. Inching closer, he stares down into the water with a whine as his belly urges him onward. Taking a tentative step in, the cold running current makes him shudder and his fur puffs up.
Ranboo stays on the rocky bank in the shallowest section and waits. A flash of silver catches his eye and quickly enough to not second guess himself he shoots his head in and bites down on nothing but water.
After rushing out he shakes off as much of the liquid as he can before flopping onto the grass to frantically squirm around like a dying snake. When he’s mostly dry he just lays there, panting rapidly. He tries his best to calm himself, but knows full well that he’s going to have to repeat doing that over and over again and only maybe get something out of it.
Ranboo grumbles and hulls himself up. He trudges back over to the creek’s edge and sits down, trying to even out his breathing before going back in. His reflection catches his eye.
No matter how many animals he’s come across in this forest, he has never seen one that looks like him. Half of him is black while the other is white, split straight down the middle. On the black side he has a green eye and a pointy ear, while on the white side his eye is black (it shines red when light hits it; it scared him terribly when he first discovered this).
Unlike the other, his white ear is floppy. He hopes that it’ll straighten as he grows up, because he doesn’t like how much it makes him look like a puppy, or how it flaps around when he runs.
Ranboo shakes his head and licks at his drying lips. He has to stop wasting time and toughen up. Back in the water he goes.
It’s stressful, but by the time he’s too tired to continue he has managed to catch two good-sized fish. He carries the slippery things back to the den, only dropping them three or four times on the way.
The only real problem with eating fish are the scales. He had tried to take a full bite once with the scales still on, but it was disgusting! The scales had scraped against his throat and he didn’t ever want to taste something so slimy again, so now Ranboo’s learned to patiently tear out chunks and eat off as much of the meat as he can, licking the underside of the skin clean before tearing off another chunk.
As good as hunting has gone today, Ranboo knows it’s becoming too much for him to handle. His body is still only getting thinner, his paws look huge compared to his twiggy legs and his hip bones uncomfortably poke his face when he curls up. Winter is approaching fast; all of the leaves on the trees have turned into reds, oranges, and yellows, a good number of them covering the dying grass below. Most of the other animals in the forest have plumped up, their homes stocked and ready.
Ranboo’s isn’t.
He doesn’t know if he’ll be able to make it through this winter, unless he goes to another source of food. As much as he hates fishing there is one other thing he tries to avoid even more, but if he's going to have any chance of surviving (And it scares Ranboo, because he really thinks he might not make it this time) he’s going to need to do it.
He’s going to have to travel to town.
There’s a lot of food in the town at the forest’s edge, tossed away and just waiting for the creatures that are brave enough to go searching for it. If he’s extremely lucky, he might even bring back enough to last the entire season.
That doesn’t make the fear disappear though.
Ranboo’s ears press flat against his head, a small whine sneaking out. He tries to distract himself with his second fish.
The town itself is nice, clean, and full of interesting things; it’s the people that live in it that worry him. They’re dangerous, especially the ones who wander into his part of the woods to hunt.
He’s seen up close what hunters are capable of. They’ve taken down stags and mountain lions without getting near them. Once, someone had even killed a grizzly that was trying to pass through. He didn’t leave his den for days after that one, no matter how much his stomach had complained.
Somewhere deep in his mind rests vague memories of hunters that particularly like to hunt his kind. Of humans out there, who enjoy turning werewolves into trophies or pets.
But he really needs food; the kind that he doesn’t have to use up energy hunting and killing, and he can find plenty of that in town so he needs to stop thinking scary thoughts or else he’ll never go.
When he’s done picking off every last morsel from the remains of the fish, the sky is orange and purple. He sits at the entrance of his den and gazes up in wonder, because no matter how many sunsets he’s seen, he won’t ever get bored of all the colors (Purple's his favorite).
The different shades seep away until there is only a black sea scattered with stars and a shining moon left behind.
He howls a quiet goodnight to the moon for giving him a reassuring light in the darkness before settling down in the back of his den. He curls up tight, nestling his face under his tail to try to protect himself from the chill that’s only going to get worse in the coming days.
It would be so much easier to stay warm if he had others to sleep with and maybe, if he did have someone next to him - someone to comfort him - the nightmares would also go away.
But Ranboo has been alone for as long as he can remember.
He falls into a fitful sleep by himself in a hole in the ground - his last thought is how tomorrow night would probably be exactly the same.