"The princess has seen my strix form. I think I need to find a better disguise," Lightning says, his eyes already peering through the darkness of the forest. "With respects, friend, I will have to meet you tomorrow," he says, and he smiles. If Tesciam looks back, it's not the man he'll see dashing into the wild: now, what's there is something huge and terrifying, seven feet tall and thickly muscled.

"Until then, dear friend," Lightning says, and briefly turns his eyes upward towards the moon.

It has been too long. All this skulking about and the intrigue and the dragonblooded. Didn't I used to hate this, the whole idea of the hunt? and the craftsman smiles to himself, eyes gleaming with wicked moonlight as he spots the hawk who's heart he'll take. Now, I'm just glad to have something direct. Something easy. Something that's just between me-- the muscles in his inhuman calves ripple as he jumps, clutching at branches to steady himself, --my prey-- he swipes with his claws, pulling skin and feathers from the hawk's wing as it falls to the ground, --and dear Luna.

Lightning stands over the bird and cracks its neck with a single, clean motion.