Hunter's magic

There is old magic in the way we hunt.
We whisper wordlessly to our prey, our minds and hearts forming the chant, our mouths going through the motions but never making a sound.
The world around us ceases to be, and all we see and hear is the prey, all we are is the weave of the hunt.
We have always hunted like this, and we have never hunted in packs.
Our young hunt in twos, sometimes, while their senses are still dulled by youth, and while the magic is still silent in their heart. More often than not, though, even our young hunt alone, and come back hungry and tired, and disappointed.
We have all been there, felt that frustration and unrest in our hearts, and the hunger we could not satiate, no matter how much or what we ate.
The older ones would never tell us why that was so, or how to cure it. We would go mad, smelling the food which brought no fill, we could no longer stand being around our kin, and in the night, thinking we were unnoticed, we would sneak off, alone.
Out, out, our blood would whisper, and a low hum would start in our bones. With closed eyes we would breathe the night, and when we would move, at last, half-drunk, more on our own, inner worlds than the night scents, our gait was changed, and we began the hunt.
We walked lighter, and there was a flow to our movements which would suprise us. We felt like adults.
And ever more the hunger would rise, and ever deeper the hum in our bones would become, and we could hear the chant forming in the heart and mind; soft, unformed stream of sounds our mouths would desperately try to shape and make real, like we did with the rest of our world, but this time would fail.
This was older than any other magic we used. This was hunter magic, in our blood before we spoke the world around us, before names and the sense of I.
All that which made us individuals would blur, and on the track of our prey, we would begin the shapeless chant.
It made our hearts ache with it's force, and we would cry, overwhelmed, but still moving ever closer to those we hunted.
We would pursue the prey unseen, weaving the chant, and once the chant, the weave of the spell would make it stop, so would we.
There would be nothing else. We would be as vulnerable as our prey in that moment, forming the last pieces of the hunter's magic, and our mouths would move in silent echoes: come-come, come-come, matching our heartbeats.
That call was something no living creature could resist.
Just as our old magic called, the heart of the hunter, so did the heart of the prey follow.
We cannot know how the prey felt. We could not understand how that part of us worked, although sometimes, each one of us thought that it does not belong to us, but in turn, it was us who belonged to it.
Our prey would come, close enough to touch, and we would reach for it.

Unlike the hunter magic, which sang in our blood, the taking was something which had to be learned.
The first times were always so messy. Driven only by the hunger, almost dizzy with the magic in us, we knew nothing of mercy, the placid sacrifice was never enough, those first times. The hungrier we were the more we would try to prolong that final struggle, the moment of the taking. We were cruel children.
Our hunger raging we would finally tear our prey apart, gorge ourselves and leave the rest, not caring. Sometimes mornings would find us asleep in the midst of our nightly carnage, our bellies full and round, our faces peaceful at last.
It wasn't until later we learned to sate the hunger and silence the magic in us with respect for our prey, and bring the rest of it home.

After first hearing the chant we were changed forever. Even silenced it was never completely gone. The low hum was ever present in the bones, and we never again moved as children do, and we never again saw through eyes that weren't the eyes of a hunter.