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The Butcher's killing style will evolve several times over the course of his life, but he will always return to the same method: butchery. And no, I don't mean clumsy, massacre-style slaughter, I mean clean, professional butchery. It's where he got his name, and he thoroughly enjoys it.

Stage 1: Scavenger
As a foal and very young adult, Bear will be unable to bring down his own large prey, and so will survive on the leavings of others, along with small animals that he is quick enough to catch. Whatever he finds (that is still good to eat), he will try to butcher for transport back to his own territory; after all, smaller pieces are easier and much faster to carry than trying to drag a whole skeleton back home. His first attempts at butchery are clumsy, and he leaves a lot behind, including blood, organs that he doesn't appreciate (like the stomach), and fur. He hasn't yet figured out how to skin an animal. Whoever's kills he is scavenging will eventually notice that their leftovers are disappearing, and there will be a confrontation that the Butcher will likely barely survive.

Stage 2: The Victim
Once he can no longer scavenge and has been roughed up, the Butcher will turn to his "community" for "help." Having seen and possibly encountered bear familiars before, he knows that familiars are usually seen in a good light. By this time, his grasp of language is that of a very young foal, full of solecisms, but good enough that he can convincingly run up to a solitary stranger and claim that he and his soquili companion have been attacked by a bearwalker. Once he gets the soquili far enough away from the herd and into his territory, he takes them to the battered body of his last scavenged kill, then knocks out his victim with a hard swipe to the head. He uses their own accessories to bind them and arranges them face to face on the ground with the last victim. When the stranger wakes up, he asks them all kinds of questions about their life; if he perceives a breech in courtesy, he will get angry and lash out. As he talks with his new victim, he finishes butchering the old, and then asks if the soquili would like to share his dinner and a beverage. The soquili agrees, and the Butcher force feeds it raw meat and blood before finishing it off. A pattern is formed, and the Butcher uses this last carcass to drawn in another stranger later.

Stage 3: Clean Killing
After several weeks and mastering the victim act, the Butcher has learned to take only soquili that he has not seen in the area before, so as to avoid raising the suspicions of the herd. Even so, through his observations, he has learned that they are beginning to grow suspicious of the woods, and are beginning to regard them as haunted, as anyone who goes in never seems to come out again. To take further advantage of this idea, the Butcher begins to clean his kills even better and learns more about anatomy - which he finds that he thoroughly enjoys. He learns how to skin his kills and what organ does what, and begins to catch blood in his basket, which he empties into a rock depression that he calls his "Lake of Crimson Tears." His killing becomes very ritualistic, and he begins to dry out the bones of his victims and create wind chimes, tying them together the best he can with sinew. Every wind chime has some memento attached to it that came with the soquili whose bones created it, whether it's a lock of hair, a feather, or an accessory. Eventually, he traps a small foal or usdia in his basket and smothers it, and realizes that smothering is a good way to go, because it is clean and leaves even less of a trace.

Stage 4: Blind Faith
The Butcher has had a good run up until now, with only a few victims managing to escape for every twenty or so kills. One, though, will haunt him: a draft manages not only to escape, but to wound him and thoroughly destroy his lair. After its escape, the Butcher feels the blue eye of his basket on him and knows that he has angered his "god." Eventually, he becomes paranoid and rage-filled enough to destroy his basket. Once he realizes what he has done, he leaves his lair and roams, blinding every soquili with blue eyes that he comes across, certain that each is his basket come after him. When he finds the draft, it has blue eyes as well, and instead of killing it, he blinds and tortures it. His mania ended, he goes back to his old ways.

Stage 5: The Monster and His Pet
The Butcher finds himself a new lair: a cave, deep, cold, and dank, but it has perfect places for making a new "Lake of Crimson Tears" and hanging his ghastly decorations on crystals that jut from the walls. He takes up his old ways, but this time, he captures a pet; he has seen the world beyond his first lair now, and he knows the feeling of pride that comes when someone watches him take a life. His pet is forced to watch him kill, butcher, and lure, and often is forced to eat whatever he feeds her. When she escapes, he is enraged, but he cannot find her - so he takes another pet and molds her into the image of the first with torture.