While I wanted to afford Took and the others the opportunity to grieve, the pragmatist in me immediately thought that we needed to get back to the den. Brutus had valiantly latched onto the terrorbird's face, and that had kept the rest of us from being mauled in turn, but he was in rough shape. On top of that, if we ran into another terrorbird, or some other matured predator, we were sure to lose another. Therefore, I turned to Took after only about 30 seconds.

"Beta, I understand your feelings, but we need to get back to the den or more of us will die. Clear?"

Took only took about 10 seconds herself to gather herself and nod tersely, before she gingerly took Oncli's dead body in her mouth and began leading the way. I could see the wounds in her tail from Treel hauling her down to the ground, but she didn't seem to feel anything. The rest of us were left scrambling after her, frantically assigning roles to carry the massive terrorbird back to the den. Treel, Brutus and I took charge of the main body while Foire ranged out, shifting the wings whenever necessary so we could continue progressing.

...

It was an uneventful trip back to the den, but a somber one. I think we all began to feel the void left by Oncli's previous incessant talking. Looking around, I realized that there wasn't even anyone there that could fill that spot, except for maybe me, but I wasn't about to try to fill that spot while still being the primary leader. I was lost in thought and watching Took's figure in the near distance when I found myself back at the den.

Hauling the terrorbird's corpse into the den itself wasn't too bad, as the entrance was made with adult keelish in mind, but the doorway into the spawnling den was much narrower, and it was only after I, in a frustrated rage, gouged a good .5m out of the entry that we managed to drag the bird inside. Looking around, I saw Shemira and Tieran looking enviously at our prey, but both backed down when they saw what must have been a crazed look in my eye.

I, try as I might, was somewhat of a ball of rage at this point. I simply began to shred the corpse of the terrorbird once I realized that we were going to have a hell of a time trying to get it through our even narrower hallway into our den. I expected the triggering of the [Bloodlust] skill as the cooling liquid splattered messily around the den, but I received no such notification, and made the conscious decision to worry about that later.

I had started off mangling the corpse, but, after a moment's consideration, I calmed myself and began cleanly disconnecting the offending appendages. The wings were both pretty easy to disconnect at the shoulder, but the legs were firmly connected, and took chopping through thick bone to begin to make headway. After a moment's sawing, I was able to remove the legs at the hip, then, with Treel, Brutus and my combined effort, we were able to haul the body of the bird into our den's main hall.

There, exhausted, I sat down, and idly noticed the twins bringing in the severed appendages. I finally couldn't stall any longer and looked to Took.

She sat in the corner, looking at Oncli's body, then at me, then back at the body. I stood and approached her, making sure to make noise so as to not startle her once I got closer. She didn't look up, but shifted to the side as I approached.

"What do you want to do, Took?"

"He should always be part of pack. You eat first." She nodded at me.

This... was different from the other times I had eaten keelish. The first one didn't have a name, at least not to me. It was just a vanquished foe, and food to fill my starving belly. It had never spoken a word, and was just a keelish to me. Percral was a petty antagonist, and good food to feed the pack. Oncli... was a packmate. And, if I was honest, about as close to me as many of my human friends had been. I'd never trusted anything so big to them in my previous life, but I'd trusted Oncli with a lot. And now he wanted me to eat him. Try as I might, I couldn't help but think of this as the body of a person, not a thing. I had never thought that I could consider a keelish a person, but here I was, 1. considering doing something that made me uncomfortable because of the dying request of a keelish, and 2. feeling uncomfortable eating a keelish because it was a person. I recognized the circular logic of it, but the thought paralyzed me, and terrified me.

Was I going to consider members of the pack to be members of my family? Are they going to outgrow their positions as tools to me? Have they already?

I realized I had sat there, statically looking at Oncli's corpse for too long when Took nudged me. Another thought for another day, I supposed. I slowly leaned down and tore into the exposed flesh on Oncli's shoulder. He was cold, and the taste of him was... I shoved the thought down, and forced myself to consider Viilor's face instead, and began to dig into my meal with a bit more energy... I couldn't completely get over the reality of what I was consuming though.

...

Took and I left nothing behind, crunching bone and slurping marrow. I couldn't bring myself to really think about what was filling my belly, and thus decided to finally address the flashing wolfstag in the room: [Growth Achieved. Status Updated. Evolutionary Progress retracted.]

Ugh. At least the murder of the terrorbird had led to some good. I finally looked over at the thing, and was again surprised by how we had been able to subjugate it. At this point, it was more bone than anything else, but it was still a sight to behold. Its body was nearly 2m long, if counting its tail feathers, and its wingspan over 4m while its wings were still attached.

Regardless, I looked to my [Status].

[Status:

Name: Ashlani

Race: Young Keelish Bloodletter

Current quest:

—Kill three Young Thunder Wolfstags. Reward: 1 Constitution, 2 Strength, 1 Magic.

Stats:

-Constitution: 4+1=5

-Strength: 8+1=9

-Agility: 12+1=13

-Intelligence: 5+1=6

-Magic: 1

Skills:

Bloodlust—current evolutionary progress: COMPLETE. EVOLUTION INTO IMPROVED BLOODLUST COMPLETE.

Dominance—current evolutionary progress: 7/100

Improved Vision--current evolutionary progress: 0/18

Evolutionary foresight

-Adult Bloodletter: live 30 days. Progress: 9/30

-Young Bloodletter Beta. Prerequisites: Young Bloodletter. Requirements: Invitation to be Beta beneath Young Alpha Keelish. ACCEPTANCE REQUIRED.

-Young Bloodletter Alpha. Prerequisites: Young Bloodletter. Requirements: acquire 10 followers. Progress: 6/10]

Wow, that's a lot of growth. I wasn't sure what to think of that, but I was amazed seeing the evolution of [Bloodlust] into [Improved Bloodlust].

Where did that come from?