Bad Omens, Good Stripes, II

Shuule suddenly put her hands over her mouth, letting out a small shriek. "So all this meat WAS beastmen wasn't it!"

Set groaned, closing his eyes and putting a muddy hand to his temple. Shit. He would prefer a less intelligent female at his side at this moment. It was taboo to females to eat their own kind - which in secret was not that big a deal to the predator males in famine especially. But, he hadn't actively sought out other males. Opportunistic hunting was something he hoped she would understand. And it was much more of a problem than she realized.

"Shuule, it's not like that -"

"What could it POSSIBLY be like?! You said you were different!"

Now her eyes were hot with tears, even though she was leaning over the bank and scooping up red clay mud with her clawed hands, picking out debris. She was furious. But she needed to poultice the gaping wounds on his back. Beastmen healed incredibly fast - These wounds weren't life threatening, as long as she could keep them away from the flies. Mud was a crude method, but even with recent advancements, it was a crude world.

"You wouldn't have broken through a level if you were just picking off wild animals," she snapped, moving to his back and standing on his tail to reach his massive shoulders. "I know how it works. I don't know if it works for me, but I was taught how it works just in case." She picked out a piece of gravel from one of the wounds, a bit rougher than she needed to, and Set hissed in protest as she started to pack the cuts.

She wasn't wrong. The mechanics of how a man leveled up in the stripe hierarchy were somewhat of a mystery, but through the generations a few things had become clear. The level of danger mattered, and a mere wild animal wasn't good enough. A Behemouth - Dinosaurs proper in the human world - were as dangerous as they came in this area especially, but other than that, defending yourself against other beastmen seemed to be mostly what did it. Even if you lost - but did not die - the experienced gained could be enough. Sparring among your own village or clan members could do it, and men often did this for sport, but being in true danger and living through it, which is what ferals had to do often, strengthened a beastmen the fastest, and also the most truly. A man who had only trained in sparring matches was not going to fare well against someone like her formidable snake mate, and that alone made her aware that he wasn't out there picking off wild animals and leveling to a three striped beast at such a young age. He had never outwardly said it, but unless he had eaten a green crystal, she figured Set was between seventeen and twenty.

"They're scouting the area," Set mumbled.

Shuule stopped her angry mud slapping, before asking quietly. "How long?"

"A week," Set answered flatly. "They're not from the city. The city leaves me alone. Unless you know a village other than the city that has wolves, tigers, and bears all working together - I think they're Rootless."

Shuule gripped his shoulder, almost cutting him with her nails. "Do you think they know I'm here?" She hopped off his tail, making a small splash in the water, going to work on the punctures on his ribs.

"I... don't think so. I think they are just looking for water, maybe, but - you aren't in heat. And in this weather you haven't wandered far lately foraging. I don't know what their issue is, but I've been killing them before they get closer, about a mile out. And I knew you wouldn't approve but it seemed a -"

"A waste of meat," Shuule finished his sentence, scrunching her nose in disapproval.

"Yes," Set continued, "And if you really want to try and live out here, you need to know the males just keep that from you females. This isn't a feral thing. Your beloved Papa Aaron would have eaten another male too if given half a chance."

Shuule laughed at the very idea. "Aaron was a peacock. He was proud of himself if he killed off a frog, but point taken." She then leaned down and washed her hands in the water, clapping them clean before wiping them on her red fox skirt.

"Well, I'm not finished with the tiger you already brought me," shivering slightly at the thought that she was skinning a beastman, but trying to keep her composure, "I - I don't want the bear. His fur is too ruined anyway, can you move it? I can try..."

Set shook his head to stop her. "I'm fine. I'll move it to the other side of the stream into the forest. It'll be a warning, and the vultures can clean the carcass. I'll collect the teeth when it's clean."

Along with all the other trinkets Shuule had hoarded away, she had taken to keeping the canine teeth of everything that was brought home. Sometimes at night, she would take one of her claws, or one of Set's scales that they had ground down to a point, and etch designs on them. She wanted a necklace like that asshole Cain's, but better.

Shuule stood on the shoreline clutching her hands to her chest while Set moved the dead bear out of eyeshot. She hoped the vultures and other wild animals would devour it before it started to rot and stink, but didn't voice her concern when Set came back. His strong body was bruised from head to torso, and she wondered how the rest of him looked if he wasn't such a dark scaled creature. Did... snakes bruise? She wasn't going to ask that, either.

"How many stripes was he?" she asked, eyes wide.

Set looked down at her, eyes tired, running his hands through her messy red hair to try and pull it back from her face as he spoke. "Strong enough for me to level. So I'd assume three, but you know you can't tell when they're in their beast. But no matter. Leave the tiger, I'll skin it later and throw the rest of the meat away, let it spoil. Let's go inside and let me brush your hair. And I want to show you something."

He went to pick her up, but she lightly jumped back with a smile on her face. She didn't want to bruise his ego as much as his body was, but she was capable of climbing up the cliff on her own and wasn't going to let him carry her today. Set rolled his eyes and snorted as he watched her nimbly climb to the entrance of their home, and he followed.