ten feet under and upside down

Charon lifted his head and his ears fell back as he watched Saskia throw up the squirrel. He wondered if it was because she'd been gobbling it down so fast or if it was because of his story that it had come up again. "I'm not getting you a new one," Charon was quick to inform Saskia. "So if you're still hungry, you should just eat that." Charon hadn't eaten his own thrown-up since he was maybe a tiny puppy, but he wanted Saskia's to survive and there was no way in hell that he was going out into the rain again to get a new one. He'd heard stories of wolves who had eaten their own vomit to stay alive, so really, it shouldn't be too hard for her to.

Now Charon didn't really feel like sleeping anymore; at least not close to the remains of Saskia's meal. She apologised -- Charon wasn't sure if it was for the squirrel throw-up or what he'd (more or less) been through, not until she added that she thought it was terrible. While squirrel throw-up was pretty terrible, he assumed that she meant his story. "I was pretty young, but you don't forget those kind of things easily." Charon had perhaps not seen his mother get ripped to shreds by a bear, but he'd seen Atreyu get ripped to shreds by a bear.

Charon shuddered visibly as he thought back to that day, and visually imagined Atreyu's ragdoll body flying through the air minus one leg, a trail of blood flying through the air and the dead paw dangling from the bear's mouth...