Nocturne Summit the faces staring back at me look like somebody else

The deer’s death throes involved a lot of twitching, ripping Nephele’s teeth further into the elegant neck of the young animal. She squeezed her eyes closed, knowing this was the way of the world.

Something had to die for something else to be fed. Be it plant or animal, something was exchanged. It was the first rule of alchemy, the first rule of nature. The law of the wild, the law of equivalent exchange.

To live, something must die.

And today, it was the deer.

Nephele released the now limp body after its sides had stopped moving and its heart had stopped beating in her mouth, licking sanguine life from her lips and teeth.

Good hunt. She said after she’d caught her breath.