Dragoncrest Cliffs i like the sprinter better.

stupid — ughh — hnmggh!
he gives a hefty tug
and goes flying back
half a torn fin in hand. 

the tide dispersed this morning,
a huge bloated carcass submerged in sand. 
cayetano doesn’t know what it was
before the ocean spat it out on the shore
but he knows an easy snack when he sees it.

look at dat, sobeille thought dryly as she canvassed the shoreline with an unfortunate fish in her jaws: it’s the man dat talks too much.

cayetano stumbled back, the rotted end of a fin in his mouth. sobeille wasn’t about to hail him with pleasantries, but since she happened to be in the area she stopped and placed the fat meal in the sand. nice catch, but mine be better. sobeille had become something of a hunter — though so far, her success was limited to small game.

she placed a paw upon the dazzling scales, meeting his gaze directly. you want dis?

he lands a jumble in the sand,
the fish fin slapping his face
a small price to pay
for an easy meal ticket.

it’s a shadow crossing him
that causes his gaze to raise
ah, the insect-eyed girl
framed in a halo of white
he squints at the thing at her feet
a fresh kill, guarded by her paws.

do i want it? his head turns
from side to side
what’s her angle? she doesn’t strike him
as the kind to give anything
without strings attached.
no, she’s the spider
with her legs folded neatly around a web
waiting for the perfect moment
to cast her binding net.

what’s the catch?

sobeille waited patiently for cayetano to dust himself off, and rise from the sand. her gaze fell to the flopped fin, then back to his insufferable face.

for a stupid man, she supposed he wasn’t as dumb as his pep talks would lead one to believe. now that she thought of it, there wasn’t a single man in sapphique she had a high opinion of.

the catch, sobeille announced, pushing the sand-encrusted fish the slate’s way. be another bone.

he knows he should know better
than to tempt fate by answering a clear trap:
all the same, he’s bored.
kheviel doesn’t always tolerate his presence,
lovely as it is —
and he’s got to earn gold marks
if he’s going to keep sapphique his home.

the fish, delectable and irresistible
is pushed towards him.
he can smell it from here
juicy fat delicious salt
there goes his resistance.
okay. i’m listening.
what kind of bone, kid?

one would think being apex predators, that bones would be in no short supply. but sobeille’s aim was something special — sialuk had breathed into life a prevailing interest in the girl, and now she prepared the collection of her bone-stock. 

she smiled as he pulled the fish close. stupid, greedy man. if only svalinn could be so easily controlled. 

a wolf bone. sobeille measured him for his reaction. for my bone reading. val told me dere is a graveyard in de sound, but i haven’t found it yet.

a wolf bone. its so left field
that it momentarily distracts cayetano
from the odd odor he detects in the air
emulsifying with salt
a little sweet
and horribly stale —
a wolf bone. he repeats
trying to hide his surprise and revulsion.

what’s a little girl need
with the skeleton of her peers?
a shiver climbs down his roached back
seers, bonereaders, and witches all
gave him the massive creeps. 
okay! fine. weird, but fine.
he’s not above a little grave robbing
if it means his plate is full and place secure. 
he bends to collect the fish 
pauses;
those aren’t like, relatives of sapphique, right?

no. no relatives. sobeille confirmed, stern-faced and slightly prickly. he’d called her weird — but she wasn’t weird, and there wasn’t anything wrong with her — no matter what the bones said. 

in any event, she wasn’t going to linger. it sounded like her personal hell hanging out with cayetano (though she had noticed he’d spent a lot of time with kheviel as of late). lifting her body nimbly from the sand, sobeille gave him one last reaffirming stare to measure if he was committed. 

hard to tell. sobeille flicked her tail and began to walk back towards the darkened jaws of the tangle.

no relatives, good. 
that makes this morally grey area
of sifting through dead bodies
just ever slightly better. 

he shrugs out his round shoulders. 
he can’t possibly hyperanalyze
the good and bad of every interaction. 
that’s way too much energy and brain power,
for a dude like him 
who just wants the simple things in life 
like good food
good company
and the warmth of a loving woman. 

okay then. he says
more to himself than sobeille
she’d already left, and he watches
as she ducks into the treeline. 

whatever. 
he grunts and leaves the rotted fin,
head held high with his newest prize
the fish flopping up and down
as he jauntily made back to camp
kheviel’s gonna fucking love this.