At Ellis’ thanks, Thot highwater bobbles around the fire to him, blood-sticky claws paused mid-reach for his pant leg for her to groom her beak down into her mess -- polite enough to wash her feet, first. Behind her, Silas is making short work of the rabbit: hide reversed, guts twisted deftly away, bone cracked and meat quartered for roasting.

“It’s significantly more difficult to accomplish as a human,” he says in his matter-of-fact way, because it is.

Thot is just starting to reach again when a silent request sees her scarpering back across the cave to retrieve rabbit refuse. She’ll tangle her talons in and carry it out, far enough away to keep roving predators from pursuing hunger into their home for the night.

The steel of his misericorde, stripped from the back of his belt, is long and narrow enough to function as a skewer. He’s quiet for a little too long on the heel of that last question while he works.

“Do you have aspirations?”