I take my prey back up to the cave where the girl still waits for me. She is curled up on herself, hiding from me and from the world which rejected her. I leave her be, sit at the mouth of the cave and undo the beast, turning it into fresh cuts of meat which will nourish us both when it is set on the hot coals of earth which simmer above. I would eat it raw, but the human cannot do so and get the benefit of all the nutrients. She needs it to be cooked so her soft blunt teeth and her underdeveloped digestive system can use it more effectively.
Tres
I can smell food cooking nearby. When I open my eyes, I see that Vulcan has lit a fire with molten rock and moss and has slabs of meat charring in the flames. My people rarely, if ever, eat meat. We are a fish and grain tribe. It is forbidden to eat the flesh of a four legged creature. It is also forbidden for me to still be breathing, so I suppose many rules and customs are being broken today.
I stay curled where I am, sensing that he will come for me soon enough with his forbidden food. Sure enough, within minutes he is removing the meat from the flames with what sounds like a satisfied sound. I watch as he throws a slice into his face and swallows it with just one chew. Whatever he is, he is full of hunger.
“Time to eat, little human,” he says when he has eaten his fill. I have closed my eyes again, but when I open them I see that he has elected to use discarded human ribs as a sort of serving device, and has put the meat on what remains of a pelvis. If I was tempted to eat before, I have lost my appetite entirely now. The ancestors will be furious at me eating and drinking from their remains. There could be no greater cursedness.
“I’m not allowed to eat the meat of running animals.”
“What do you mean, not allowed?”
“I mean my chief forbids it…”
“The same chief who had you tied to a board and left you to die in a cave?”
“Yes.”
“Why would you follow the edicts of a man who wants you dead?”
The question makes my mind twist in an uncomfortable way. I have always followed Trelok’s laws, and he has always despised me. That has been the natural order of things. I have never questioned it.
Now Vulcan is looking at me with distaste, I think. He would be truly disgusted if he knew that I didn’t even fight when my tribe tied me to the board and carried me up here. I didn’t try to escape my fate. I accepted it, because I have been taught to submit to authority, and to accept the consequences of disobedience.
“Because it is the law…”
“It was his law. Now there is a new law. My law. And my first edict is, you eat.”
I close my lips and shake my head. I am not meant for this world anymore. To eat is to delay the inevitable.
“No?”
I shake my head. No. I don’t need food. I don’t want food.
“Do I need to make you eat? Hmmm?” He rumbles the question as his finger slides beneath my chin, tickling lightly with retracted claw.
I feel something bubbling inside me, the desire to laugh, though surely there can be no mirth in this miserable moment. He smiles at me and the heat in his eyes smolders to warmth.
“You cannot make someone eat.”
“You can make anyone do anything when you put enough pressure on them,” he tells me. It is not a threat, just a simple statement of fact. His finger is still under my chin, his touch light. I have not been touched like this before in life. All the touches I’ve felt before have been harsh. I’m surprised how nice it feels, how my entire body responds to the lightest of caresses.
“You’re going to eat,” he says. “And not because I’m going to make you, but because you know you’re hungry, and this food is going to nourish you, make you strong for what comes next.”
“But nothing is supposed to come next. I was supposed to die.”
His eyes flicker for a moment with emotion I don’t quite recognize. He seems to waver for a second, as if he perhaps agrees with me. Maybe he regrets taking me from the starving board.
“There is no supposed to in this world, or any other,” he says. “There is only what happens, and what does not happen. I took you from the board. I intend to make sure you survive. So eat, little human, or I will find the particular pressure that makes you eat.” He pulls his finger away and presents the meat to me, dark red flesh highlighted against pristine white bone.