A Single Strand || #Wattys2018

Chapter Seven

Hyrna uses the fading light to find a new source of food.

She flies high above the rocks of the third island, watching the cornucopia of strange creatures skittering below her. The most promising morsels are what look like little Earth mice she saw long ago on a datascroll, scratching at the ground and pulling up roots between boulders. They seem to have overtaken the island, multiplying out of control. It appears that whatever predators they might have had have long since died.

Hyrna decides to fix that.

Spotting two of the critters basking in the sun, she divebombs out of the sky and swoops down on them. Reaching out with her giant paws, she quickly grabs them and turns her wings so she flies straight upward. The minute she grabs them, the mouse creatures shriek and snarl. They scratch her paws and try to bite her wrists. Hyrna's first instinct is to drop them, but she doesn't relent. She wraps her paws around their necks until she feels two separate crunches. The mouse creatures go limp.

"No wonder you have no natural predators," Hyrna says aloud. "Fearsome little shayoka'e."

But that's about to change.

She carries her prey back to the cliff to butcher them. She starts to skin one of the mouse creatures, which she calls nangji'e, or "biters." The nangji's fur is somewhat bristly, and it irritates her paws. But as Hyrna skins it, she realizes that she doesn't know if it's truly safe to eat. She takes her scanner from nearby and scans the nangji she hasn't yet skinned. After a minute, the scanner reads:

Island Malkuga

Native species of the planet ▘▚▜■▙▞ *data unknown*

Organism Status: pest

Island malkugas are an offshoot species of the now extinct continental malkugas. They inhabit most island chains on their home planet of ▘▚▜■▙▞ *data unknown*.

Island malkugas are prey to many species, primarily the Takome natives.

Analysis: safe for consumption. AVOID THE LIVER. TOXIC TO CONSUME.

Hyrna breathes a sigh of relief, knowing that she can eat these things. She continues skinning the first one, and the strong, tempting smell of prey-blood hits her in the face. She scoops out some of the meat and figures out that the scent comes strongest from a little brownish purple organ. She almost eats it when she remembers the message from the scanner.

AVOID THE LIVER. TOXIC TO CONSUME.

This must be the liver, Hyrna realizes. Clever. It's a tempting poison. You're dead if you eat it, I think.

Fighting the almost irresistible urge to bite into it, Hyrna brings it down to the jungle and buries it beneath the dirt. She then returns to the body and eats the rest, biting around the bones and making sure to avoid the large intestine. When she's finished, she repeats the process with the other creature. She still calls it nangji, which she finds more fitting. Plus, it's in Nemar, the language she knows best.

Hyrna feels halfway satisfied by the nangji, but her hands still burn like crazy from the scratches and bites. Most of the scratches have created inflamed lines on her paw pads, but some of them have drawn blood. She knows she needs to get her wounds cleaned and wrapped before they become infected, or worse.

Keeping her paws close to her chest, Hyrna walks carefully to the spring and washes her bleeding paws beneath the waterfall. She pulls her paws free and gasps as the air hits her open wounds. She grabs some leaves and, after quickly running them under the waterfall, wraps her paws in them.