Sister’s smile—it’s so radiant, so ferocious and proud and infectious. You’re grinning now yourself before you can stop it, a toothy thing bursting from you as you witness Ozzy’s triumph. And what a triumph it is! The pelt is still warm, and pungent, and you know it’s a fine, fine, first trophy. Father will be pleased. Father will be so wonderfully pleased!
You reach forward—small grey muzzle moving in the thick forest air—to touch Ozzy by the neck, just under her cheek, because you are so proud, so happy for your older, brilliant sister. You can feel the hitch in her throat, and, because of your love for her, you forget it instantly.

*It was glorious, Enny! You should hunt, too.

“I should,” you say, and it slips carefully from you, just as bright and excited as it needs to be—while you shove down your own little Unspeakables deep, deep, deep deep deep inside. Those little hitches in the grand scheme of things, y’know. That impulsive, nasty sense of disgust at the dead wolf so close to you. How the reeking of blood compels you to gag.

You shove these things down, so far down, out of sight and mind—and hopefully they are crushed beneath the weight of better things. A monster is not disgusted by the hunt—he revels in it.

Your attention is pulled to raucous squealing of a thing--a small thing, a feathery thing that caws with newborn annoyance. You study it with wide, golden eyes; you recognize it as a bird. A raptor, that is, nothing like a tweeting, meatless songbird. It is an ugly thing, but your imagination soars beyond your line of sight, and you imagine it to grow into something terrible and mighty, like the vicious Ka’Mate, like the tender Ka’Ora.

**That thing is in my head. I can feel her feels. S'weird…You think Mother's lion is in her head? Father's birds?*

“I dunno,” your voice flutters pensively, for you’re still observing the tiny chickling. Ah, but it would make sense for Sister to have received her egg so early! It’s a tradition, surely, for those in their brood to have sharp winged, sharp-beaked henchmen upon their shoulders. Sister has received hers, naturally.

And, naturally, you must receive yours as well. It’s only right.

It’s unthinkable to you, completely ludicrous to assume that you also wouldn’t bond to an eaglet such as this, as well. It happened to Ozzy, hadn’t it? You two shared the same sperm, the ovum, the wombwater and the glorious birth—of course you would bond together, with eaglets who have perhaps hatched from the same shell.

Yes. That must be right. It seems so right.

You turn your head this way and that, looking for the remains of the shell—for the squirming chick who is bound to be destined for your service. “Where’s mine?” your curious voice trills; you stalk around your sister, surveying the remains of a battlefield, looking for the mate of your soul.

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