For the first time, she has escaped Mother's scrutinous gaze. She finds this pleasing.

The forest calls to her, beckons her. She is at home in the shadows, a friend of the darkness between the trees. The thrill of doing something she shouldn't fills her with a wicked sort of pleasure, and there's a spring to her step as she darts between the greedy arms of the trees. She doesn't spare a thought for potential danger. Nothing would think to attack her, young goddess, glorious beastess. She pays no heed to the gleaming, hungry eyes in the shadows, or the screech of the birds in the trees who see a small, motherless filly like her as prey. She's the alpha fucking predator, top of the food chain, not prey!

A louder, cacophonous squawking makes her head snap upwards. She sees a nest in the trees, perched dangerously in the crook of two branches. The tree holding the nest is weak, feeble, which means the wolf hurling its weight at the base of it can make it shake precariously. The girl sees the gleaming pearly white of eggs, and she observes the mother-bird flapping her broad wings in a bid to deter the wolf from its continued attempts to knock the nest out of the tree.

Oizys, at her tender age of a couple of days old, knows little of the animals who share her world. Instinct tells her, however, that wolves hunt in packs, and she notes that this one is pitifully small, young, scrawny and weak. It has undoubtedly been kicked out of its pack, driving it to opportunistic attacks like this in order to survive. Desperation is a wonderful thing, and the filly sees its eyes glowing with manic starvation in the weak half-light of the forest.

Crack! The wolf's slams finally dislodge the massive, messy nest, and it falls to the ground in a shower of branches. Eggs roll away from the remains and the wolf falls upon them, ravenous. The mother screams, swoops down, and the wolf snaps at her with foaming jaws. Its fangs snatch at the eagle's tail-feathers, ripping out a handful, but hell hath no fury like a mother scorned. She swings, beating the wolf around the head with her wings, pecking at its eyes.

Oizys acts. Not out of altruism, or some selfless desire to help the mother, but because she thinks those eggs would make lovely gifts for Mother and Sister. And Father. He had eagles, too. The scars over her eye tingle at the memory of raptors descending, but the thought sends a shudder of delight rather than fear down her spine. They are majestic, magnificent creatures, and the eggs she does not plunder deserve to hatch into beautiful animals like their mother.

The wolf is the same size as her, and ordinarily she would have little chance against it. But it is distracted by the eagle-mother smacking it around the face, and Oizys approaches unseen. It is almost simple to tilt her tri-horned head towards the carnivore's side; it comes naturally to the demoness to charge forwards and drive her horns straight into the black fur-covered flesh. It feels right as blood squirts at her face, and it feels satisfying when the wolf crumples to the ground like a sack of meat. Its smell changes almost immediately, from vicious-predator-stink to dead-flesh-stink. Oizys nudges the carcass with her foot, idly noting that it is still warm.

The exertion makes her cough, but she shuns her weakness in favour of basking in the glory of her first kill.

The eagle hops down towards her nest, using her savagely curved beak to gather up the remaining eggs with surprising tenderness. Oizys narrows her gaze to protect her eyes, picks her moment, and lunges towards one of the shiny white ovoids. She receives a hard peck on the shoulder for her troubles, and feels great wings smack her sides as she retreats with her prize. The chance of getting three or more eggs seems to have gone, because there's no way she can take on the fierce mother-eagle alone.

A shame. The one egg she has managed to plunder feels strangely warm between her gums, and is too heavy for her to hold in her mouth for very long. She chooses instead to roll it along the ground, away from the protective mother-eagle. She snatches the wolf carcass by its tail and pulls that with her, too, because Mother's pet cat will surely savour the unusual meat. Alternatively, Father's eagles may appreciate it - the thought of earning his favour fills her with delight.

Another sudden crack startles the girl's ears, and she glances towards the egg suspiciously. There's a lump missing, and she can see movement inside. Well, she hadn't expected that. Still, she reasons, her family might appreciate a pet chick, so she watches the egg hatch with a dispassionate eye. A great curved beak arches through the shell, crumbling it completely, and the chick falls out into an inelegant, screeching bundle.

Oizys shrivels her nose, disgusted at the thing. "Eurgh. Ugly." And it is - it's fluffy and grey, with its head seemingly too large for its body and scrawny, chicken-like wings flailing uselessly by its sides. It caws and screams, a great hideous din, and the filly pins her ears with distaste. Thankfully the mother is too far away to hear, else Oizys would have a savage eagle on her head again. She knows better than to cross a raptor - her harpy-scars have taught her that painful lesson.

She contemplates killing the creature, because surely something this hideous cannot possibly morph into something as beautiful as an eagle. Nature must have made a mistake - this must be a cuckoo, stealthed into the great bird's nest, nurtured with her warmth but not of her womb.

The grey filly is just deciding how best to destroy the creature when suddenly there's...something. In her mind, behind her eyes, in her black young soul. She looks around, wary, wondering who dares delve into the sanctum of her head and fill her with hunger, even though her stomach is fat and full with mother's milk. Yet there is nobody save the chick, and it's this that receives the force of the filly's ire. She looms over it, hissing, demanding that it vacate her mind, but it simply stares at her with defiant young eyes and chirps obnoxiously.

It is she, Oizys suddenly realises. And she is starving.

Dazed, confused by the presence in her head, the filly finds herself nudging the fluffy eaglet towards the wolf corpse. The chick's eyes light up, and with a decisive squawk she plunges her viciously hooked beak into the still-warm flesh.

Oizys watches, entranced. Hm. If the eaglet can rip through skin so easily, perhaps she does have potential after all. Her mind fills with the taste of wolf, as though she's the one devouring the carcass, and she feels great waves of pleasure wash over her as her - their - belly fills with warm meat.

Ozzy!

She turns, Sister's voice a sweet song in her ears. "Enny." Her body - damp with the sweat of her exertions, aching with the effort of killing and bonding - shifts to display the scene for Enyo's golden gaze; the dead wolf, the hungry chick, the distant caws of the eagle-mother.

The glory.

You've....hunted? Oh, how the little monster smiles! How her glee rolls off her in waves! Little-grey-sister may be smaller, but she is devoid of the cough, the weakness that plagues Oizys' heart, the Thing that they Do Not Speak Of. Enyo is, in a way, stronger. So for Oizys to have made a kill, to have realised the raw power of her body and the blood it can spill...it is like an electric shock of pleasure, a sizzle of pride. She has done something. She has accomplished a thing.

Perhaps Father will be proud, when she tells him. Perhaps she can make Enyo realise how wonderful murder is, so she can partake in it as well and the duo can share their accomplishments with a sire who has surely taken as many lives as he has women. Perhaps they are destined to be twin monsters, starting now.

"I hunted," she confirms, her voice a rapturous breath, her sparrow's chest swelling with pride. A cough bubbles its way into her throat, but she chokes it down - the Thing must not arise to ruin this blessed moment. She does not mention that the eagle-mother did most of the work - Oizys had simply been in the right place at the right time, with horns sharp enough to pierce wolf-flesh and finish the job. She does not mention that the wolf was small, pathetic, not a true carnivore.

She mentions none of this. She wants to bask in the glory of this accomplishment, even if it is not fully hers. "It was glorious, Enny! You should hunt, too." She nods, determined that Sister must share in her newfound activity, that this must be something they enjoy together.

The eaglet - fat and gorged on wolf-meat - shrieks loudly, distracting Oizys from her sister. She pins her ears, irritated by the bird's obnoxious noises, annoyed by the fact the chick is trying to take her attention from Sister. "That thing is in my head. I can feel her feels. S'weird." The filly shrivels her nose. "You think Mother's lion is in her head? Father's birds?" Her harpy-scars throb and tingle, still livid against her black flesh. They are beautiful scars, that remind her of the man who created them.

She wonders if the chick will grow into something as glorious as a harpy, if she lets her live that long. The thought makes her tilt her bloodstained head, hopeful, suddenly excited.