Hungry.

It drives them all. Predator and Prey alike, it is the kindling to their fire. They cannot live without food and they cannot have a good life without that which improves their happiness. For some — the Predators of Beqanna, for example — their happiness comes in the form of the hunt. She is one of them, a Predator.

The protection of the shadow, the thump of a beating heart, the deep red spurt of blood; the hunt calls to her like the croon of a mother’s affection. She dreams of the hunt, sometimes. Flashes of Prey skin (whether horse or doe or wolf or fox) and the musky scents of the earth, the cry of an injured animal and the warmth of muscle against her mouths, the flood of saliva against her teeth and the way the shadows curl against her shoulders.

Something new.

It is not a someone, but a something, crafted of a darkness that could have thought of her own alienoid figure. It slips through the shadows as silently as she, and her nostrils sense the Predator in his blood. Yet she waits among the needles of a pine-tree, pointed shoulders as still as the branches that slide against her armored crown. Her inky color blends into the shade so well she might become the darkness itself, yet if he senses her presence she won’t mind.

After a moment, she slides out from beneath the tree with a few chitters, sounding not altogether welcoming or threatening. Her knife-tail flicks against her heels, even while her dark eyes critically analyze this new Predator.

Friend or foe?

Predator and Predator and Prey.

They stand in the autumn-forest, cloaked in the shade provided by the blood-red and pumpkin-orange leaves over their dark heads.

Hunter and Hunter and Hunted.

Perhaps the leader-Prey doesn’t realize it (perhaps he thinks he is too good for their animalistic lifestyles) but he is the Hunted, as much as he might feel like the Hunter. When his soft, supple skin is put up against the Predators’ (the pulse of his vessels sings to her like a siren’s song, the sweetness of his muscle dares her to stretch with her mouth, the sound of his breaths urges her to cut them short in a final, dying cry), he is no Hunter.

When their eyes find each other — glowing red-yellow to intelligent inky-darkness — there’s a mutual interest, pricking at the back of her mind like an electrical current. And when he — short and supple and sweet-smelling — steps into her vision, there’s almost a smirk on her face, if an alien-horse were able to do such a thing. The one corner of her mouths tips upward, revealing half-a-mouth of razor sharp teeth, and her dark eyes twinkle with amusement when she turns to the other Predator.

He is like Wolf, but much larger and much more otherworldly.

A Beast.

She knows he is wondering what she is, just as she is wondering what he is. “Nexu.” The only word in their sliding, dotted language she can pronounce with certain clarity. Her voice is suctioning and peppered with clicks in the back of her throat — one could almost call it the accent of her own language showing through despite speaking their language.

She steps closer then, eyes matching the leader-Prey’s gaze, and steps closer to Beast. Her nostrils flare to scent him (warm and earthy and shadowed). She isn’t afraid of him — hell, she’s hardly afraid of anything (Sister, her mind seems to remind her) — and thus she presses her knife-tail gently against his side, prodding at the thick fur that rises from his skin. It isn’t enough to hurt him; it’s hardly enough to even be considered pressure. Yet she is on-guard. She knows how Predators work and she wouldn’t be surprised if he lashes out at her.

She moves away following this prod, regardless if he snaps his teeth or claws at her armored side, and settles in the comfort of a chilly, inky shadow.