The forest goes on forever.

This is not true in the ordinary sense, the trees end abruptly where the river slices through, and though it is impossible to say what lurks past the barrier of shimmering shadow that covers the Forest's northern march, she knows, theoretically, the trees do end somewhere in all that impenetrable darkness. Nonetheless, there's an infinity within the trees, canyons and looping trails and monstrous old oaks whose hearts rotted away centuries ago. Among these trees, near silence reigns. The birds are shy and do not call in the quiet beneath the canopy. No squirrel scolds her as she passes - none would dare. It is best not to call the attention of the forest spirits when they are hunting.

And they are always hunting.

Eyre, however, lacks the ruthlessness of her aunt. Her hunger is not quite so deep - though it is etched into her bones - that their hunts do not sometimes give her pause, nor is her magic so powerful that it leeches out in the same unstoppable miasma of nightmares and madness. Years have given the younger creature enough practice that she no longer notices the blood that soaks her dreams nor the sour taste of fear that laces their meat, but habit is not the same as nature.

It's taken days for them to track the doe. She ran at first, lightfooted and sure of herself, but now her steps rattle the winter-dry hawthorn branches as she stumbles through them and her breath comes in harried panting that scratches against their ears with hoarse music. Eyre and Illunis are not fast and savage hunters, they follow their prey, step after inexorable step, until she can go no longer. There's a heavy pause in the undergrowth where the deer hangs in her indecision, but she has had no rest in days, chased forward by gnashing black teeth and Illunis' nightmares, and finally beds down, too exhausted to continue. If they were cats, perhaps her stillness would deter them, but the thestral-thin beasts kindle with rare life instead.

It is Eyre who shows mercy, black horn piercing the dark eye that turns on her in that last moment, piercing deep into flesh until she feels the scrape of bone. It is expert, well-practiced, she does not miss despite the sudden and desperate attempt the doe makes to rise. A jerk and a twist finish the job, even as Illunis is already ripping into the soft flesh of the belly, humming over the steaming contents spilling out into the loam.

They eat, vicious and greedy, squabbling like starved cats, flesh and bone and fat gone as though it never existed, and then they are off hunting, because Illunis can never be full, never find peace. And Eyre? She catches glimpses of satisfaction, contentment grazing her belly with its fingertips, infuriatingly out of grasp. Her aunt inhales, a loud and awful whuffing sound, and turns west but Eyre pauses to look back at the bloody and turned earth where a deer became nothing but the rapidly lightening weight in her middle.

She turns south instead. Illunis will not care.