Chapter Six:

Whiptoe rolled over in his sleep, his stomach growling. He winced, his eyes still closed. In the past few weeks he has only eaten twice, and that very little. Ealea has only had a single meal, and so she was becoming increasingly irritable, especially toward Sett. Twice, he had almost been able to swipe food from other carnivores, and Ealea blamed him for her hunger. A couple times she had bitten him severely on the side.

Whiptoe's stomach howled at him again, begging him to feed it. He woke up and looked about the nest-- Ealea was grooming herself, and Sett was laying on a rock. Thy had been living up in the mountains for the past couple days, as Ealea was becoming increasingly worried that they might have another deadly tangle with a large predator. Up on the mountainside, the cool breezes felt good on Whiptoe's skin, and he stretched his back, facing it into the wind. Whiptoe clawed at the tree in front of him as he did so, before standing to continue to look for food.

The trio started down the mountain for the day, and, as they went, they came across another raptor, which was lying on it's side, breathing heavily. Whiptoe looked down on the female, pitying her condition. Sadly, there was nothing he could do, as he was starving as well. He noticed that the female didn't get up, that she just lay there on the ground. Sett walked up to her and sniffed her. She was in such poor condition that she couldn't even lift her head to bark. Sett noticed that she couldn't move because her legs were both broken. Whiptoe felt uneasy, like he needed to do something, but there was nothing for him to do. He barked at Ealea. Ealea, however, was on a different line of thought. She came up to the paralyzed raptor and bent down, examining her. Then, in a swift motion, she sliced a clean cut through the neck of the raptor and decapitated it, blood spraying from it's neck stump. Seeing this, Whiptoe shouted at Ealea, angry and appalled by her actions. Ealea was calm, however, and explained that this raptor was already going to die, and that they finally had some food.

Whiptoe refused to eat, while Ealea bit right in, tearing a chunk of flesh for herself. It just didn't seem right, killing one of your own and then eating it. Sett hesitated, and then started eating. He barked to Whiptoe, telling him he needed to eat or he would die. Whiptoe ignored him, and sat against a log, looking away from them.

Splat.

Whiptoe heard a wet smacking noise right beside him, and nearly jumped. Next to him, Ealea had torn off a considerable chunk of gristly flesh and plopped it down on the ground beside him, urging him to eat. Whiptoe looked away again, ignoring her. A few minutes went by, and he became even hungrier. He finally gave into his five-days-long hunger and ate the chunk of meat. He was still hungry, however, and he walked shyly over to the corpse, trying to avoid looking at the head and the shocked expression on it. He bit into the rest of the meat near the tail and ate until he couldn't anymore. He felt sick with himself, and then sat down again, resting his stomach and his head.