who told you what was down here

I'll drown eventually so don't save me

Accepting his word for it, Maea resumed the task of flaying the serpent. Listening to Asta while working, his point about the rock slider thinking only about food and expressing themselves through body rather than expression gave her pause.

"That's very different from the molten tiger, and worlds apart from the gore crow," she contemplated. "Those birds are incredibly intelligent. Not that far removed from us; from what I have noticed so far they're social, play games, prank each other and protect one another." Scraping carefully at a patch of the skin that wanted to get stuck near the tail, it finally came clean off the carcass. "Do you think you will get it back? The shift?"

Given the choice between her own shifts it was difficult to decide which one she loved more. They were both good representations of her own nature; solitary and temperamental as the tiger, problem solving and social as the Crow. It was only mental health issues that kept her from engaging more with the people around her. Losing either might be like disconnecting from a part of herself, and she glanced at Asta, wondering if he felt the same.

Maea