Blood. It is an interesting fluid, to be sure. The sight of it provoked myriads of reactions from the witnesses, ranging the extremes from hysteria to arousal. Let it be known that the sight of blood is an interesting thing for one who has just so recently become a predator. Invigorating.

Disturbing.

Remember my nice little multiple choice backstory? I don’t know which one is correct. It isn’t my place to decide what type of person I am, that is for others to judge. Harshly and unfairly. Either way, I was not the type of person to smell blood and say “Oh goodey, what died?”

No, I liked meat but this craving was... unsettling.

I had smirked at hunted animals and the like before, roadkill didn’t make me flee in terror, but the urge to hunt something down and pin it to the ground with my claws until it’s body fell limp, before ripping its hide from.... I was concerned.

More than concerned, I was terrified.

Heh. Dweeb. A dark voice smirked in the back of my mind.

I decided not to give her the satisfaction of knowing that her voice upset me.

You’re a griffon. We hunt. We feed. That’s how it works. There was the feminine hiss that accompanied the voice of the body. It sounded darkly pleased, like it wanted me to squirm. ….Not some lame veggie ponies. Just like that, the fear was gone.

Hunting. Feeding. The very words evoked a tapestry of dark imagery that left my head buzzing with adrenaline. It was an odd feeling, to be sure. That such concepts that I hadn’t given more than a few thoughts to beforehand were now so all encompassing...

Do something interesting or we hunt. Deal? Either one of those could involve your friend in the tent here. There was a long awkward moment where I tried to understand what I could possibly do to him that was interesting. I had a feeling that she was laughing at me.

My indecision chose for me; the tent flap started to unzip. Out popped the head of yet another of my friends. Memory has blurred exactly what he looked like, I didn’t know him that well. He was all for the whole anti pony movement thing, PAPA I think it was called. Still, you think that I would’ve taken notice of it.

Do you take notice of what you eat? Do you think about how it had to die for you to live? Pft. Of course not. He looks like he has some meat on his bones, come on.

The offset commentary from the main body was more than a little off putting.

His eyes widened almost comically before he pulled his head back in and zipped up the flap. There was an errant click that filled me with a bit more fear.

Camping. A bunch of adults and teenagers out in the middle of nowhere. Guns. GUNS.

My body dove to the side before I could even properly clarify just how much it needed to.

POUNCE!!!

I was away from the tent before I really knew it, paws and talons digging against the cool ground to aid in my flight.

My stuff was still back there.

He had a gun.

My memories spun like the toys of children, showing examples of exactly what a gun could do to Gilda.

Yeah, that would be bad.

Thank you Gilda for the obvious. I stared back at the tent.

My friend was standing outside of it, holding his firearm and scanning the trees around him. I could hear his breath coming out in pants. If I strained I could hear his heart. I did strain. His heart was beating like that of a tiny bird’s ripe for the plucking from the air.

Prey.

“Stop.”

He stopped searching, sure, his face turning instantly to see me. Probably not the best course of action to tell him where I was, but it was better than the rather appealing option of flaying him and devouring him.

“Who are you? Why were you standing outside my tent?” He calls out. He paused before shaking his head.

I was concealed better than I thought. That, or he was some flavor of stupid. I’ll go with him being stupid. “Cale.”

“Cale isn’t a girl.” Well, that was a nice point against me. I was going to have to go with willing suspension of disbelief at this point.

“A large angry griffon.” I stated. Still not the best decision and I immediately regretted how thoughtless the description was. Accurate to a point, but thoughtless.

“What the fuck?” Ok. Reasoning with someone when you are hungry and he was starting to look like he was delicious was an even worse idea.

“Look, just step away from the tent for awhile and I’ll steal Cale’s stuff.” Why not an appeal to the ridiculous?

“...” He lurched and stumbled. “I’ll... just... go throw up now.” He stumbled off drunkenly.

Seriously? I was worried about a drunk? Well, a drunk with a gun. Still, odds were he was going to-

There he went, he vomited. A few seconds later he passed out next to said vomit.

Huh. I was honestly expecting that part to go on for a while longer.

I carefully padded along to the tent and opened it, quickly looting it like a character from an mmo.

Most importantly, besides the bag of jerky that I was eying, I realized that I had my phone again and yet another unconscious human male.

If this was going to be a running theme, I hoped Gilda was a lesbian.

That thought was something that I didn’t need to think. Cale?

She referred to me by name.

Stop wondering that. Eat the jerky before I make you eat your friend over there.

I looked back at the human. Honestly, he looked about as tasty as said jerky.

Suddenly, it occurred to me that it was probably less than safe waiting around for someone to discover me standing in a tent rooting through a human’s belongings.

Ignoring Gilda’s goading, What’s the matter, scared?, I swept up the few supplies I actually wanted into a canvas duffle bag that I assumed had held the meat on a previous trip. This was assumed from the blood stains that decorated it like an old butcher bag.

I make note of this only because I do not want to make note of what exactly else I brought. That would ruin the surprise, wouldn’t it?

Fine. All I brought was a few wristbands, a rather ornate and expensive looking pocket knife, some jerky and my phone.

Speaking of my phone, it was a nice little touch screen device made from the company named after a fruit. I plucked it from the bag after I had walked a distant that I assumed would be safe.

Said bag was looped around my neck in a way that felt entirely too demeaning. I agreed with Gilda on this.

I leaned against a tree and flicked at the power switch, wincing as the talon scratch the paint job of even that part. The phone turned on, displaying a rather sensible percentage left in the battery. Smiling for once at my good fortune, I flicked the screen with my talon.

Two things happened. The screen cracked and the phone itself squealed with a sound of glass being cut. The sound was agonizing, like nails on a chalkboard inside of your head while kittens were set on fire and brutally decapitated.

I dropped the phone and watched it bounce on the hard ground, spider webbing cracks shooting against the screen.

Good job. You broke it, idiot.

“I’m sorry we can’t all be perfectly flawless like you, your highness.” I growled back, sweeping the phone back into my talons. I looked down at the sharp almost blades that tipped my new hand things with a bit of hatred.

Then I looked at my back feet, tipped with softer lion paws. There was a moment of silence, followed by a grunt from Gilda.

Tartarus no.

I carefully rolled on my back, keeping the phone in my grasp. Working my back legs, I hooked them so that I could almost lick one of them and then carefully placed it against the slide lock on the device. I twitched a toe and was delighted to find that it responded to my commands.

Of course, you have to picture a griffon rolled on its back cradling a phone a bit like it is a ball of yarn and then cheering when it did something as simple as unlocking a phone.

Still trying to make sense of the proper input to use my back paws as fingers, I managed to dial the number I was after.

The phone rang thrice before it was answered by a familiar voice. Not the one I had explicitly dialed, but close enough.

“Hello?” The voice asked.

“Hello, mom.”