As soon as Vanta heard of the festival on the winds, she began to plan what exactly she could contribute. Already she had gone to decorate one of the nearby statues and now she was to find something to present to the feast that was apparently to come. Whatever the offering, she knew she couldn't do it alone and immediately set out to drag her sister into her scheming. Once the sun had set she had collected her sibling, dragging her out from the col and into ice flows to the west with a plan.

"We gotta go so fast so nobody notices we're gone." She whispered to her sibling as they scampered west. "When I was ice fishing with Az I saw where the baby seals live, they all group together while their mums go out fishing I think, there were no adults around." They were coming up on the flows fast, and Vanta quieted down further as they approached as to not startle them when they arrived.

"Speech"

Kite was a little sulky, that she’d made such a big thing of giving something to one of the statues, and then her father and Vanta had gone and given something to a different statue. she wanted to give something to the fierce large statue too. But maybe not. She really liked the colourful one she’d found.

When Vanta chose and dragged Kite away to prepare something for the festival, all was forgiven. Especially the sneaking out part. That was the best. She was eager and excited beside her sibling as Vanta planned their escape. It was hard not to giggle excitedly but she managed to be quiet. Her sister led her further on, and explained about the seals. “So how do we plan to grab them?” she whispered back.

"Speech"

Kite's question brought a sort of ashamed look to the other pup's face. She grimaced slightly before turning her head toward the pack she had snuck along with them, withdrawing from it two wooden sticks weighted on the ends. "I overheard that the best way to kill them is with these." She left out where she'd heard it, as the information had come from their cruel big brother. "It makes it so the pelt stays intact, so we can bring something really really nice to the feast." Drawing a stick out, she held it awkwardly in her maw out toward her sister.

Her stick was hard to carry for a young, weak pup, and the weighted end cocked her head sharply to the side as she struggled to hold it in her jaws. The stick's tip clonked heavily onto the ice and heaving it back up parallel with the ground proved too much an effort. She'd drag it then, until they found a seal to bonk. "C'mon, lesh go quiet and cash one shleeping." The pup whispered around the stick, crouching across the ice quietly (well, as quiet as one could with a stick dragging beside her along the ice) toward the slumbering group of pups.

"Speech"

Kite was a great deal more bloodthirsty then her sister, and practical about it too. She grabbed the stick and almost toppled over at the unexpected weight at the other end. She practised with it for a moment, trying to get a feel for it. “I guess you need one good hard hit, right?” she clarified with her sister. Otherwise she’d end up punting them into a mush. She didn’t think that would go over well with Vanta.

‘Okay, okay” Kite agreed, giving up on practising with the stick and following after her sister again. She was curious to know where Vanta was getting all her info from. Was she getting lessons that Kite wasn’t?


"Speech"

While Vanta was focused upon just dutifully following the instructions she'd been given, Kite was digging deeper. Vanta blinked at the question, considering it carefully with furrowed brows. "I'd assume so." She murmured her quiet reply, allowing her uncertainty to be heard in her tone. She too was imagining the mush that would result from a brutal series of beatings, and suddenly she wasn't sure she wanted to do this at all. But they'd already snuck out, she'd stolen Armada weapons, they'd made it here and.. the seals were right there. Maybe this was why Azure had given her all the knowledge she'd needed - so he could demoralize her further when in the end she could not go through with the baby slaughter.

Swallowing hard behind the stick she gathered her courage, leading her sister forward until she came behind one slumbering soft seal puppy. Dipping her muzzle backwards below her shoulder (the weight of the stick made over her shoulder too hard) she glanced back at her sister, watching to see her choose her own victim. Or maybe for confirmation that what they were doing wasn't as wrong as it felt. Eventually she could wait no longer and heaved her muzzle sharply to the side, lifting the weighted end with a small grunt and stumbling awkwardly to line it up with the baby seal's sleeping head. It's eyes flicked open, and she threw her head back down. The club cracking hard against the creature's skull.

"Speech"

Kite crept forward. Eyes on the price Vanta had promised her. The seals were sleeping in a pile, and she found herself wondering if she could bash more than one in quick succession before deciding that was just greedy. Instead, she picked out a nice large one and lifted her club. She smacked it down hard and it crumpled down. She kicked it lightly and it didn’t budge. By this point, Vanta had done the same to her chosen seal, and the rest of the babies were awake and crying. It was time to scram before the parents got there.

She threw the stick in Vantas bag and gripped the seal in her teeth. “Quickly Vanta!” she said around her mouthful.


"Speech"

The seal was dead and Vanta was not afforded even a moment of solace to let her kill set in before Kite was yelling, warning of the necessity to get out of here and fast. She threw her club aside with disgust, watching as the pups it landed near scattered and cried louder. "I'm sorry." She said to the babies, ears slicking back as she reached down to grab for the delicate flipper of the seal she'd killed. Dragging it was difficult (it was heavier than she'd anticipated) but with enough effort she'd managed a fast enough pace to mostly keep up with her sister.

They fled the area with their prize, and as Vanta expected their distance enough, she dropped the corpse back down. "I'm tired." She called out to Kite, slumping down onto the ice. "It'd be easier if we didn't have to carry the whole thing back. I'm going to take the pelt off mine, I don't want the meat." Already she felt sick at her decision to seek out and kill an infant of any species, consuming it's flesh would be too much - and she'd forever feel terrible for donating it to the feast, proclaiming the baby seal meat was something special and desired.

Vanta stared down at her prize.. suddenly realizing she did not know how to skin off it's pelt. Her paw reached out and touched various parts of the pup's fleshy fat, trying to determine where best to start, when suddenly her viper uncurled from around her neck and began to slide down her limb. Zee's companions had watched the Fatalis family live and work for years and were prepared to guide the young one. "Can you help me get it started, Kite? I don't have your claws." Slicing through the first cut of flesh would be the hardest, and Vanta's dull clawed paws were underequipped.

"Speech"

Kite was grabbing her mouthful when she realised her sister wasn’t acting as quickly as she was. She watched as Vanta hesitated for a moment. Seeming torn as she looked at the remaining seals. Was that regret in her expression? Kite let out an impatient huff, wishing her sister's bleeding heart could pick more convenient times.

Finally, Vanta was moving. Dragging the seal along with her sister in a huffing puffing race across the ice. Vanta stopped first, and while Kite wouldn’t admit it, she was glad. Her own paws were killing her, and her jaw was clenched and hurting.

As Kite rested, Vanta seemed to come to a decision. Skinning the kill instead of taking the whole thing with her. “Okay… where should I start?” She asked. Eager to learn as she looked to her mothe-her sisters companion.


"Speech"

Kite seemed eager to help and Vanta stepped aside to allow her sister access to her seal corpse under the direction of her viper. Hissbiscus flicked out her tongue and observed the body, before moving to coil at the seal pups' chest below it's throat. Uncoiling herself in a straight line, the viper weaved her body through the soft pelt from sternum to pelvis, displaying the line that would need to be started for Vanta to take over, before sliding off from the body to return to her puppy master's neck. "If you start it I think I can do the rest." Vanta said hesitantly. Severing the hide from beneath had to be easier then slicing a clean cut through it to begin with, right? "And I think for yours you'd make the same cut." Mostly, she intended to learn her way through this experience. It might not be perfect, but it would be something they did, and without the supervision or guide of a parent or wise adult.

Once Kite made the cut, Vanta stepped back to her seal. Poking her nose down toward the cut and sliding her paw beneath the hide, she investigated what kept the flesh bound to the fur. Little thin lines, a bit sticky and sinewy. She had to get her muzzle dirty in reaching her teeth in to begin to sever the cuts (still wishing she had claws like Kite) but the more she worked, the better the hang of it she started to get. "How are you doin with yours, Kite?" The girl asked as she came up for a break, tongue swiping across her lips to rid them of the coagulated blood.

"Speech"

Kite watched in fascination as the viper outlined where Kite should start. Careful to follow the line the snake had ‘drawn’ with her body, she began. Her sharp claws sliding easily into the pelt. It was keeping the cut straight that was the hard part. When she was done, the pattern was a little more zig-zagg then she would have liked. But not a bad start perhaps. Right?

She stood back to look at it, before giving her sister room. She pulled up her own seal and tried to replicate the cut again. Still a little wonky. She would need to learn precision with her paws. She frowned, determined to master the skill. If her claws could be used in this way, then she would learn how.

She turned back to Vanta to see her sister had already gotten a head start on the next task. Frowning, Kite looked back at her own and considered how to copy her sister's next lines. “It’s not as easy as it looks” she said, which was as close as she would get to complaining.


"Speech"

Somehow skinning the pup was relaxing, so long as she did not let her crystalline gaze linger too long upon it's face. She continued to work her teeth and occasionally paws beneath the hide, dirtying herself further but slowly working the pelt to detatch from the flesh. It was something she could see herself doing again and again, the tedious task requiring a delicate focus and allowing her wandering mind to still.

Kyanite gave her answer and Vanta gave her a soft apologetic smile, assuming her words meant she was struggling a bit. "If you mess up the pelt, you can take the meat instead." The pup suggested. She even threw in a compliment, to build back up her disabled sister's ego. "You're stronger than me, I'm sure you'd have a better job carrying it then I would. That's why I'm just taking the pelt."

Finally the layers of sinew beneath fur were detatched and the pelt for the most part flopped off the corpse. There were still the limbs and head attached (Vanta didn't think that part through) but the torso had been flayed open and out. She was not taking the head - she didn't even want to look at the head - but she'd need to sever the rest. Waiting until Kite had another break, she called her sister over for more assistance. "Can you cut here, and here, and here, and here - " Motioning to each limb and encircling the upper thighs of each with a dull claw, to show. "- ..... and, here, I guess." Less enthusiastically and with a much more vague gesture, she alluded to the head and neck fur still attached.

"Speech"

Kite started to attempt to copy her sister's work, and was only getting sloppier. The coat was a mangled mess when her sister offered some sound advice. “Good thinking” She agreed. She could just worry about sorting out the meat, and her sister could bring the coat from her own kill. “And then we’re bringing different things” she added, pleased with this advice.

“You sure you want me to?” She teased lightly as her sister requested her assistance. But she didn’t think what Vanta was asking looked too tricky. She did the first few cuts, but the last one was a little more vague. “You want the head off fully, or did you want me to keep any of the neck or back of it?” she asked for clarification, lifting up the head and letting it roll around a little in her paws as she waited for her sister to point out where she wanted the cuts. She wasn’t mean, just oblivious.


"Speech"