Chomp chomp chomp. "Mmm, tender and juicy."

The stranger eats like she's never seen food before. And not in a way where she's just really hungry, in a way where it looks like she physically doesn't know how to eat.

She finishes her own guinea pig and pulls one of the tarps toward them -- heaps of dried berries and sweet jerky -- and starts eating some of the jerky herself. Only slightly more slowly than she'd been eating the guinea pig, although she is calming down.

It's clear that she's impatient for Katie to finish.

She watches for any signs that Katie's appetite is decreasing, hoping none show up because that would spell doom for her.

Katie is doing her best but not exactly used to pigging out. Her stomach isn't so small that she's full after one measly guinea pig, though, and the berries and jerky look tasty!

Smile.

She's slowed down herself significantly now, and is kneeling next to the stranger in what appears to be a more permanent posture. Katie will be able to see how she takes each piece of jerky and positions it so her sharp teeth are with the grain before pulling a bite out. Clearly savoring the meal.

But she's separated the plunder into two piles, equally large for her and the stranger [ although she plans to get more for herself later ].

And Katie's pile looks . . . like more than a gallon of volume, compacted as far as it could possibly go. Although it does look delicious. There are candied nuts.

Chomp. "Mmm, this is sweet, what's it seasoned with?"

"Hm, 'sh a good question. This is trash. R, really, shtolen. I'm not the --" nomch "-- cook."

She teasingly spins a piece of jerky so the stranger's teeth are against the grain, leaning in from the side. Katie can feel her body heat [ it feels like she runs hot ], and almost her belly [ it's impressive ].

"Mmm, hey, aren't you supposed to be an undead? Since when do they produce body heat? Not that I'm complaining, would absolutely love more where that came from."

"Well, there's--" gulp "corporeally undead, and spiritually undead, y'see."

"I am unfamiliar with this. Evidently you need to eat, but so do ghouls, and they're undead. Does your heart beat? Do you need to breathe? Does negative or positive energy heal you?"

"Yes, yes, negative."

"Fascinating! I've never heard of such a thing before. It seems like most of the existing kinds of undead kind of suck to be for various reasons, but this one seems remarkably liveable. Or, I guess, unliveable, but not unlivable in the sense that- oh, you get what I mean."

The stranger sure can think a lot while she's eating. She'd never quite thought what it was like to be Kari the potions dealer, who was a lich, for example.

"Hey, what is your" mlam "name and where are you from, anyway?"

She snatches a glass and pitcher of boiled milk Ran deposited a bit off the tarp.

"The name's Katie. My dad is the king of this little backwater fiefdom you've probably never heard of in the River Kingdoms. He's in town negotiating some complicated political business I'm far too female to understand. Something about an alliance against Galt."

-- Wow, a little princess!

She probably thinks she's invincible.

That's . . . really hot, actually.

"You know," she says, continuing to administer the food insistently, "you've got to eat all this and a decent amount of the wolf, or you die."

Wait, what was that about—

". . . Far too" hramch "female?"

"Do they not have sexism in Tian Xia? See, around here people are of the opinion that women should focus on popping out babies rather than statecraft and all that, and don't tend to care if we aren't interested."

"My grandparents were from Tian Xia." Nom "I'm from around here, unfortunately. And most women from around here don't know they're breeding cows, because they don't know any other way it could be."

Katie is talking so much, how can she get her to eat

the problem is her words are so fascinating, but Tazich will get no more words if she dies

"Not suicidal, are you?"

"Not gonna lie, I nonzero was before tonight, but having a sexy lady handfeed me succulent meats and break all of the societal taboos I hate at once is making me reconsider. Still a little scared about the whole undeath thing, but I'm probably bound for Limbo anyway and from what I've heard that doesn't sound very nice either."

"Okay, you know what, I'm gonna unbind your hands so you can feed yourself. This is saliently intriguing but we can have this conversation later if you live, you're barely eating anything and right now you have to focus."

She pats Katie down for weapons and then does as promised.

She wants to thank the woman for her kindness but heeds her instructions and eats as fast as she can manage.

Tazich kind of gets lost in the rest of her food herself. There's something special about really high-calorie, delicious trash. Mana from Abaddon. It's starting to make her slightly drowsy, though she isn't anywhere near full yet.

But she knows she only experiences This Much Food this way because, well, she has practice and Urgathoa's favor. For somebody twiggy and nonevil like Teg was, she's given to understand, it would quickly become pain.

She watches Katie, propped up on one arm with her head tilted.

She's doing her best, but her stomach is frail and delicate and it would probably make everything worse if she vomited. Her bites slow to a trickle, then stop, and she's breathing heavily and looking like she's making significant effort to keep it all down.

Fuck, that's hot.

Can she help her?

She glances coolly around at the others while ahe draws Katie close to her comfortingly.

They take little notice. Some of them are cooking the wolf.

Except for Somayyeh, who stares her down.

Grrr.