sated
The first test of your fledgling relationship comes scant weeks after you first met the mantis. You have been hunting together, killing together, feeding together; but not yet anything else.
You have caught another Hollow together; a pitiful thing, almost weasel-like, if weasels had teeth larger than the mantis's claws and stood head and shoulders above you. Despite its size, it is slow and stupid, easy to herd into the nets prepared hours before.
While it is slow, it is not weak; the nets alone were not enough to kill it, although you can smell something like blood as faint traces of spiritual energy leak from it. Hunger stirs in your stomach, sharp and eager, forcing you to step backwards so as to not simply kill and eat it.
The mantis arrives moments later, ragged and bleeding. You give him a curious look. What happened? You had thought him safe hiding atop a tree.
He gives you what you assume is a confident smile, lips peeling back to reveal jagged rows of teeth. "Our, ah, friend here-" he stabs the weasel-creature sharply, just once, for emphasis, drawing from it a howl of pain- "knocked over my tree as he ran. Don't worry, they aren't- they look worse than they feel."
Despite his words and his failed attempts at a reassuring smile, you can see him favouring one leg. He is clearly injured. You try not to give away any signs that you have noticed, and instead give him your best facsimile of a nod. As long as he is not in any danger, you are not concerned. You turn back to your prey, just in time to notice it attempting to lift the net over itself.
The weasel sags immediately once it notices you looking, but the damage is done. Irritated, you move towards it, but the mantis intercepts you before you can, holding one bladed arm before you.
At your frustrated glare, he shrugs. "Some Hollows can be poisonous," he says. "I'd keep away for now. Just to be safe."
The weasel-Hollow lets out a roar of frustration. "No!" it bellows. "You will not eat me!" Then it pauses, sniffing the air, before letting out another enraged roar.
You tilt your head at that, before noticing the long scratch along the Hollow's eyes. It's been blinded.
The weasel is still shouting. "Why?! Why would you eat me, when there is prey beside you?! It is injured and bloodied! Yes, yes, and so delicious! Delicious-"
You tune it out, turning your head to glance towards the mantis. He is injured, it is true; you would not find it very much effort to stamp him out. And he is stronger than the weasel. He has been alive for years, at least, and has fed well recently. He would make a fine meal, much finer than the weasel. Hunger rises in you at the thought, beastial and demanding.
"Ha!" The mantis lets out a sound of derision. "Why would my friend kill me, when we have a big meal in front of us already?" But you can see his shoulders tense, and the wary glance he gives you from the corner of his eyes. He does not trust you.
The weasel roars again, baring fangs towards you once again. "Friend? Friend?! She would kill you as soon as look at you! Look at her! Can't you
see the hunger on her face? Why would you help her?!"
And it is true, you cannot disguise the hunger on your face, not for long. No Hollow can. It is your nature; you are hungry, and so you feed. It is what you do. You kill; you feed; you grow stronger; and your hunger grows ever more voracious, and so you must kill, and feed, and kill, and feed, and kill, and feed. Endlessly.
You hold your hand high, a dusky Cero forming and screaming forwards fast enough that none present can see the shape it takes. The weasel screams once, a short sound, a sharp sound; then it falls eternally silent, leaving behind only a corpse.
Only then do you turn to the mantis, who attempts to bury his nervousness as he sees you look towards him. He's not quite fast enough. But it is irrelevant. Half is his; half is yours. You see him nod, and that is all you wait for before you step forwards, towards the corpse of the weasel, and begin tearing sections of it off.
Once you have had your fill, you nod towards the mantis, waiting for him to nod in acknowledgement before you turn and flit up a tree.
Far above, you rest upon a branch, looking towards the skies. Hunger stirs in your stomach still, sated temporarily, but ever-present. It is your baser nature. It demands, even now, that you climb back down the tree; that you descend upon the mantis, and consume him, and take his power for your own.
Instead, you move forwards, walking steadily upon a thinning branch, until you come to a stop. The branch lies thinner than your fingers here, but you pay little attention to it, and instead bend down and beginning to untie a thread wrapped around a branch- a secondary trap, installed in case the weasel had been quick enough to avoid the first. It had not been, and so you might reuse the second.
You could kill him. Your thoughts keep circling back to that. Even were you to wait, you know that you could kill him. At full strength, he is neither fast enough, nor strong enough, nor smart enough to avoid you. All it would take is one Cero, and he would fall. You could consume him, and with his power, you could hunt through the forests. Few would be strong enough to oppose you, and those few would be simple to avoid.
You could kill him. But you don't want to.
You have seen the Gillian- those great, mindless beasts that stalk the plains of Hueco Mundo, ravenous and hungry and searching eternally for creatures to eat. Killing, eating. Killing, eating. Killing, eating. Endlessly, pointlessly.
You could kill the mantis, take his powers for yourself, stalk the forests of Hueco Mundo and sate your hunger for a time. But what would be the point? You would sate your hunger, for a time. Grow more powerful. But it would return. You would need to kill again, to eat again. And the cycle would begin anew. You would be right back where you were before you met him; near consumed by hunger, all but drowned in ennui, with nothing to do but eat, and eat again. No better than a Gillian.
Friendship with another Hollow might be madness to some, but as you consider it, you can feel your doubts sliding away. It might be silly, and pointless, and contrary to your nature; but at least you are
doing something with him. It… helps.
And so you flit to another tree, and begin the careful process of walking along another branch to untie another rope, careful and methodical.
Why would the mantis help you? The answer comes to you unbidden; because he feels the same. The emptiness threatens you both, threatens every Hollow in this world. But with him, at least, you are doing something. Your… friendship, such as it is, provides you with something more. Direction. Something you have craved for- decades, it seems.
Perhaps it won't last; perhaps you will eventually grow bored with him. If you do, you can consume him then. But as you consider the idea, you already find yourself set against it.
You will stay with him, with your newfound friend.
Maybe together, the two of you will find something more filling than flesh.
