Vicious teeth cut into soft flesh, splitting skin, tearing muscle. With audible cracks, bone shattered, and then the assault began anew. In minutes, another bone was stripped of flesh, then torn apart, the marrow sucked away, the remainder crushed between powerful teeth then ingested whole. As the crackling of the fire blended with the shattering of bone, the two humans on the other side of the camp fire watched on with a mixture of fascination and horror, deep seated instincts suppressed by enduring curiosity.
For the last few weeks, Ninel Gaja and To The Light Devoted (Sparkz to her friends) had shared their Anansi walker with the two Yeeni Carrion Scouts. It hadn't always been easy, but well, no one willingly squeezed themselves in an Anansi if they wanted things easy. The machine was over three centuries old now, largely obsolete on the battlefield, and clearly designed in an era were people were smaller. Despite that, it maintained steadfast support among civilians and military planners for it's low logistical footprint, unprecedented maneuverability, and sheer ubiquity. This mission was merely the latest attempt to find a new niche for the vehicle, using it as a personnel transport to carry the two Yeeni and their gear outside up sheer cliffs they would not have ordinarily been able to navigate.
"The military rations are that poor huh. Did you starve these past weeks?", Sparkz remarked, seeing the Yeeni absolutely devour their meal. "Good meat is supposed to be eaten fast", Zonnestraal affirmed. "The rations are proper bone, compressed. They will last as long as they need to. " "But if you don't eat your meat right now, something else will." Morgendauw tagged in. "It's the way things work back on Dirt. " "Afraid I'm going to steal your food, then" Ninel joined in, a playful grasp aborted when Zonnestraal answered with an impressive growl. "You don't get it", Morgendauw continued in between bites "Dirt's a living planet, not a tamed or constructed one. It's food chain is complex, hungry, and equipped with plenty of claws. And well, " she pointed at Ninel, "you're not on top". "Of course she's not", Sparkz said. "I've got the gun, she's just the spider jockey".
The rest of the meal passed quickly, Sparkz and Ninel trading barbs and jokes for a bit, much to the Yeeni's amusement. As the last of the meat disappeared, Zonnestraal spoke up again, asking where the meal had come from.
"Oh, Sparkz got some contacts with the Thules stationed on the orbital defense platform" Ninel answered. "They brought in a whole shipment, and dropped us a package of in during that low pass yesterday. Probably did it just to get an excuse for some nape of the earth flying, the big show offs. Don't worry though, I didn't give them your names."
"Quite a favor" Morgendauw reacted "to share the bounty of a great hunt among so many." "A hunt?" Sparkz asked, confused? "I assumed they'd just raised these in paddocks, like the Groxes". Morgendauw shook her head . "Ranches and farms are a human thing. On Dirt, neither of those would last the season. The grand herds and their seasonal migrations would devour it all. Meat is hunted and scouted, then grabbed before it can attack anything else. Why did you think they called us Carrion Scouts? It's what we do. We find the weakened herds, the great beasts dying of natural deaths, drive them to the slaughter zones, and then we call in the Grand Cutters and Retrieval Brigades before it can be devoured."
"I can't believe I ended up on a mission with 3 cowgirls" Sparkz joked. "Did none of you grow up proper, in actual space station? Meat's supposed to come from the wall, from the vats, not from some live threatening ceremony".
"Is this about you wanting to pet the Grox again" Ninel questioned. "No!" Sparkz denied, too fast. "I just think they're cute".
"I wouldn't suggest petting any of our creatures either " Zonnestraal said "The river raptors can strip a beast to the bone in seconds, and they're about the least harmful, scalliest thing we got". "Everything else is bigger, or meaner, or faster."
"There's good reason the first Yeeni settled on islands in the river, spanning nets to catch the bones floating downstream, surviving on the seasonal slaughters that fill the river with skeletons. You should come see it some, the crumbling of the bone dams is a magnificent sight".
"And you should come visit my place" Ninel responded. "People say the acreage of crops is boring, but the village life has plenty of entertainment. Come walk the fields, bring in the harvest, pet the grox (hrmph), smell the rain. It's a peaceful life".
"Smell what?" Morgendauw responded.
'"The rain? It's how you know a planet's got good soil. if it's fertile, non toxic, not poisoned, it'll give of that perfect smell after a light rain. You don't have that on your world? Could be since you don't got any farms."
"We don't have that anywhere" Zonnestraal said. "I think it's a human thing. What does this planet's dirt and rail smell like?"
"I couldn't tell you" Ninei responded.
'Ah, because it's not raining?'
"No, because my nose's all stoppered up being around your fuzzbuts. Allergies suck".
(Mostly prompted by me wondering how a species which eats predominantly bone does agriculture, concluding that they can't, which means that they must have some bizarro ecosystem that regularly generates giant concentrations of bone to allow civilization to rise)