Within the cloud layer she hovered, riding the powerful thermals, half asleep, but held up by strong wings. She was warm and safe despite the buffeting winds.

Still, no matter how she tried, true sleep eluded her. She hadn't eaten in almost a week, and the need for food was becoming almost unbearable, her stomach a tight knot of sailor's rope.

Below her, she knew, there was a bull, just waiting for her to take it. It was where it had been for the past two days, standing alone on the shorn plain, held in place by a long rope.

She didn't understand why it was set apart from its fellows, placidly chewing the grass around its feet, unworried and unbothered, but it was young, and fat, and exactly what she needed.

Yet… Something nagged at her.

She had been watching it for over a day now, trying to bring herself to make the kill, as something in the back of her brain twinged and tugged, refusing to let her proceed. Scar tissue pulling tight over old wounds, long healed but refusing to be forgotten, making impossible something that should have come easily.

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It was always bad, she never found it easy to hunt, but this time was worse.

Eventually her stomach would win out, and she would feast, the- her mind blanked for a moment- hot in her mouth, hot on her claws, all thought gone but for the joy of no longer starving, but for now…

She waited.

Soon, Dragon would come back, and he would take the kill, offering her scraps as he had before, encouraging her to eat.

That would be the best.

-

A few hours of half-dozing later, she finally admitted to herself that Dragon wasn't coming back. He had told her he was leaving, over and over, explaining it to her in simple concepts, as if to a child. She could have gone with him, could have flown underneath his wings and shared in his kills without judgement, so why hadn't she? Why must she stay here, why was she bound here?

She wanted to leave, she needed to eat, she missed…

She…

A toss of her head, as if the thoughts were a physical thing she could merely shake away, and dropping down out of the clouds, she made the kill.

He would come back, eventually, and she would fly with him then. Leave this place behind.