A Sheltered's View on Food

Huffing, the man was running. Snapping twigs and dried leaves, his feet carried him tirelessly.

He looked behind him, and saw the red glow of fire... and shadows. They're chasing me!

He tripped and fell, painfully smashing into a tree. "Should've looked where you were going" whispered one of the shadows. As it got closer, its face acquired features, a flat, squashed nose, tusked mouth, and eyes that were alight with cruelty and cunning.

"You already got what you wanted! Why kill us after?!" the man cried, bleeding from his head, his knee twisted, cutting off all hope of escape. His fearful eyes reflected the figure as it got closer, gaining more definition. It was flanked by more figures, all content to spectate from the shadows.

The figure turned into a well-muscled half-orc wielding an ax, clothed in leather armor. The half-orc laughed: "Survivors turn into witnesses. Witnesses can request a lord to send his men on a bandit hunt, arm themselves and hunt us in revenge, or-" the man shuddered "send adventurers after us. No! You all must die, no exceptions".

The bandit raised his ax, but before he could swing it down, he heard a thud behind him.

Turning around, the bandit saw one of his compatriots on the ground, dead, with an arrow sticking out of their neck.

As the bandit watched, his mouth agape, one of his compatriots' head suddenly disappeared. He heard a thud to his right. He looked, and saw a head pinned to a tree trunk by an arrow.

The bandit's scream was overtaken by an inhuman, triumphant laugh. Suddenly, the air was filled with arrows.

The man on the ground watched as a swarm of arrows tore through the bandits like angry wasps through a beehive.

A few seconds later, the arrow-gale was over. The man shakily tried to stand up, only to fall again, cutting his arm on a branch. The man yelped, only to suddenly feel a cooling sensation on his head. He gingerly put his hand to his head, only to find the gash had disappeared.

"You gooooood?" the man heard from behind him. He quickly turned, to see nothing but the tree behind him.

"Wanta eet wit mi?" the man heard again from behind him. He turned to see the source of the noise.

Ahead of him stood a figure pulling the beheaded bandit's head out of the tree, slinging it on its back. It then bent over the bandits' corpses, pulling out the arrows stuck in them. The figure was clothed in rags-no, a patchwork of animal skins, and a very normal looking cloak. On its back, it carried a quiver of arrows and a still strung longbow. It has a tail!

The betailed-figure reached the corpse of the ax-wielding bandit. It stood there for a while, before it plunged its left arm into the corpse's chest. The corpse cried out in a very un-corpsey fashion. It tried to grab for its ax, before the figure pulled out its arm, holding a piece of red flesh. The corpse's fingers stopped moving abruptly.

The man could see more of the betailed-figure now. It had a pair of short horns on its head, its hair was in dreadlocks, and its face was smiling. "Smaht one he. Drop-ped down when he saw me-pointy bones flying. Only one 'it him" the betailed-figure explained. Wait, explained? Is it talking to me?

The betailed-figure was standing in front of the man, its left hand held the bandit's bloody heart, its right was extended to him. The man just stood there, still trying to understand what he was looking at. He noticed that the betailed-figure's left arm was not like its right; it was thicker, had a redder complexion than the rest of its body, and was very clearly clawed. "What are you?!" the man asked.

The betailed-figure answered "Pack use dto kal me Darinda-" it paused, looked at its left arm confused before it seemed to realize something. "But uncle Nazrat sas Imma Tiefling!" it said. Its speech sounded like it was repeating alien words it heard from someone else, but that name 'Nazrat' was spoken flawlessly.

The tiefling suddenly grabbed the man's arm and pulled him up to his feet roughly. "So, you didunt say. Wanta eet wit me?" the tiefling asked. The man barely registered what it said as an invitation to do something that wasn't getting his body mutilated with an ax, and just nodded.

"Gud!" the tiefling said excitedly, "Git sum spices from village. I killed da wasters on me way 'ere". It then pushed him to the direction of the lessening blaze before returning to where the corpses were.

The man noticed that his leg wasn't hurting him anymore as he walked on it, neither was his arm bleeding. He remembered stories about rangers of the Emereld Conclave he'd heard from his pappy when he was young, how they would help settlements on the edge of civilization like theirs whenever danger befell them, how they had healing powers not inferior to a cleric's, and how they could take down groups of enemies singlehandedly.

When the man reached the village, he saw his fellow villagers trying to put out the flames, rescue the wounded, and gather the corpses (many of which were of the bandits') to be burned. He reached his hut to find his family laying butchered on the floor, just like he left them. He shook his head, forcing the tears back inside, and headed to what passed for a kitchen. He exited with a bag of salt slung on his back, the only "spice" he could afford to buy.

When he reached the area where he met the ranger, he was almost blinded by the bright campfire he saw, and next to it, sat the ranger.

The ranger was roasting some meat on the fire. The man sat next to him, and handed him the salt bag. The ranger opened it, grabbed a fistful, and sprinkled it on the meat, not pulling his hand back when some of the salt caught fire and singed it. They then stood next to each other silently.

"Tha-ahem thank you for saving us, ranger" the man croaked after a while.

The ranger turned to the man and said "Watsa Rain-jer?".

The man was surprised. "Isn't that what you are? Wh-why did you save us then?!" the man asked.

The not-ranger handed the man a piece of the now-roasted meat, took one for himself, and started chewing. "I *munch* punish dem wasters *gulp* fer killin' but never eating". Eating?!

The not-ranger reached with his hand to the darkness, and produced another piece of meat, which it threw to the fire. The man looked at where the ranger pulled the meat from, but his eyes weren't used to the darkness due to the brightness of the campfire.

"I hate them hunters what neva eet da prey" the not-ranger said. The man's eyes started to get used to the darkness, and what he saw horrified him.

One of the bandit corpses was lying right behind the definitely-not-ranger. It was eviscerated, sliced open like a slaughtered cow. Some of its organs were missing. The man looked at the meat in the definitely-not-ranger's hand, then at the meat in his hand, then he started to hurl.

After a long, drawn out hurl, the man looked at the cannibalistic-tiefling, tears in his eyes. The cannibalistic-tiefling was staring at him with what seemed like -but was obviously not- worry in its cold, dark, pitiless eyes. The mans started backing away.

"You sick?" asked the cannibalistic-tiefling, obviously wondering if its next meal won't be appetizing. "HELL YES I'M SICK!" cried the man. Gotta run! Gotta run before it eats me!

"Wait" the cannibalistic-tiefling said, "I k'n cure ya. Dont mauve or it may get wors". It started to approach the man.

"GET AWAY FROM ME YOU CANNIBAL!" the man cried as he scrambled to his feet, only to fall on his back.

The cannibalistic-tiefling approached him. "I not a canny-bull! Waht gaive yu tha' idea?!" it asked in mock surprise.

"YOU'RE EATING THOSE CORPSES!" the man answered as he quickly crawled backwards, the cannibalistic-tiefling easily following him.

"Um, yah. But thoze arent Tieflings. Howzit canny-bullism?!" the cannibalistic-tiefling answered, now on the man's head.

The man kicked at the cannibalistic-tiefling's face, catching it by surprise. It fell on its back. "YOU FED ME SOME OF THEM!!!" he screamed, as he scrambled to his feet and ran away to his village.

Surprise was etched across Darinda's face as she softly answered the retreating figure "But your not Orc! I fed yu Orc".

Darinda went back to her campfire, ripped out the rest of the Orc's liver, and started chewing it raw with her right hand, while staring at her left hand.

"What did I do wrong this time, Nazrat?" Darinda said in perfect Infernal, "I even cooked the meat for him".

Darinda stared at the hand in concentration, as if listening to something. "We've already established that I can tell when you're lying Nazrat. Tell me the truth!" Darinda said in a seething tone.

After 'listening' for a while, Darinda seemed to give up, and started to munch on the liver piece while mumbling "People are strange *munch* they eat the chicken whose clucking they don't understand *slurp* and the sparrow whose intelligence they cannot see *gulp* but anything else is taboo? They kill *munch* for shiny stones and misunderstandings *slurp* yet judge me for trying to put meat in my belly *gulp".

Done with the liver, Darinda looked at the rest of the corpses, all gutted and ready to roast. "Maybe one day I'll find someone to explain it better to me than you, Nazrat. Someone people..."