A knife slipped underneath the skin and tore away at whatever spare fur the creature had. It shared the look of a rabbit, but was much too large to have come from the bush, and its eyes were slits set inside a red iris. Teeth like daggers themselves, just as sharp and keen on biting into flesh; which, evident by the bandages enveloping the arms of the hunter beside the body, they had accomplished.
	No words of prayer were shared between the killer and victim. There needn't be, she would have said to anyone who had the gall to question her on it. There was nothing sacred in a kill. All the prey eliminated over the years would have agreed with her. It was nature to be struck down, and it was nature to fight back. Humans were a part of that, herself a prime example.
	Bloody hands gutted the thing, and its backside came off shortly after. She tossed a haunch at the boy on the other side of the firelight. His hands reached out to grasp it, but his youthful reflexes still lacked precision. It flew into his face, and then into his arms. He was just happy it hadn't hit the ground.
	"Dinner time," she said, voice tender as the meat she set over the fire.
	The boy didn't reply, but instead mimicked her silently. The snaps of wood burning in front of them was all that broke the silence. There were spare few insects that lived on this side of the mountains. Far too much land for so little water. It was a desert in every sense of the word. Only the hardiest of animals made their homes here.
	Though the same could be said for themselves. They would have been outed as lunatics were there anyone else around to have seen them make camp here. It was known by all that the further west one went, the more mayhem you were to encounter. The woman's experiences had led her to an opinion just a touch different. She thought conflict was eternal, but one could make their home in it wherever they pleased. That simple acceptance had left her with few adversaries and even fewer friends.
	This boy was neither. She looked at him, and couldn't see a mark of similarity between them both. Hair as dark and lusterless as the cold iron blades they both carried, with dull grey eyes that reflected whatever he stared at. He had a cool head now, but moments earlier he had been begging her to be the one to skin their meal. When she let it bleed out before he got the chance, his disappointment had made it clear what he had intended to do. She wasn't of the same mind. Needless suffering never helped anybody, least of all him.
	She flicked the sandy hair out of her eyes and raised her head from the palm it rested on. In the firelight, her hair seemed to share the color burning ahead of her. In the sun, it was brighter than a polished mirror. Likewise, her eyes were just as dull a blue as the child's were grey, but more out of boredom than of weariness. A false front she had gotten so used to putting up that it became reality.
	The day had passed without much issue, and it was only after they broke their fast that this would change. Now that it was night, there was work to be done, lessons to be taught. Her brows raised once the boy had finished eating. The both of them tossed their bones into the fire, the remains crackling and turning to ash.
--
	"Technique, not power. You're just as tall as I am, but you'll sooner become flatter than the dirt you're standing on than bring me to my knees."
	"With that attitude, not likely!"
	Moments after saying that, she had knocked the wind knocked out of him. Looking down at his pathetic body on the ground, the new scrape on his shoulder, her brow furrowed coolly. She let her hand down, and as usual pulled him up and onto his feet. Again they would go, until the motions were beat into his body. It was how she was trained, so it was the only way she knew how to train. Luckily for her, the brute of a child didn't seem to mind it much. He even enjoyed it.
	Though the ground had been soaked in his blood plenty of times, he always said he was glad to learn a new trick. The tidbits of enjoyment they shared between themselves when coming into contact with their bodies was something she noted he was glad for. The humor behind it all was that he was, more than likely, never going to have to use these skills in the field anyway.
	The enemies she knew he was going to fight came in many forms, none of which were human, none of which would be willing to take him on in a fistfight. Despite that, he loved hand-to-hand more than anything else. She wondered why, and it was that fascinating wonder that had led to her spending more nights beating him down than she had originally meant to. The posed dummies that littered their grounds had taken more kicks than cuts, more fists than spearheads. She allowed it because of her interest in the child, but she still couldn't bring herself to question him why. She couldn't even recall the last time she had been intimate with someone.
	She watched him as his body fell, and once she was certain of his loss, she turned away. No need to stare for any longer than she had to. She could afford to let go once she heard the sound of his back flattening against the ground, the sputtering coughs he pushed out. Behind it all was an exasperated sort of enjoyment. Tired as he was, that marked the end of their nightly hand-to-hand, and to have lasted all the way through without complaining was something to be proud of. His complaints could come later, even moments after they finished. But not a second before, and not during. That's what she expected from a good student.
--
	"More on argopelters, today?"
	"Yes. And if you'd like to break through the northern wastes without mistaking one for a whimpus, you'd do well to listen."
	Though he grumbled as any child would, the boy went silent and continued to read the book. A book it might have technically been, but it was more of a ramshackle journal full of entries from people long dead by now. Information learned over the course of a nearly a decade was compiled in it. Were printing presses and the world wide web still available to the general public, she could have made a fortune selling the contents.
	A rule of thumb for those she had been taught by, however, held her back. Confidence made a man feel stronger than he really was. Were someone to read this journal of hers and get to the parts that note the weaknesses of particular beasts, perhaps he might run off, feeling like a hero, and get himself killed. Better to keep the public as a whole in the dark and make sure that the secrets of her trade were kept only within the ranks of those she trusted.
	Ideally, those she trusted wouldn't just extend to little children, and even then only one. The few she had made attempts to take along with her had been picked up by various townsfolk along the way back to the mountains. Most complained, others died of illness or injury. Only the one with his nose in the book now had the guts to follow her all the way, though she could tell by his whimpers at night that he hadn't handled the journey well. He was still a boy, after all.
	"Chin up. A town is supposedly endangered by an argopelter that eats their livestock. They're all wrong. Why?" she asked.
	He looked up at her, then replied after his wide eyes a double take of the pages.
	"Argopelters subsist on a diet of --"
	"In your own words."
	He frowned and made a pouty face, then pulled his eyes from the book. She stared back at him pensively.
	"Could have mentioned that earlier...it's because argopelters don't eat large animals like that."
	"And what does, that someone who doesn't know better might mistake it for?"
	"You gave me one hint too many at the start of this lesson. A whimpus, right? If a pig or cow wanders off onto a trail before the rancher can herd it back inside, then it's bound to get knocked out."
	She frowned slightly, but it disappeared after a moment. He had a wit sharp as hers, and it was her own fault for letting her lesson plan slip out earlier. Her jokes were always more revealing than she meant them to be. She watched him sigh comedically before he finished what he had to say.
	"It's the sheperd's own fault if that happens. Why bother having so many animals when you can't contain them all?"
	"Tell that to the idiots in France who screwed things up the world over."
	"Yeah, whenever I get the chance. Doubt there's any of them left alive," he snickered.
	That grim humor of his made her feel at ease. Whenever the topic came up, they found ground which they could stand on equally. Their passion was expressed in different manners, but  came about for the same reasons. Her interest in him was brought about by that same hatred. It was an acid they could both drown themselves in.
	"Enough of that. Here's something else you can blame the French for: loup-garous. Though you're more likely to meet a rugaru or wendigo around here. Most came from Florida, but I've caught some near New Orleans, an old French colony area from centuries ago. Though, sometimes even as high up north as Illinois..."