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“Naib. What is that.”
Norton stared down at the table, where a large boar lay flopped on its side, stomach cut open, not even a plate separating it from the otherwise clean table. The beast’s mottled fur was still speckled with dust and forest grime, a few stray leaves here and there stubbornly stuck to the animal.
Naib’s eyelid twitched.
“That’s Thanksgiving dinner. Eat up.” The mercenary swung her knife down into the table, blood still dripping from the edge of the blade. Norton raised an astounded eyebrow.
“It’s raw. Do you usually eat raw meat?” She crossed her arms.
“I can cook it, if you prefer.” Naib pulled the hood off her head, tugging at her hair with calloused fingers until it broke free from its usual tight bun and flowed carelessly over her shoulders. A few stray hairs drifted down and settled on the wooden floor of the cabin, slipping between the cracks of the floorboards.
“I prefer not getting salmonella, actually.” Norton complained. Naib smoothly grasped each side of her head in firm hands and planted faintly cool lips on her forehead. Norton could feel the trace stickiness of blood from where Naib kissed her, and she decided not to ask why there was blood in the mercenary’s mouth.
“That’s chickens. This is fine to eat raw.” Naib strolled into the other room while Norton continued to ogle the dead creature. She could hear the telltale sound of water running, more than likely Naib washing the traces of the kill off her hands. Norton could almost hear the methodical way she moved, how careful fingers rubbed viscera from every crevice of her hands, the care she put into her every task.
Norton only half regretted asking her to figure out Thanksgiving dinner.
“... Where did you find this?” Norton hazarded the question, only half sure she wanted to know the answer. Naib walked back into the room, her face expressionless as usual.
“I was storing my target’s body in it. Now that I’ve disposed of the body properly, it’s perfect to eat. I even cleaned out the guts in advance.” Her stony gaze showed no indication that she was joking.
Norton squinted at the boar, unsettling recognition clicking in her head.
“... Your target, Murro Morton? Is this Murro’s companion?” She glanced sideways at Naib, who nodded briskly.
“His pet pig. Yes. It’s got a lot of fat on it, for such an active animal.” Naib commented. She gathered a few utensils in her hands, sorting them as she mumbled something under her breath.
“... Companion. Not pet.” Norton corrected. Naib paused, raising an eyebrow.
“Neither. Food. Now eat.” Naib was a woman of few words, but even Norton could tell when she was being told to shut up and agree. Naib thrust a fork and serrated dagger into Norton’s hands, who wordlessly took it and started sawing through the thigh of the boar. The skin was coarse, and it slowly dawned on Norton why Naib had given her a wickedly sharp dagger as she fruitlessly tried to cut through the beast’s hide. Naib’s eyes glinted with barely concealed amusement as she observed from behind Norton.
“Need help?” Naib purred, resting her head on top of Norton’s. Naib wasn't the most expressive with her words, preferring to physically convey her thoughts with a touch, a kiss, a rough shove. She was more fluent in violence than tongues, learning the meaning of every word and how it could be spoken with her body instead of her mouth. Norton didn't mind at all. If anything, Naib’s mastery of her own physical form made her shockingly adept at reading what Norton was too hesitant to say aloud.
Which, right now, was that Norton had no idea how to cut open the boar.
She sighed deeply, finally relenting and setting her knife down.
“I’d love to see you try.” Norton muttered. Naib moved to stand beside her, flashing her a honeyed smile before slamming her knife through the connective tissue between the boar’s leg and its stomach. She wrenched the blade sideways, and blood trickled out from where the skin was cleanly torn. After a few more repetitions of stabbing and pulling at the blade, she yanked the leg free from the rest of the body and held it up to Norton like a cat presenting its human with some manner of dead bird.
“I was trying to retain some table manners, but that works too.” Norton grumbled, only mildly annoyed that she hadn't considered doing that herself.
Naib smiled.
“Table manners are for noblemen. They sit in high chairs and eat with silver forks, and toss their hired help the scraps. The mercenaries. Me.” She leveraged a slice of meat from the boar’s stomach, wolfing it down raw and hardly even chewing the flesh before swallowing it.
“What does that make me, then?” Norton asked cautiously, prodding at her own boar leg with a fork before tearing off a scrap with her teeth. She chewed it slowly, savoring the ferrous taste for a moment before swallowing it. Naib wasn’t totally crazy, after all. The meat didn't taste half bad raw.
“That makes you the love of my life.” Naib said simply. Norton didn't have a response to that, only separating another bite of meat from the bone and contemplating it for a moment. Blood dripped down Norton’s fork and stained her hand red, and she acutely realized she was sitting at a table in a cabin in the woods, eating the raw flesh of what once was someone’s treasured companion, sharing this meal with the woman who’d killed him; a woman who, by Norton’s standards, may be the most uncivilized woman to ever live. She wouldn’t change it for the world.
After a minute, Naib spoke again.
“Happy Thanksgiving, Norton. My brightest love.” The utterance was unexpected, considering Naib was so rarely the one to speak first. Norton treasured every word, as surely as she treasured the mercenary herself. She didn't care if she could be anywhere else right now, eating pumpkin pie and warm cooked turkey; she would give all of that up for this one moment with Naib.
Norton smiled as a stray rivulet of blood trickled down her chin.
“Happy Thanksgiving, Naib.”