i felt a funeral, in my brain, [ c-4 - day two mutts ]

They glide effortlessly through the red, drinking in the overwhelming iron scent, peering lazily through a crimson haze. Few of their kind dare venture up here, so close to the land, so far away from their protector, yet even amongst the baleels lie a few who grow weary of the same old sights. Up here is new and exciting and oh is there so much potential for fresh prey.

And when there isn't, well, the lifeblood of the falls themselves will sustain them, much like it does their protector.

Today, they are lucky. A small herd of prey - three of them, to be precise - have stumbled close enough to the shoreline in order to draw interest. It is not as tempting, perhaps, as a lone stray, but the prey is merely three, and they are many. They are predators, the mighty songstresses, and the prey?

Well, one prey snarls at them, a declaration of war. They can lower themselves to more primal, savage songs too, if needed.

but the chorus isn't their only weapon of war.

They fight, and glide, and strike, to varying levels of success. One prey avoids their teeth entirely, one merely gets scratched, and it is only the third one that any measure of success comes through, with one lucky extension of their will leaping up and digging into the prey's arm. Yet the prey fights back, deadly as ever - one piece of their conscious goes dark when the first one, the skilled one, slices one of their bodies in two.

That will not do. Prey is prey for a reason, and that reason is not to kill baleels.

it's time that the prey learn their place for good.

Another one falls, under a combined assault. They grow weary, think that perhaps, the pay may not be worth the cost inflicted.

Yet they strike forth again, nevertheless

it's all they know how to do, after all.