Alzu and Almul inspect a corpse, Almul takes out some frustration on said corpse. Warning: messy. Descriptions of a corpse being messily taken apart and inspected. Also- it’s not technically cannibalism because they aren’t the same species, but Alzu is an opportunistic carnivore faced with a body made of meat. His response is unsurprising. 

“What- you wanna know why that works?”

Alzu kicked lightly at the corpse of someone who had
formerly been a rather nasty rapist, turning the body over to look down at the
severely burned face. “Yeah, actually- not a bad question. See- clearly dead,
but you only burned ‘is face. Got all choke-y, though. Bet he couldn’t breathe,
but- yeah, might as well, let’s figure ‘er out. Gonn’ make a mess o’ the guy
anyway, may as well learn.”

Hefting the corpse, Alzu tossed it over one shoulder and set
off, tail wagging slightly as he watched Almul following. Almul got an energy
boost from being near something that was dying, so they were now trotting
happily, almost seeming to whistle as thin lines of smoke wafted up from their
frame. If Alzu were to open Almul’s chest, their life-flame would be visible
and burning bright.

Once they were well away from the road, Alzu dropped the
corpse and pulled a large hunting knife from its spot alongside his pack,
crouching to inspect it. “A’ight- let’s see if I can open this wi’out makin’ a
mess.”

Almul sat down nearby and rested both hands on the ground,
watching intently as fragile human hide parted under the knife, and didn’t
bother trying to hide their satisfaction at the noise it made. Ugh- smooth
skin. They had nothing against humans, really, but the squishy things still had
such an awful texture. And, after so
long feeling that inside them, unable
to see properly or focus on anything else, there was something viscerally
satisfying about watching-

Wait, now… it didn’t have to just be watching. Rumbling
softly, Almul reached out with one hand and slowly dragged it down the man’s
leg, watching the cloth part, then repeated the motion- this time tearing
through skin. And he was right- it was satisfying.
So very, very satisfying. Enough that he repeated the motion, then again- with
both hands this time, clawtips sharp as possible, ripping pale skin to shreds.
Then further through skin, into and through muscle, shredding in further until
the still blood started to cake their hands-

“Woah, hey- Almul, you wanna mess ‘im up, I got no
complaints, bu’ you might be gettin’ kinda- hey now, easy, shh. Catharsis is
all well an’ good, jus’ no good makin’ yerself more upset while ya do it. Easy-
shift t’ th’ other leg now, gonn’ get blood all up in yer hands. Yeah? There we
go.” Alzu purred, pausing in his careful parting of the skin and muscle to
watch Almul for a moment. “Tha’s better.”

He had to crack the ribcage rather carefully to get to the
lungs intact, but it worked, though he had to pull a few large chunks of rib
out. And, of course, pop them into his mouth to chew on. “Now-“ *crunch* “-what
we have here arrrre- lookit, tha’s a heart, you know ‘bout them. Now, these’re
lungs. You also know ‘bout them, yeah? We got heart here- pushes blood ‘round.
Lungs, they get air in ‘em. People really need air in ‘em or they die, you
figured tha’ out. This, here- diaphragm. Real strong hunk o’ muscle. This-
pretty sure it pulls down an’ helps open th’ lungs. Ain’t no good for eatin’,
not bad fer jus’ chewin’ on. Anyway- lungs. They got air in ‘em. All th’  way up- that’s th’ windpipe. Gonn’ cut that
through, an’-“

A few deft cuts and nicks with his claws, and he lifted the
lungs out of the human’s chest, splaying them grotesquely across the relatively
intact stomach. The hunting knife, next- slicing down the windpipe, then into
and across one of the lungs. When he spread them open, thick burns were
revealed all down the windpipe and into the lungs, scorching them almost beyond
recognition. “Well. There’s yer problem.”

Pausing to point out the issue, Alzu aimed a tongue-lolling
grin at Almul, prodding at a particularly bad spot. “Lookit this mess, Almul-
that ain’t good! Okay, look- I dunno how lungs really work, but I doubt they can do it when they’re
all burnt up. Tha’s why ‘e’s dead. You gotta have lungs t’ be a workin’ human,
an’ they gotta work, an’ you made ‘is lungs not work. Nasty. But- mmph-“

Clearly he had to
see what those tasted like. And they fit in his mouth in two nice bites.

“-like a lotta nasty things, tasty.”

Almul had mostly been ignoring Alzu’s work in favor of
clawing up the corpse’s other leg, stripping long ribbons of skin free and
hissing in satisfaction with every long stroke, but they stopped to look the
organ over before Alzu, once again, ate their anatomy lesson. Chirping quietly,
they shook their head and flicked both hands, peeling loose the bits of gore,
and leaned over to look down at the exposed organs. Humans were complicated.
What did all this do, again? They only knew about the bits that could make
someone dead if you damaged them right. So, making the noise that they’d
established with Alzu as meaning “please explain”, they indicated something
that was in the “this will eventually kill someone but not right away” section,
wanting to know what some of those things did.

“Wha? Ah- let’s see. Okay. That, there, tha’s a liver. Real
tasty, lotsa meaty flavor. Not certain wha’ it does, bu’ I know people who
drink a lot got real messed-up ones, an’ there’s some diseases that’ll do it.
Makes people ge’ yellow eyes, an’ they get real sick when they got messed-up
livers, so I think it does somethin’ like blood-cleanin’? Now- this, in here,
dunno. Uh- tha’ thing? Tha’s a kidney. Lookit- you follow th’ string down, goes
t’ the bladder. Tha’s where piss stays. I figure kidneys’re wha’ make it. Dunno
why, sorry, y’d need a doctor. Uh- you punch someone in their back, o’r th’
kidneys, they start screamin’. Don’ taste good, either. Now- I am gonn’ eat
this liver.”

Alzu then proceeded to eat the liver, tail wagging
vigorously, before just driving both hands into the corpse’s innards and
ripping. Standard contract deal- make a horrific mess of someone’s innards,
hang them up as a warning, write whatever they did on something nearby.

In this case, a cliff.

Almul sat back and watched, fascinated as always by the way
flesh tore under proper force, and kneaded their claws in the leaf litter to
clean the worst of the blood away. As Alzu continued to work, they edged over
and grabbed the pack, pulling out a length of rope, and fastened it around the
corpse’s ankles. The knot was not neat, they were still learning how all that
worked, but it held well enough, and they had the end of the rope in their
hands as Alzu stood up.

“Yeah- there we go, yer learnin’ how ta make knots.” Alzu
declared, tail waving a bit harder, and hoisted the corpse in both hands so
that the end of the rope could be tossed over the branch. A quick pull and
another knot later, and the corpse was suspended from the tree by both ankles
and one arm- thoroughly undignified, plus it showed off all the damage. Alzu padded
over to the cliff nearby for just long enough to paint “RAPIST” in messy
letters across it, using the blood all over his hands, then shook himself and
scooped the pack up as he padded away. “Startin’ ta leak gut contents
everywhere. C’mon- let’s get a river.”

Churring in agreement, Almul followed Alzu and snagged a
cloth from the pack to clean their hands off, quiet and satisfied. Okay. That…
that had felt nice.

Maybe they could do this with the next target. It wasn’t as
if the average rapist deserved any respect, after all- might as well use them
for something helpful.