When the giant answered that he would move in, Darina was flooded with relief, and her mouth began to water so much she had to gulp. She was about to say ‘Thank you’ when the man left with the corpse. Stunned, she just stood there for a few seconds until the pale woman’s words startled her. Poisoned. Somehow, though, the warning didn’t seem so bad. Her own body was turning against her at this point; poison didn’t seem to be the worst thing next to the desire to consume dead human flesh. “I’ll—I’ll go tell him,” Darina muttered, before running outside the room, her eyes following the giant’s path. For his size, he moved quickly. Some of the Underbelly’s denizens had pointed and stared, but most, either out of indifference or fear, left him alone. Seeing as he wasn’t actively hurting anybody, it must be an unspoken rule here that such things didn’t need to be bothered with. “Dammit.”<br/><br/>Without another look back, she went outside, making a mental note to come back here. But should she? Given the woman’s words, it was clear she knew what was going on with Darina, too; the giant wasn’t exactly the most subtle person in the room, if he still counted as a person. If she wanted to find a way back to her comrades, she might need to forge her own path, anyway.<span style="font-style: italic">Feed, first.</span>Chewing on her bottom lip, she retraced the giant’s way, backtracking when she spotted a wall that looked like it had recently been damaged. On the edge of it, more cracks, as if something had grabbed it and hoisted itself up. Even without seeing the cracks, though, she was certain this was where he was; her nose told her as much.<br/><br/>Well, she couldn’t leap that high, obviously, and a couple of people had already begun glancing in their direction. Not wanting to invite attention, she left that alley and wandered away, doing her best to look discreet. Once she was some distance away, she lingered at that spot before turning back, entering the alley on the other side of that building. Luckily here, there was debris she could use to pile against the wall and climb up. Feeling shaky with the Hunger, she did her best to arrange the rubble into a stable platform and, once done with that, clambered onto it. She still had to jump to get to the edge, but either her craving made her eager, or she had more strength in her legs than she thought; either way, it took one jump for her to be able to hoist herself up to the roof.<br/><br/>“Well,” she murmured, “I’m here.” Too late for seconds thoughts now. He appeared to have already started. As if magnetically, she made straight for the body, crouched down beside it, and began. Her mind fogged over; she barely tasted, or smelled, what she ate. Did she pry the flesh apart with her fingers? Did she tear chunks from him with her teeth? Did the giant do the same? Was it she who was growling? For those unspeakable minutes, her body wasn’t hers.<br/><br/>When her senses returned to her, she was lying on her back, her face, neck, clothes, all smeared with blood. But what was more shocking was the<span style="font-style: italic">euphoria</span>. An overwhelming feeling of ecstasy paralyzed her body as the Hunger faded, replaced by an equally great sensation of extreme satisfaction. If she wasn’t only afraid of what it would mean to admit it out loud, she would have compared it to another bodily experience that involved such a heightened explosion of pleasure.<br/><br/>She sat up, blinking, as her senses righted themselves. Somewhere at the back of her skull, something told her she had crossed a line, but the peace that flooded her body right now drowned it out, just as the Hunger had drowned out all reason earlier. “You can have the rest,” she said, her voice as steady as it should’ve always been. “Your friend said the flesh is poisoned, but I guess that shouldn’t matter to you.”<span style="font-style: italic">Or me.</span>“Name’s Darina. I didn’t catch yours. You do have one, don’t you?”