Dawn came and went without incident.

  It felt strange, Nat thought, to be disappointed at the lack of spectacle after the events of last night. Not that he wanted some calamity to strike, but they'd sat for 15 minutes quietly holding hands as a sense of anticipation built up, and then — nothing bad happened.

  Well, that was if you didn't count Nat's revulsion at the rasping noises Lyn's teeth made on their own metal-infused bone while they'd sat and waited to see if the pulse came late. He shuddered as the memory of the sound still echoed in his mind, and half-hoped for a small episode to strike, and wipe it away.

  They spent a few extra minutes debating if something would happen the moment they stood up, before Lyn decided they'd waited long enough and stood, with the help of their makeshift crutch.

  “Let's finish washing up, organize our pile of gear, and check over wounds better now that there is sufficient light.”

  Nat thought that was mostly directed at him. It wasn't his fault his eyes didn't glow and let him see in the dark. The coach lanterns were much better than a torch, but nothing was quite like daylight.

  He was very curious about Lyn's eyes, and regeneration, but was trying to be polite and not ask about everyone's biology constantly; he'd been told it was rude. A lot, if he was being honest.

  Anyway, the cleanup went as cleaning does, bandages were adjusted, and some more salve was applied. They were almost out of both; nobody had really expected to need this much so early on, in such quantity.

  Nat decided that his current clothes were a loss as he changed out of them into the light desert-heat outfit. They'd be waiting in the sun, and he'd want the skin cover and cool fabric, for sure. The old shirt would probably be best off as bandages, the pants were in okay shape, if stained beyond the ability for the stream to restore without soap.

  At least nobody had lost a limb, so, certainly not the worst morning.

  The one thing that was decidedly not normal was just how much meat Lyn could manage to stuff into their face. Where did it all even go?, Nat wondered.

  Nat himself had a small handful of the more cooked meat they'd decided wouldn't sell, but was struggling with eating it. Listening to Lyn eat their own foot was disgusting, but the concept of it wasn't. They wanted to grow their foot back — they'd need protein and bone to do so. Easy enough.

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  But the thought of eating the Ber meat from the attack was causing him difficulty. He wasn't entirely sure how he felt about it. Any Ber'Duun was, after all, the same species as the Ber that it came from, right?

  They were like perpetual children, in a way. Any given Ber might never awaken, but any could, no matter the species. It was the defining feature that made Ber, Ber. Or so he thought, but he was hardly an expert.

  So he decided to ask the one he had right there. His inquiry into the ethics of it sent Lyn into lecture mode.

  “In Human parlance, the species that tend to be encountered Awakened are called Ber'Duun, but that is not accurate. Any individual Ber may be Awakened and become Ber'Duun — a sophont, a person. Once awoken, any children that Ber'Duun has will awake soon after birth, hatching, whatever the mechanism is. The process never reverses itself, to my knowledge.”

  “So, if any Ber is a potential person, how do you justify eating them?”

  Lyn considered the question a moment before replying, “First off, from a simply practical standpoint, the ratio of Ber to Ber'Duun is immense. It varies per species, but in the wild, for each hundred thousand Ber in the wild, there might be one Ber'Duun. Some species have no known Ber'Duun awakened, like the Pa'hupa from last night. That's why they are considered Ber — there's no-one to argue otherwise for them. My people are considered Ber'Duun because we choose to keep our awakened population numbers relatively high. If we stopped breeding as a people, eventually Ber silverpaw would become the dominant form, and we'd be thought of as only Ber.”

  “Okay, but that doesn't answer the question. You're eating potential people. Isn't that like eating babies?”

  “I think you'd be hard-pressed to call the Ber we encountered last night a child. It was centuries old — millennia. But the short of it is this — everything has to eat. Ber, and Ber'Duun alike. The ecology we live in was originally crafted to be suitable for all Ber, whatever their dietary needs. Whether they eat plants, insects, or sift the soil for bacteria, distinguishing between diets is more of a Human concept, and a relatively recent one at that.”

  Lyn continued, “If I sit still out in the forest long enough, eventually some hungry Ber will come and eat me, unless I take action — running, hiding, or fighting. If I hunger, and an unlucky Ber does not run fast enough, far enough, then I will eat it, instead. This is balance — not for the individual, but for the whole.”

  “The balance comes at the end of the equation one way or another. When my time comes, maybe something will come for me. I'll either be too old, or infirm to run, or I'll have already passed and will be a meal for the next scavenger to come along. Or perhaps I'll be a feast of weeks for many tiny organisms, instead. Yes, I may eat a thousand others, and perhaps be only a single meal myself at first, but in time, that which comprises me shall nourish billions in turn.”

  “I'll ask a counter-question. The custom of some Humans to burn their dead to ash and soot has never made sense to many of us Ber'Duun. How is that ethical, to deny the perpetual, insatiable hunger of life its final balancing of the scales?”

  Nat decided ethics was complicated. Still conflicted, he nevertheless chewed on some scrav. It was, admittedly, delicious.