As Saint spoke, Kinu's attention seemed to be more focused on poking at a chicken's lower abdomen with the tip of her knife.
"Artifacts, huh," she said, "So you were lookin' for stuff to bring back were ya?"
Then she sawed through it, eviscerating the fowl, then tore out its spilled guts and collected its entrails - unlaid eggs and all - into a bowl. Flicking her hands into the sink, she moved on to the next.
"How far beyond the wards was it, then, if you were still confident you could return to...'civilization?'"
"You should see when they want something. Like,
starving. That's when they'll
really go for it," she said, plucking through choice bits of offal, "Suppose that's how you can tell they're still human? I could almost respect it. Almost."
Shoulder of the wings, rotation of the thighs. The toothy blade cracked through skin and ligaments, and with a single motion Kinu pulled the bare bones out of the flesh.
"I once pursued an old mastadon for two days, that's about a week's worth of meat in the Northlands, yeah? Big bodies, enormous appetites, so they get tired real easy if you don't let 'em sit still."
Bones picked clean from the meat, she tossed the bare skeletons into a pot to boil, and the five floppy fowl freshly deboned and disemboweled in a large casserole. She then set another saucepan on the stove.
"When I finally brought the beast down, just as the sun set, that's when the Wildlings showed up. They eat like us, walk like us, sometimes they even talk like they still know words, but they ain't got much more in mind than what's behind or ahead of 'em. And this time, they had torches, rocks, sharp sticks, and home turf. And there I was, standin' in front of 'em with fresh meat...."
Fishing the chicken blood out where she'd laid it, it had congealed while they spoke, and when Kinu overturned it, the fluid peeled from the bottom of the vessel like a morbid jelly before she fell it into the bubbling water.
"...so I bust their spines, and that was that, fuh fuh fuh..."
Dabbing her hands on a dishrag, Kinu then began uncapping random spice jars, and cautiously sniffing at them.
Nope. Nope. Too orange. Too green.
"The point being, Mulvy? You'd be better off showin' them who's boss, before they try and take everything from you. In my experience, that's the only language they understand."