#your buddy got tagged out of the game = your comrade has fallen in the heat of battle!

[eternalsnowfan02]

This scene from Beans Day lives rent free in my head.

[ifridiot]

WoW Fic: Edible

Chapters: 1/1 Fandom: World of Warcraft Rating: Mature Warnings: Aftermath of Violence Relationships: Tal Runetotem (Tauren OC) + Bynx (Forsaken OC) Characters: Tal Runetotem, Bynx Additional Tags: Cannibalism, Vomit, Practical Decisions not Panning Out Summary: Tal hates waste, and he figures his undead buddy Bynx has a good idea when it comes to finding food after a battle. 

Bynx (actually named Daniel) belongs to @thats-so-ravenholm. This fic is like 7 years old, but I just found a flash drive with all my old WoW writing on it lmao.

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As was common among his people, Tal abhorred waste. When he killed game, he used everything he could, even saving bones on occasion to use for carving. All that could be eaten, was, or at least was packed up for later consumption. Skins were collected, generally to be sold, as he’d only ruin them making anything himself. Tendons and sinews make good cord, and while his braiding was often clumsy at first, he found himself utterly capable of making solid rope from twisted strands of animal sinew. Everything in an animal’s body was a gift from the Earthmother, and it was blasphemous to squander such things.

So, despite knowing that most people loathed it, he very quickly came to appreciate Bynx’s occasional consumption of their fallen foes. They were always humanoid, and Bynx only seemed to eat those who had wounded him worst, but other than that the act seemed spontaneous, not malicious or profane.

In a way, Tal understood where the disgust came from, to the average person seeing a Forsaken dine in such a way. Especially those with a more sympathetic build to those being dined upon. There was something about it, a certain graceless voracity; it was messy and crude, just as all desperate battlefield meals were. If you were, say, a blood elf, watching a forsaken devour the flesh of, say, a night elf – or even a human – wouldn’t it be easy to image one’s own corpse treated in such a way? Indeed, even orcs and trolls shared enough basic features with Bynx’s intermittent meals for Tal to understand why they might reel away at the sight.

What Tal saw was an unconscious acknowledgment of the Earthmother’s ever-present gift. Perhaps if ever he saw a Forsaken munching on a Tauren corpse, he too would feel his guts revolt in disgust, but somehow he doubted it. Mostly he was just curious as the regulations of this strange ritual – what drove Bynx to it at such seemingly random intervals, what were the precedents for how much he ate and when? What was the meaning behind the act?

They had been traveling together just long enough for Tal to feel comfortable talking casually with the smaller male, but not long enough for him to even consider voicing a song as they walked. It was hard to work up the nerve at an appropriate moment to ask. There was a distinct chance that, had his wits always completely been about him, he never would have.

But after some time, there finally came a day when, having barely fought their way out of a mob, Tal stood leaning against his axe and panting as he watched Bynx curl over a corpse and begin to claw hunks of meat into his mouth, hot and raw. The smell in the air was foul, between the stench of death and Bynx’s wounds, the enormous Tauren couldn’t even smell his own blood, racing out of him from several rather serious wounds as it was, and he was dizzy and tired enough not to really give much thought to his mouth.

“Ey, Bynx… why does that, huh?”

The Forsaken paused, hand against his mouth as he raised his eyes to regard the larger male. Swallowing thickly, he wiped at the blood on his face, smearing gore more than removing it, before hissing out, “Do what?”

Gesturing vaguely at his companion and the corpse that had suddenly become dinner, Tal offered a shrug. “Eat him. Didn’t eat last time we fought here.”

“Nor did we almost die.” Bynx grumbled, digging his claws into the corpse and scratching up another palm-full of meat. He brought it to his mouth, glanced back up at the Tauren, and seemed to sigh in exasperation upon noting that the other’s curious stare hadn’t wavered at all. “Flesh for flesh,” he grudgingly said, eyes boring into Tal as he spoke. “I eat the flesh of the dead and heal my own.”

Comprehension was a little slower in his wounded state, but after a moment of mulling the words over, Tal’s eyes glinted in understanding. It wasn’t a ritual at all, but it made sense – if he could eat a wheel of cheese or a joint of venison and regain stamina and health, then did it not serve that any meat would do? And what were their fallen enemies then, as he had already noted, but so much meat?

He took a few steps toward the other, the motion shambling and filled with a pronounced limp. He had run out of potions long ago and they’d yet to make it anywhere to restock. As for food, he’d have to kill if he wanted to eat… and yet, it struck him, wasn’t that exactly the problem Bynx was solving right now?

“Ahh, always got a smart thing, you,” he said, looking at the bodies in a new light. One man’s arm had been severed at the elbow, and with the armor gone, the lone limb looked like nothing so much as a scrawny knuckle of meat. Holding onto his axe for balance, worried he’d fall otherwise, he bent to pick up the arm. It surprised him to feel the sharp sting of something striking his outstretched hand; he glanced at his companion, saw the knife that had been slapped against the back of his hand and the serious expression on the other’s face, and furrowed his brow in confusion. “I say ’sa good idea, and I like to try a thing for myself.”

When he moved again to take the arm, the flat of the blade slapped him once more, too fast for the eye to follow. It stung, even through the leather of his gloves. “Not for you.”

Straightening up with a low chuckle, the Tauren shook his head. Forsaken had never seemed territorial, but every race had its proclivity when it came to sharing meals. Especially with newer comrades. Using the axe like a walking stick, thanking the Earthmother for letting him find a weapon with such a stout handle, he limped toward a different body. “There, no need ta make like its theft. I got my own, killed my share and keep to mine then.”

“Tal,” Bynx hissed, his voice a low, unhappy growl, “This is a bad idea. Your people do not eat what mine do.”

Grasping the edge of a life-ending gash in the chest of a dead human soldier, Tal smiled to himself and shook his head. He’d eaten many things that most Tauren – honestly, most people in general – would shudder at. As a warrior and a young bull out on his own, he’d been stuck out in the field with no game to be had but wolves, had eaten bugs when there was nothing else. He was no stranger to raw meat, and while it certainly wasn’t his first choice, there were worse things to eat. He twisted his wrist as sharply as he could, pulling the flesh from the body. In his weakened condition, it took three tries, three sharp jerks, to finally rip the meat free. The rough sound of tearing flesh was incredibly unappealing, as was the stink of human blood and death lingering thick this close to the ground. But here before him was a means to soothe his aching wounds and heal some of his hurts.

He brought the limp, tepid meat to his mouth, trying not to breathe the stink of it, and ignored Bynx’s warning not to be an idiot. At this point, it was almost a matter of stubborn pride; he’d said he would, and by the Earthmother he wasn’t a liar or a coward. Closing his eyes, he opened his mouth, shoved the chunk of meat in, and chewed. The flavor was coppery and gamey and pungent, blood having been allowed to cool in the body before being carved, but it wasn’t all around bad.

Still, it made his guts churn, the unfamiliar sensation of nausea crawling up his throat, but he swallowed it down with the meat and opened his eyes to look at Bynx. It was something of a surprise to find the Forsaken staring intently at him, looking almost anxious. “Not a good meat, but passable in a pinch.” He said, ignoring the way his stomach was still fighting the raw, strange food thrust upon it. “Sure not somethin’ to make habits about, but…” he grumbled, reaching down to rip another chunk of flesh up.

Whatever else he might have said was lost as he bent slightly forward, trying to get better leverage to pull the meat free. His stomach gave a final roil, the sudden pain of a cramp lacing through him, and he opened his mouth with a low moan. Saliva pooled in his mouth, throat working in anticipation as his stomach heaved; his grip on the axe faltered and the weapon clattered over the corpse as he fell to the side, arms wrapping instinctively around his guts. He managed to roll to the side, getting his less-injured arm under himself to push up on hands and knees, before he lost the contents of his stomach on the bloody ground.

Having rarely in life been sick, the experience was novel, in a grotesque way. The vomit was alarmingly red, and the sight and sensation of that foul meat spilling out of him only worsened the nausea; he gagged again, coughing when his stomach finally ran out of fuel to expel. He shuddered, the arm supporting his weight feeling weak and jelly-like, but the thought of ‘jelly’ made him think in a weird way of the soft, seemingly innocuous meat he’d just eaten, and he gagged again, spitting bile.

The careful touch of boney fingers on his bare shoulder surprised him, but he didn’t trust himself to look over his shoulder at his friend. He could tell by the astringent stench of the other’s wounds that it was Bynx; the smell of his vomit mixing with that particular odor causing him to gag again, and he gave a weak, unhappy sound as he tried to swallow back a fresh wave of nausea.

Letting that sharp hand guide him back, he pushed himself to a kneel, up away from the worst of the stink. “I told you it was a bad idea,” Bynx said softly, somehow not making the words sound like a jibe or gloat. Tal could only manage another low moan, nodding his shaggy head because, obviously and as usual, Bynx had been correct. “Get up, away from your mess. C’mon.”

Forsaken were surprisingly strong, but even in this state Tal refused to put any weight on his small companion, instead carefully getting to his feet on his own. As he stood, Bynx’s hand slid from his shoulder to his elbow, and finally off him entirely. He disappeared from the Tauren’s view for a moment, returning with Tal’s axe dragging behind him. Hefting it awkwardly, he thrust it into the other’s hand, before moving to point at a boulder a little ways away from the site of their battle.

“Go sit. I’ll be with you in a few minutes.”

Not willing to argue, probably honestly incapable of it, Tal leaned against his axe again and made his shaking way to where he’d been pointed. Behind him, he could hear Bynx return to his feast. Part of him expected to feel a sharp return of his fading nausea as the sound of tearing flesh, but even when he thought about what Bynx was doing, he only felt the lingering misery of his mistaken meal. For Bynx, such was natural behavior.

For a Tauren, obviously, it was not. Just as some plants were poisonous to man but not the birds of the area, so too, it seemed, were some meats poison only to some. Human was, obviously, on the list of things inedible to him.

It was kind of shame, he thought as he sat, curled miserably over his cramped, aching stomach. The meat was so easy to come by and so often went to waste.