There is a particular melody to the hollow crunch-cracking of a crab shell when it shatters under pressure, and today her house is filled with it. The soft strain of the carapace as it shudders underneath her fingers, leading into the harsh snap right as it gives way, ending with a rough but gentle crumbling as the hard bits of shell meet empty air. 

The house has been filled with this little symphony for the better part of an hour, only broken up by the scratch scratch scribbling of a quill pen on paper. Mosaic has been very busy today. Crush a crab, separate the meat, sort the lot, write it down. That's how it is when you hunt enough for the entire town at once. It's tedious work but especially in this heat she can't really say she minds it. It's nice to have a break sometimes. 

One black-tipped ear bends at the sound of a low moan coming from the next room over. She sighs. It's been a bad week for Vesper, hence all this bothering about accounting. Most of the time her sister would handle all of it, but as sick as she's gotten that's asking too much of her. So until she finally got enough sleep in her to recover that divinely gifted mind of hers, Mosaic had to pick up the slack.

Crunch, crack, scribble. The process all made sense if you stopped and thought about it. You couldn't eat meat unless you hunted it. How would you, even? What were you gonna do, live off the fresh cloud of viruses that might pop out of food you unjustly slaughtered as it converted itself into unique, fresh biomass? No thank you. It was only by Lady Artemis' blessing that killing a crab got you crab meat and useful shell for barter. And the Goddess was very clear that if you were going to kill something then you had best at [i]minimum[/i] take enough pride in it to have a thorough enough accounting to name everything you'd hunted. 

"Wait, that can't be right. Can it? I'm one short? Shit, I think I'm one short."

Mosaic's mismatched eyes flicked over her carefully (mind numbingly) sorted piles and baskets. Her golden eye watched her list while her deep purple one bounced madly between all the bits of shell and pushed the number inside of her skull with enough pressure to give her a sympathy headache to go with Vesper's. Not that she needed the God's Eye to tell what the itching on her skin already did: she was missing a kill. Precisely one less than she'd promised at the start of the morning. 

Everywhere she looked there was nothing but pathways back outside. And one leading deeper in. She rubbed at her eyesocket with the back of her knuckle and wrote a few more things down on a second sheet of paper. Then she picked up a plate of meticulously arranged and pre-plucked crab legs and carried them inside.

"Don't try to move," she said, "Don't say anything. It's fine. This is just dinner for whenever you can pick yourself up enough to eat it. And I wrote down the size and weight of everything there so you can figure out the volume in case you need that today."

She set the plate down and took a step back toward the door. 

"I'll be gone for a while ok? They're behind on quota for the new building project in town, so I'm headed up to the mountain to drag some stone down myself. I've got an errand that needs taking care of anyway, so it's just no big deal. I'll be back tomorrow probably, so don't go looking for me. Just rest."

"...Hey."

"What is it?"

"You hunting wolf again? Don't forget your invocations or she'll turn you inside out while you're eating her~"

Mosaic stared into the lopsided grin of her half-sister in total silence. Shocking violet eyes meet Gold-and-Royal-Purple without blinking. As one being, they snort until they're choking on laughter.

"Don't know why I was even worried about you. Be well, Vesper."

"Be safe, Mosaic."

A nod, a click, a closed door. Mosaic peeled off her all black suit jacket and hung it neatly on a rack just outside the door. A shame to take it off after so little time in it but in the heat of the day she'd just grow to hate it anyway. The tank top she had on underneath it suited the work in front of her better anyway. 

And besides, was it so wrong to be looking forward to the compliments on her muscles she'd get for exposing them like this? They've been coming in nice, of late. Hardly any signs of the lopsided development she'd washed ashore with almost five years ago. With a shrug and a final look back, she left her little cabin and set off toward the mountain trail that gave Bitemark its name.

The itch of a job undone still crawled its way across her skin. But in the light of the sun, she smiles. Even whistles an old nonsense tune as she walks, chan-barra-chan go the words she does not speak. Missing crab or no, this was still another day in paradise.