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Little one... it’s all she could think to call them other than just giving them the title ‘baby.’ Lindi had been struggling to name a featureless being. She hoped one day, and soon, they would show her what would be a befitting name for them.

With the water rushing around her knees, Lindi waited for a sign of slippery life. With the river abundant with food, it wasn’t long before the first spotty, olive-green fish came near her. Lindi threw her net, tripped, and almost fell in with a squeal.

It swam away, as did the next one she attempted to catch, and the one after that.

A few tresses of her brunette hair fell in front of her eyes, and she blew them away. “Da made this look easy.”

He didn’t even use a net.

He could do this with just his hands, showing off his skills like that was gentlemanly to do when his audience was just a little girl.

Yet, it’d always made Lindi giggle as she sat on the nearby rocks.

Thinking of him, and his boisterous laugh after each catch, made her heart pang in her chest, but she squashed those feelings.

With the net firmly in both hands, she twisted her body this way and that while keeping the bottom half of her still, so she didn’t frighten the fish off. Then, another trout came right towards her feet, and she threw the net.

It was smaller than she’d been hoping, but she dragged the net around it and brought it out of the river. Water sprinkled over her as it flicked its tail in protest, but she managed to fight against its flinging, squirmy body to get it out without falling over.

Once it was on the grass and had stopped moving, she pulled the net away to properly inspect it.

“I think this is a rainbow trout?” she stated to no one, inspecting its spotty, blue-green markings. In the sun, its hard scales shimmered with a rainbow sheen, which is how it got its name.

Lindi shrugged and pulled out a filleting knife from the last occupant’s tools. Placing the rainbow trout on a flat rock, she cut away the head.

“I don’t want you to accidentally choke,” she told her child while, with inexperienced movements, she sliced it open so she could remove all its bones.

Their blobby form paced at the edge of the dome she’d placed over them, sniffing around, but mostly uninterested.

Once she was done, she sat back. “Should I... cook it?”

Lindi’s brow furrowed as she bit at her bottom lip, her eyes bowing in uncertainty.

She had no fucking idea what she was doing.

None of this felt normal, and she didn’t even know if she was doing the right thing or not.

All of this could have been pointless, and they may not even eat, but she wanted to try.

“If they don’t eat it, I’ll try cooking it. If that doesn’t work... then I don’t know,” she said as she cut away a slice of meat. “But humans can eat fish raw so...”

Lindi released the dome she had around them. They scampered towards her, their little feet lifting up higher than they really needed to, and she almost giggled at how cute she found it. They immediately started crawling up her leg to nestle against her chest.

She pulled them off to place them between her thighs, her dressing acting as a hammock for them.

She held the piece of meat out to them, and they appeared entirely indifferent.

Like she’d done with everything she’d tried to make them eat, she picked them up and curled her arm around their tiny torso to keep them steady.

She poked their odd, jagged mouth with the meat, and they turned their head away with an annoyed squawk.

“I guess not,” she muttered as she went to place them on the ground. “Maybe you only eat souls, like your father?”

It was odd to think of them as a soul eater.

Then they licked at their maw and froze.

They licked again, and Lindi accidentally fell to her back in surprise when they gave a screech and launched for the meat in her hand.

She had just enough time to let the fish fillet go before they could snap the zigzag line of their hard mouth around her fingertips.

They barely even chewed it as they tossed it around, nuzzling and snarling into it as they consumed it with tenacity and fury. She tried to wrangle them with her hands when they were done eating it and suddenly went for the rest of the fish.

“Wait! You can’t have all of it!”

They didn’t seem to care. They bit into it and ate a chunk, even with its skin still on.

When she tried to pull them off so she could prepare another piece of fillet for them, they gave a cute snarl and snapped at the air towards her.

Standing on top of it, their bendy little claws curled backwards to grip it as they warned her away.

They tried to eat it, but only paused to snarl when she approached on her knees.

With a defeated sigh, Lindi let them be and placed her hands on her lap. She tilted her head as she watched them.

“I’m glad I already removed all the bones then.” A relieved smile curved across her face when they seemed content with their meal. “Okay, so you eat fish.”

Scales, fins, and all.