"Finish the work. Pack the kills. Walk out at our normal pace. If they want to approach, they'll approach. We do not acknowledge them unless they show themselves. We do not change our behavior because they're watching."
"Decline is a complete sentence."
"And right now, don't notice them is a complete sentence too."
They went back to butchering.
Bruce kept the presence at the edge of his awareness as he worked. The soul did not move. It did not advance. It did not retreat. It simply stayed where it was, watching the three of them work the alpha down to its component parts, packing the meat and the cores and the spine-plates into their rings.
It watched them with the patience of a person doing exactly the work they had intended to do.
When the three of them finished and stood up and shouldered their light packs, the presence stayed where it was.
