[Another attempt at a laugh that can't quite reach, reflexive and just so damned stupid considering the state of more than just their little rented hovel. The pricking tension at the back of his neck; the scents that he can't overlook— not this close. Not when even nosing at the only creature dear to him invites the thought of what could have been were he not a little bit faster (what good are all these senses if he cannot even use them when it counts—) or Leto a little bit slower.

He'd be a monster to lean into such a thing at a time like this.]

Yousen was the first I saw you fell [oh but he could smell the others. More familiar than his own reflection— in the literal sense, of course— he'd shared quarters with them, kennels and all, tended to their wounds and fears and intolerable hopes.] the gnome, white-haired.

Always Cazador's fetish, that. [Is a joke solely because it isn't a joke at all, in truth.]

Dalyria was the one that bit you first. [You were magnificent; I should have been faster.] Violet the other you dispatched shortly thereafter.  Two out of three sisters— meaning one of the initial spawn you eliminated was Aurelia, the ever-ambitious tiefling.

[I should have been faster.]

Leon, capable and made dangerous for it as always, was the one that nearly killed you were it not for your deft maneuvering. [I should have been faster. I should have been faster. I should have been— ]

Leaving Petras last, as is right and proper.

[A long, drawn out beat winnows through his fangs in memory of biting down over contempt beyond contempt.]

....the only thing that was strange is that they didn't die.