Remnant... Memories...
If that was true, then there was no doubt about it. The feline before him really had been a slave before, a Rathor too. That scrawny scraggly thing he'd originally seen was an article of the past; a window into the being's story.
If that was true.
Arkash nodded his head in acceptance of the answer; he'd not even heard of Remnant before. Most mages he encountered were Sigilic Pyromancers, so it was nice to see something new for a change. "Nasty stuff..." he wondered aloud while he brushed the back of his claws beneath the chin of his muzzle, then exhaled deeply with his eye lidded.
It was odd to be so calmed by the presence of another, but he found his strengthened sense of smell all but danced behind his eyes while he breathed the scent of the Corvo. Arkash was none the wiser to its effects, but the sweet smell on the air had soon lulled him into a sense of security. His perceived honesty, the shared species, and lacking threat all helped too, he supposed. He drew another deep breath through his nose, and pulled the majority of the tar-like armor back into his body through a series of small incisions in his scales, then let the outer layers, contaminated as they were, fall to the floor; hollow husks of the protection they'd once offered. As his veins and arteries refilled, Arkash exhaled a relaxed sigh and loosened the tension in his shoulders.
His left eye opened then, both eyelids peeling back to unveil the same misty yellow that filled the mirrored eyesocket. "It's a bile construct," he explained. "Sorta costly to make, but if you've already painted the battlefield red, you can just Leech the power you need from your enemies and use that to build it." He motioned a thumb in the direction of the golem, that had been carrying an armful of body pieces before it let them open and fall to the ground. Its featureless face then turned, and it lifted a fingerless hand to wave side to side. "That guy cost me no ether to make, does whatever I want him to, and can be altered with other abilities in my arsenal... Like he can be hardened, sharpened, made acidic... Etcetera, etcetera..." Arkash spoke in a list, turning his wrist over in the motion of a wheel for emphasis. He furrowed his brow, then. Had he just talked about reaping the rewards of mass murder with a stranger? With a shrug, he dismissed the thought. "He'll be there forever, I think, does his own thing if I don't have a task for him... But if someone else sees him I'm in big trouble, so..."
And then came the talk of the Halamire, and how Vesper didn't share any loyalty to them. Arkash found himself smiling a bit at that. he was a badlander, a people who Arkash had come to realize had no shortage of ire for the Entente and authority. "More alike than you might think," Arkash added, unknowing of just what he was meddling with, or the sort of depth the character before him withheld.
Arkash curled a lip in a cringe at the question of the flesh. Did it really matter what he shared with this Vesper? He supposed not, but he'd projected enough of himself onto the cat that it felt like he wouldn't react too sourly to the news.
"Food," he replied, "I'm a dranoch."
With a deep exhale, he turned to the construct, then returned his gaze to Vesper. "I feel I'm close to evolution; I'll be a Cardinal soon and their meat will help. If that doesn't bother you, you're free to join me..." He offered with an attempt to conceal his budding affection for the other Rath and steadily turned his back to the Mind Mage with some degree of hesitance. As he began his approach to the fire, with logs set up around the pit, Arkash smiled away from the feline's line of sight. It had been months since he was with another one of his kind, he subconsciously reasoned his subtle creep of fondness for the cat.
Beside the fire, they gathered with all the broken body parts of the men Vesper had met in the night. None the wiser, Arksh began to feed and exchanged comfortable conversation with the older Rath, as well as the promise of more.