It ended up taking about half an hour of intense work for both of us to render down the corpse, and I was once again glad and grateful to Hagrid for teaching me the proper way to dismantle a carcass, and getting me past my previous squeamishness about blood and gore. As it turns out, being squeamish is not all that conducive when you are foraging for potions ingredients. God, I've never puked so much in my life, before or after. Not fun. But, I can now pry open the brainpan of something and scoop out its brain. So... silver lining? Let's go with that.
Once the nastiness was dealt with we got down to brass tacks and spent a good hour quibbling about who got what and how much. Takoda wanted the heart and wouldn't budge on it, so I used that to lay claim to the brain. Brains weren't normally used for much when it comes to magic, which was passing strange since it was the seat of consciousness. I'd have thought there would have been more research done into the magical properties of the brain then there was. Ravenclaw herself had done so after all, which had led her to eventually making the Diadem of Ravenclaw, which required the Brain of a Sphinx as part of the alchemical process that was part of creating it.
And I had a sneaking suspicion that the Beast was part Sphinx, mostly because few beasts exhibited both feline and avian traits. It might have been a Griffin instead, but I felt that the end product would have had more eagle-like features around the face. Then again, Sphinxes had human faces so what did I know. I did also wonder about its humanoid shape. There might be some Giant or Troll in there somewhere. But that didn't explain where the horns came from. Fascinating stuff, creepy as hell too, but fascinating.
I laid claim to one of the Beast feet claws and its undamaged horn, had to fight Takoda for that as he wanted the skull mostly intact to take back to his Tribe, both as a trophy and as proof of his deed, I had to forfeit any claim to its hide to get it, which I was mostly fine with. It would have been interesting to test its magic resistance, and maybe make something of it, but I could get magic resistant hide from other places if I wanted it. I got one of its livers as well, because it had two, because why not. The rest was mostly not that interesting; there was not much use for lungs, stomachs or intestines. Takoda did remove the gallbladder and the kidneys and stored them away.
I stood back up with a sigh and stretched my hands up over my head as I worked out the kinks I'd accrued from crouching down for so long. I have to remember to conjure a table the next time. Working crouched over was killing my back.
"Well, that's that," I said and floated off the ground. "I'll be seeing you around," I said. Not that I was planning to go far, I still wanted to know how he did his unique little animal transformation. So I figured that I'd ghost him for a while and see if I could pick up some hints.
Takoda stood up as well and resumed his Superman pose again. I resisted rolling my eyes. "Ah, so you will not join for the rest of the hunt then?"
I stopped and turn to him again in confusion. "The rest of the hunt? There is more of this thing?"
The giant Indian shook his head in negative. "I do not belive so. However, that is not certain and I wish to make sure. I have tracked this beast for many months, all across this vast land and it would always return either here or to an area in the middle of West Virginia. As I have not found anything of note here I believe that its lair might be located somewhere in that place. You are welcome to accompany me there, should you wish. Your great magics would surely be of great use should more of its ilk be found there!"
I directed a look of incredulity at the crazy meathead. "Don't you think this would be a good time to call in some reinforcements? That thing almost killed us and you want to go look-see if there are more of it?"
"YES! It will be a grand adventure, a tale worthy of Takoda!" He yelled energetically.
I gaped at him for a moment before an unexpected feeling bubbled up inside me, amusement. I chuckled. Then I laughed as I found myself wanting to take him up on the offer. I'd officially taken leave of any claim to sanity I might still have claimed to have. This was how far I'd fallen. Back home I would never even have considered following this maniac into a situation that could very well kill me. Hell, I might have peed myself at the very thought. Instead, I was feeling excited! Exited!
And I was just laughing, and Takoda laughed with me.
"You know what? Sure! Why not? In an insane world is sanity not just being insane? Lead the way!"
Takoda didn't respond in words, he just gave a hearty laugh before retaking his Falcon form and taking to the air, with me following after.
---
It took us a little over three hours to reach our destination, or close to it at least. It was off the side of a mountain, and I think I could see some kind of quarry in the distance. Once Takoda located the right area we dropped down to the forest floor where the meathead took the form of a wolf before starting to sniff around, with me floating after him as he went. Luckily for me, it didn't take more than ten minutes for him to find a trail and he was off through the wood like a furry missile, leading me through the woods and down the mountain until we exited the woods and into meadowlands, which allowed Takoda to pick up the pace some.
It wasn't long after that that we arrived at our destination. A hole in the ground. Takoda retook his human form for a moment as I landed beside him. "The Beast's scent leads down there."
I sighed. It was a cave... "Wonderful..." I drawled sarcastically. "This will end well."
"I applaud your positive attitude, my friend." Takoda complimented followed by a hearty slap on the back that left me numb.
It was like talking to a louder, more positive, and more muscular version of Sheldon Cooper. Or maybe Drax. I tried to picture him as Green and covered in red... whatever that red stuff was that cowered Drax's upper body. I sighed again. "I guess we are going spelunking, you ready?"
"ALWAYS!" The large Indian roared fiercely before taking his falcon form again and diving into the dark.
I looked down into the darkness of the cave for a moment more before lifting off and following the meatheads lead into the unknown. "Yeah, this will turn out just fine."