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The mountain is cold. The mountain has always been cold. Even in summer, the chill breeze sweeping the needles can freeze a thin pool. Few things grow on the mountain, and fewer things that live and breathe.
Plants are cold, and thin. The energy they give is a thin and wispy kind, like gravel in the face of rock. Too little to grow on, and if one stops growing, one soon dies.
Meat is warm. Meat is rich. Meat is full of life, and eating meat means one can grow. Once one knows the taste of meat, turning back to plants alone seems like a waste of time. All things down to the smallest of beasts know this - for why else do they scurry from things with teeth?
Hunger is a powerful thing. A need that weakens and strengthens at once, depending on the situation. It pulls at the frail tapestry of society that people weave - even just a touch of hunger is enough to allow grave breaches of behavior at the snootiest of gatherings. A little more hunger, and no one can truly be blamed for breaking the laws of community. And when truly starving, there is only instinct.
At the basest level, hunger drives all things. The need to survive, to feed.
There is no line that hunger will not cross.
He was a monster. He has no qualms with that title, though he feels it inaccurate. “Monsters” are stories that people who have never been hungry make up to feel better about their rules. Creatures they create to tell themselves that they are Better Than Them. To pretend they’re not like all other things.
In truth, he was something far simpler than a monster.
He was a beast. A sharp-toothed beast. A hungry beast, hunting food like any other.
The curse isn’t fair. He was only surviving, the same as anyone else. He was hungry. He hunted his food, and caught it. The food was right there in front of him, if it would have just stopped crying, if he could have heard the footsteps behind him, it’s not FAIR-
The world’s not a fair place. It doesn’t follow any pattern of logic, or morality, or reason. Things happen. You live with them, you change them, or you die. And he’s not quite ready to die yet, and he’s not quite able to change things yet.
So he lives with it. It could be worse; he can still move when he is unseen, and grows more and more aware as the days pass. Still remembers his recipes.
It is just a matter of time. He has heard the voices on the mountain, and feels the hunger stirring - not a physical hunger, as he has no stomach, but one of the soul. He is Hungry. He will feast again.
In even the barest of cuisines, a potato is never far from meat.