Dantevius had been tracking his target for a few days already, but he kept running into issues.

In this case, a mammoth in musth had broken down the walls of a banana plantation.

“You look like a shitkicker. We’ll pay you-”

“I do not wish for payment, but if you would grant me some of your bananas for my journey, I would appreciate them.”

“Oh yes, we’ll give you exactly what you’re worth if you fix up what you can and kill that mammoth.”

The Minos had a mischievous grin, not believing the Goliath was worth much and intending for him to die to the mammoth after helping them to fix up the plantation.

They’d just need to wait for the imperial forces after that, and they might even get a bounty for a goliath body.

“I shall do what is right.”

He went over to the wall, it was simple logs that were cut down and braced with more logs on the inside.

It stood only 12 feet tall.

Dantevius was large for his kind, but he always made himself seem smaller, hunching his back and taking a meeker stance.

The sixth sense a person had could cause minor hallucinations, targets and threats might seem to grow larger in one's view, and for him, the opposite was true.

The way one presented themselves made a world of difference, and a look of horror came over the farmers as he straightened himself out, the popping of his back and neck sounded like gunshots, and stood 20 feet tall.

He stepped over the broken defensive wall and pulled trees from the ground, roots and all.

Dantevius ran his hand down the length of the tree and shucked it like an ear of corn before he pushed it into the ground with the ease that one would push a tack into a wall.

With that done, he now had to find the mammoth, which wasn’t hard.

It trumpeted and rammed itself into a rock wall just to try to deal with its aggression to no avail.

“Shh shh shh…”

It rushed him immediately, and he grabbed its tusks, cutting grooves into the ground.

The gap in power was immense, and the beast never stood a chance.

When it was tired out, he let go.

“You must be so lonely.”

He pet the mammoth, and it wrapped its trunk around him.

“Where are your herders?”

It trumpeted sad tones at him.

“I’m so very sorry to hear that.”

It replied again.

“They always did clash with society, they refuse setting of roots, they understand the horrors that growth brings. You have no mates now, and I’m sorry, but I have seen no more of your kind along my way.”

The mammoth pushed its forehead to his and let out one more sound.

“I am sorry.”

Dantevius began to run his 14 fingers through the fur of the animal.

When he found the right spots to grip, he twisted, instantly snapping the mammoth's neck.

He cried profusely.

When he stopped he prayed, not to any god or man, it just felt right to do this.

He returned the body to the farm, slinging the beast over his shoulders.

It was terrible what had happened, but there was no sense in letting the meat go to waste.

“Must’ve been some fight. We could hear the wailing from all the way over here.”

“It did not suffer in death as it did in life.”

“Uhh… alright then. We’ll get those bananas for you. You want any of the mammoth?”

“No, the bananas are enough.”

Dantevius went on his way, pulling bananas from the bunch and eating them with the peels still on.

The farmers had seen the woman, and they were not happy.

She had accepted the job of hunting the mammoth, but fled, her running led it right back to the plantation and her failed attack only made it more upset, going from knocking against the wall to crashing through it.

She left the scabbard for her saber behind, he delicately ran his fingers over the crest that had been engraved onto it.

This was not just a weapon for someone with rank, he could feel that there was a great deal of care and feeling put into it.

----------------------------------------

The Ranger had been running from the beast for over an hour, but it was just too fast, he got clipped more than once.

“Hey, you, come here.”

He opened his bag for his companion.

“I’m not going to make it, so eat this, and you can have my body if you want.”

The hound whimpered and cried, picking up a piece of dried meat with its mouth and trying to feed his master.

“Cu, I’m sorry, but this is the end for me. When Harlan finds me, be nice, I know you don’t like him much. ”

The hound kept trying to push the food in his mouth.

“Cu, stop that. I’m spent, healing would just kill me and waste the food.”

He seemed to accept that it was happening, and crawled under his master’s hand.

Redmond scratched the hound as he laid there, until the motion stopped, and he howled in sorrow.

He closed his eyes for the last time, and when he opened them, a woman was standing over him with an outstretched hand.

He could tell who she was, Harlan mentioned those giant horns and gleaming white armor before.

“So I’m dead, aren’t I?”

“You won’t strike me, will you?”

“So you can talk.”

“Very few have the sense to overwhelm my calming effect, fewer still would attack me. So I decided to take some special interest in those related to him.”

He couldn’t help but laugh.

“Shit. Harlan is just a special kind of man.”

“Most cry rather than laugh.”

“This is the part where you take me away, you eat my memories to sustain yourself.”

“That is already happening. But, if it brings you any peace, I could stay here for a little longer.

No hero should have to die alone.”

“I’m not a hero.”

“You nearly died many times, all for the sake of others. You did this not out of a desire for the fight, nor did you do it for fame or glory. Your nephew, he does this often out of guilt, but your reasons are plain selflessness.

You led a less than ideal life, and you became not embittered, you wished to save others from pain.”

She took his hand and placed it in her’s.

“I’m sorry my nephew punched you.”

“There are no harsh feelings, in that moment, in a thousand years, in a thousand eons, I will have his soul some day, it matters little when it happens.”

“If he heard that, I’m sure he’d live to the end of time just to spite you.”

She laughed at his joke and began showing him more and more of his happy memories until the light of life left him, and his eyes grew dull.

----------------------------------------

I feel it, something is there.

STOP, STOP THAT, LEAVE MASTER’S SOUL THERE, HE NEEDS THAT.

The horn lady wouldn’t look at me.

Master’s hand was warm, now it isn’t.

I want Master to be warm again.

I’m hungry… Master’s bag is empty now.

I want goblins to eat.

It is so cold here.

Master said to eat him.

I won’t.

Master was nice, I won’t eat nice things.

I won’t eat chickens either.

He got angry when I ate those chickens.

He’s here.

I don’t like him.

Master calls him family, but they aren’t the same.

He smells wrong.

I bark and bark, master said to bring him here.

Look, look, I didn’t eat him.

Please take me home.

Master’s mate is so sad.

This content has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

I wish she would be happy.

I’m sad.

I wish Master was here.

Master’s pup keeps pulling on my ears.

I don’t like this.

Master wouldn’t want me to bark at her.

I’ll let her play with my ears.

Master’s mate makes me sleep at the end of her bed.

Her feet are warm.

She gets angry when I lick them and wake her.

Something changed in me.

My mind is better, faster, clearer.

Is this what we saw so many other creatures do?

Am I becoming something more?

Master, I wish you were here.

She is growing so fast, you should’ve stayed.

----------------------------------------

His pace quickened as he ran with his sword in hand.

That hunched over thing, it had a beak and was covered in a shell.

It just came out of nowhere, one second they were drinking around the fire, the next he heard the screams.

He barely got away from it, he wasn’t the fastest, but he wasn’t the slowest either.

He hid under a fallen tree by using earth magic.

He hoped that if it could smell him, that the scent of rot would cover him.

The seal wasn’t perfect, the slightest bit of moonlight bled through, and he had just a sliver of sight outside.

The full moon lit the woods through the canopy of trees.

He saw it take heavy footsteps, staggering as it walked.

Did his companions harm the monster?

It collapsed on top of the tree he was hiding under and he heard the creaking.

‘Just how heavy is this thing?’ He thought.

When it didn’t move, he got more and more worried about it finding him, but he could hear it snoring.

He made a judgment call to stay hidden, he couldn’t risk it waking up while he was making his escape.

When the sun rose and he awoke, he saw that the monster was gone, but he still waited in that hole with his own filth for half a day before he got up.

The sight of his camp was nothing short of a nightmare.

Men had been torn limb from limb, blood covered nearly every inch of the place, but the worst was the boss.

He had been bound by roots, but he was still alive, his heart was crystalized.

“K-k-k-kill me.”

He couldn’t even begin to think of how he could save his boss.

“He-he made me watch… He toyed with us… He took the girls… the supplies…”

He pulled his sword out and took his head off.

But the heart refused to stop beating.

The sound was maddening.

No matter how far he got away.

He could still hear it.

----------------------------------------

The bandits came in three days ago, they stole away the village, the lives of her parents.

They left only those who didn’t resist alive, and the women of course.

She was too young for any of their taste, so she was forced not to suffer that indignity, but she still had to work, cooking and cleaning for her captors.

She was just outside of her former home, where the leader sent himself up.

Her father had been the village chief, and though he did not resist, they killed him anyway, just to assert dominance, to make an example.

“It might be time to just move along now. The army will probably notice that things are quiet.”

“I’ll tell the men to get rid of the witnesses, clean up.”

Her father told them not to fight back, to let the men stay and pillage them until they were satisfied, that they would leave.

She was not her father, she refused to let herself be a victim, she refused to let someone take things from her.

Even now, she refused to believe that it was too late to get out alive.

What hope did a child have to fight off a dozen bandits?

She pretended to have not heard anything, backing around the corner and waiting for the second in command to leave before she brought the leader his roast.

“I have your food.”

“Call me master.”

“Yes… master. Do you need anything else? Should I cut your meat for you?”

The man laughed, he didn’t need it done, but he found joy in believing she was subservient.

“Ya know what? Sure, come cut my meat, and you can sit on my lap while you do.”

The moment she had her hands on the knife, she plunged it into his throat.

She reveled in the shock he showed.

But, she was a child, and at the awkward angle and her weak body, it wasn’t exactly a clean kill.

He punched her in the face, knocking her teeth loose and filling her mouth with blood.

Even if it wasn’t clean, he had still been stabbed in the throat.

He staggered against the table and swiped everything to the floor with a loud clatter.

When he got to her he climbed on top and put his hands around her neck, squeezing as tightly as he could.

But he leaned too low, and she grabbed the knife handle as her eyes bulged and her neck was turning a shade of deep purple.

She pulled it to the side as hard as she could, severing his trachea and most of the major veins in his throat.

Her vision went to black for a moment and hot blood splattered over her face.

Then the man went limp.

She crawled out from under him coughing and choking as she tried to get air back in her lungs.

When she could stand, she grabbed the knife and stabbed at his body over and over again, but she couldn’t scream out like she wanted, the pain was too much.

She pulled a particular dagger from the man’s belt, it wasn’t his to keep.

The sound of rain on the dirt, and then boots on the mud followed.

Her father wanted her to be a doctor, and had bought books for this purpose.

She had some small understanding of the body, where to cause the most damage even if she was only a weak girl.

When the other bandit came inside she was hiding under a table by the door, and had extinguished the candles.

She severed the man’s achilles tendons and then made deep gashes in his thigh and calf.

The knife she used belonged to her father, and he always kept it sharp, it was after all the knife he used to cut the throats of pigs after stunning them.

He couldn’t stand, but he could call for help.

She fled as fast as she could, she knew that he would pass out any second, and he’d be dead not long after.

She hid in a hollowed out tree, she could hear them shouting, blaming.

They circled around in the woods for a few hours, but they said with the cold she wouldn’t make it through the night.

She wasn’t a hero, she wasn’t going to come back for the other villagers, she wasn’t going to check if they were still alive.

She just hid there in the cold rain.

The two kills she got were luck, she didn’t honestly believe that she was going to be able to kill any more, they were too cautious now.

The next day, she was certain that pneumonia was developing in her lungs, and she couldn’t feel her fingers or her toes.

But still she was overjoyed when she saw an army team move into the village.

One of the bandits even headed her way without a sword in his hand, or rather, without a swordhand.

She jumped from her hiding place and shoved the man over before she plunged her blade into his face time and time again.

A hand grabbed her from behind and she kicked and fought to get out of his grip.

“CALM DOWN, YOU’RE SAFE NOW, YOU’RE SAFE.”

She didn’t believe it, she couldn’t believe it, not until the others came out in front of her and she recognized the uniforms.

“Damn, she made a mess of this guy.”

She spit on the body.

“We found two more men cut up in there, was that you?”

She couldn’t speak, the strangulation the night before had damaged her throat.

“Captain, she’s hurt pretty bad, look at her.”

“Little lady, now, I’m going to let you go, but not before you drop the knife.”

She only tightened her grip on it.

“Is the knife something special?”

She nodded her head.

“You can have it back when you are healed, but we can’t risk you hurting us. Will you give me the knife?”

She breathed angrily, but loosened her grip and one of the privates grabbed it from her.

“We’re going to take you back to our camp, and we are going to heal you.”

She gestured towards the village, asking why they wouldn’t bring her there to be healed instead.

The men diverted their eyes.

“We will bring all of the survivors to the camp, don’t worry about them.”

She knew it already, but there was nobody else left.

25 years passed, and she was walking through the streets of the capital.

Having a day off wasn’t exactly something she understood what to do with.

From the moment she had been saved it had been nothing but improving herself physically and magically.

She was stronger than just about any man she had ever met, and taller than most as well.

People feared her power, and that made her feel good, it made her feel safe.

She had noticed a woman following her, and so she went down an alleyway.

The instant the woman was far enough in, a gravity array activated and brought the woman to her knees.

“Why are you following me?”

She noticed some familiarity in the woman’s face.

“Safira, you got so big.”

She turned the array off.

Whatever this woman knew of her was long dead.

She wasn’t some 10 year old girl anymore, she was a battle hardened royal guard.

But, something inside of her said that she should give the woman at least a conversation.

She didn’t say much as she brought her to a very expensive restaurant in the city.

“Table for two.”

“I’m sorry, but we have a dress code and are reservation onl-”

She pulled her royal guardsmen, or rather, royal guardswomen, badge, and slammed it on the desk.

The man saw her steely gaze and nearly relieved himself then and there.

“Dreadfully sorry about the confusion, I'll find you a table right away.”

It was an awkward air as the two women waited for his return.

“We could’ve just gone somewhere else.”

“No.”

She waited for more, but Safira wasn’t exactly talkative.

The woman’s eyes bulged at the prices on the menu.

“I can’t afford to-”

“I’ll pay for the meal, get whatever you want. Bring me the Iron Bass filet in cream sauce and a plate of Golden Calf ribs. Mistin, what do you want?”

“Ah, well, I’ll just have the same then.”

“Bring us a 40 year red and a 30 year white, something from the west for the red and a southern white.”

“Of course.”

The waiter very quickly, but not so quickly that he was actually running, moved away from the table.

“How did you get away?”

“The first night, I ran away. When I reached the next village over they called in the army, and when I heard my parents were dead, a family took me in. How did you…”

“I was hiding in a tree after I cut the leader’s throat.

I was taken to an orphanage, then I moved to the army, and eventually I became a royal guard.”

“I feel like you left a lot out there.”

“No, I did not.”

Mistin proceeded to tell many stories of her life.

To some, there might be some feeling of loneliness, that they had missed out on living a life because they spent so much of their time training and working.

But not Safira.

“I’m sorry, I should’ve asked. What about you? Did you find a man?”

“No.”

“Well, that just isn’t right. It must be lonely.”

“I do fine.”

“People should have people. Is it because of what happened?”

“You remind me of a certain bothersome man.”

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to-”

“No, it is fine.”

“Who is this bothersome man?”

“Harlan Fomoria.”

“Isn’t he married with a child on the way?”

“Do not misunderstand.”

“Oh. I thought I saw a slight grin when you said his name.”

“He has grown on me, like a malignant tumor.”

“You should find a man, or a woman, I won’t judge.”

“I live for my duty.”

“But isn’t that sad?”

“No.”

The food came and Safira ate with grace befitting her position.

Her friend wasn’t exactly a slob, but she felt like a goblin next to a princess.

When Safira was done, she returned to her room in the palace, where she pulled a well used dagger from its sheath and reminisced about her father.

But when she was done, she put it back and out of her mind.

She was a soldier, for decades that has been the life she knew, and she enjoyed it.

A husband, children, these things would just take time from her work.