“Oh, Great Ancestor Ho’Ney, your servant seeks an audience.”

“Speak!”

“The enemies of us Badg’er’s, have amassed on our doorsteps. I have sought peace with them, but they refused all my pleas and mocked everything that we Badg’er’s stand for.”

“You seek my blessing for the path forward?”

“Yes, Oh, Great Ancestor. The Council has decided that if their eyes can not see and their ears can not hear, they will find peace by touch instead.”

“Admirably said. Blessings you shall receive.”

“Thank You, Oh, Great Ancestor. It shall not be misused. That I promise with my Life.”

“See to it.”

Proverbs of History - Crossroads of Destiny - Book of the Badg’er’s Ascension

*

Mane Savannah

A Honey Badger opened his eyes to a new day.

Sluggishly leaving his burrow, he observed the still rising morning light.

For a moment, he wondered what he would do. But his stomach was ordering him to be fed first.

Following said order, Alexander sniffed around. He stalked this prey and ate it.

After a full stomach, he began his true purpose as a male.

Having already stayed in his current territory long enough, he knew the general vicinity of all the female Honey Badgers.

Some walking and running, he reached the said territory. Then he began his search for the female, and not long after, he found her.

She was beautiful in his eyes. Her black and white fur stood out and displayed her attractiveness.

However, it was her scent that attracted him the most.

From her scent, he figured out that she was without cubs.

Signifying that she was prime for making babies, but Alexander did not rush to mate with her.

He observed for a few moments before seeing an opportunity to approach closer.

On the way, he grunted a few times as if his interest lay someplace else.

His grunts alerted the female Honey Badger. She stared at the male as he approached her slowly,

As he approached, there was an instinct inside her that told her to be cautious around him.

Only after he closed a certain distance did her instinct advise her to provide a warning to the male.

“Grrr”

It was a growl, but it delivered its message.

The male stopped immediately. Both Honey Badgers stared at each other for a while before the male relaxed and laid down on the ground.

His head pointed in her general direction, but the female Honey Badger kept her attention on him as if he would jump at her right that instant.

Time passed when her vigilance began to lower, and her body language told Alexander that she was relaxing slightly.

Still, he did not move and just stayed still. He did not even grunt in any way.

Only after her vigil dropped significantly enough did she care to do anything else.

That something else was going back to searching for snacks.

She turned her head away from the male and left him behind.

What she did not expect was for Alexander to follow her.

When she noticed him, another growling session began, only to repeat itself.

She growled, relaxed, and left him behind, only for him to find her again and do nothing.

The objective repetition began to dull her instinct when concerning Alexander.

No longer was she listening to it when he appeared near her. She only growled a warning because she had long gotten used to him staying a certain distance between them.

What she did not notice, however, was that Alexander was closing the distance between them, little by little.

Days passed. Alexander began visiting her a few times a day in between his snacking.

Every day, he got closer and closer to her, until one day, the female realized that he was extremely close to her.

Her instinct had flared, but she did not listen to it. Too many times the instinct had come forth only for nothing to happen.

So she ignored him instead of declaring her attitude.

More days passed when Alexander was but a few steps behind her. But it was here that Alexander knew it was the most critical.

If he got too eager, he would scare her off, but he could not be passive either. So it was time to up his game so to speak.

In that weird place he appeared sometimes, he had learned and practiced his skills as best as possible. Combined with the advice from the sound, he already knew what to do next.

He could not just close in on her and jump on her.

No, he had already learned that lesson, so knowing what to do next, he grunted for the first time in a while to gain her attention.

The sudden grunt scared the female somewhat, as it was unexpected since Alexander stayed quiet when near her.

Her head turned to face him and observe him.

“Hnng.” Alexander grunted once more, but his body language told a different story.

He turned around and began to sniff for something. Seconds later, he was already on the trail of something.

He grunted once more, which contained the message for her to follow him, and he made his way on the trail.

Once he was outside her line of sight, the female relaxed, only for curiosity to awaken inside her. Part of her wanted to know where the male was going.

However, the instinct inside her kept giving her an answer that meant little at this point.

After moments of inner conflict, her body began to follow the trail the male left behind.

Traveling through bush after bush, she found him.

Alexander was in battle with a big snake.

It was one of those thick and long snakes that had no poison and were far too deadly for her. Her body was much smaller than the male, and even he was dwarfed lengthwise, but that did not stop Alexander.

With expert skill gained with honing his hunting skills on big snakes, he sidestepped its head and the teeth.

Every time he did, he changed his angle of attack by injuring the snake's body as much as possible with his bites.

Hunting the big snakes was a battle of endurance and skillful dodging.

Endurance because he had to tire the snake as much as possible before going for the kill.

And skillful dodging to dodge the bites thrown at him. There was no poison in them, but if the big snake attached itself to him, it would wrap its powerful body around him and squeeze him to death.

Once that had happened, he had learned his lesson. By not tiring the snake enough to find the correct timing to bite its head, the snake had dodged his bite to the head, and instead, he got wrapped up like a bundle.

It had taken everything he possessed to wriggle himself out of its grip and end the hunt.

The female Honey Badger watched as Alexander expertly dogged and used hit and run tactics to injure and tire the snake.

Finally, seeing his opening and biting on its head, specifically, speaking right below it.

Once it was in his mouth, Alexander used as much force he could produce with his bite to strangle the breath out of the snake.

This was the second most dangerous time when hunting the large snake.

The snake was larger than him, so even when he strangled its air supply, he always got wrapped by the snake, and it became a different battle of endurance.

A battle between his body surviving her powerful muscular squeeze or the snake running out of air.

The female Honey Badger, not moving a muscle, just watched as the big snake loosened its grip on Alexander.

He wiggled his body out of its grip and shook his body to release the muscle and skeletal stress his body had undergone.

After he was done, Alexander bit one end of the snake. He turned around to walk back on the path from which he came.

He did not get far before he noticed his possible mate watching him.

Releasing the snake from his mouth, he growled with specific intent, but when no reply came, he bit the snake again and pulled the dead body towards the female.

The female Honey Badger stood still and watched him pull the dead body closer and closer.

Once he was by her side, Alexander released the dead snake. Again he grunted a specific message to her.

Seeing her lack of reaction, he nudged the dead snake with his muzzle toward her.

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

Still seeing no reaction, he did it again and again, when finally there was a reaction from her.

She crawled towards it, constantly sniffing it and the male before her.

It took far more courage and dedication to ignore the instinct inside her, but in the end, she coalesced and began to chew on the snake.

Seeing it happen, Alexander knew he had succeeded. From this point on, it would be even easier, and indeed that happened.

The female no longer growled at his presence. No longer did she ignore him totally, and most importantly, no longer did she reject his physical touch.

However, it took a few more hunting events for him to move to the next event.

One day both of them found a burrow and settled inside.

With his larger size, he blocked the exit and had fun with her.

*

What happened inside the burrow was for only the two of them, but it had taken quite a long time for them to exit the burrow.

When they did exist, both looked and felt exhausted from the multiple sessions between them, but nothing could hide the proud body language exhibited by Alexander.

After all, he had finally achieved his Conquest, here where everything he felt was more important than in that place.

And now that he had done it once, he would do it again.

It was with that surety that Alexander, the Conqueror of Females, came into existence.

*

What came after the first Conquest was a second Conquest.

Then the third and fourth, followed by more.

However, a point had to come where Alexander had mated every female in his territory.

When that occurred Alexander knew it was time to move to new pastures. Especially since fewer big snakes meant he could not display his prowess.

With that decision, he began to go after other males too.

In combat with the males, he proved who the stronger was and who deserved the territory more.

In love-making, he proved his prowess on whose blood was more superior to be passed down.

However, what Alexander, the Conqueror of Land and Females, did not know was that every territory he conquered and left behind had changed slightly.

The creatures on that land were the same. Maybe they had fewer big snakes, regardless, the way he conquered the females had broken the known social mating rituals, and his constant repetition only reinforced that effect.

The female had gotten used to Alexander's way of courting them, that when time passed and children were born and reared up, the remaining males failed to pick up on the cues.

Some had succeeded anyway, but the fact was that more had missed them out.

The females, on the other hand, as the sole raiser of children, taught the youths how to live and survive, and most importantly, they also taught them how to behave when mating.

At first, the difference was tiny, but every successive generation of Alexander's blood continued to be passed on, as his children and their children became far more successful in the mating game.

But all that was for the future.

What mattered was the here and now.

The now belonged to the Honey Badger that bonded with Mir.

The constant investiture of Mir into Alexander had afforded results.

Constant bigger prey meant more Life Essence reached him and Mir.

The more Life Essence got invested into him, the greater his skills grew, as the Intent inside him began to blossom.

Every hunt became easier and easier to find, kill, and eat.

It became easier to impress the females.

It became easier to pass on his genes.

Especially, after his body had continued to add on mass thanks to the Grow Intent implanted in him.

Every year that passed, he grew a bit. When enough years passed, he began to rival the dogs and hyenas he often came into contact with.

At that point, he no longer even needed to impress the females.

All he had to do was be slightly patient with them, and he would conquer them.

The same happened with new territory, and a similar thing happened when he backtracked on the grounds he had already conquered once.

Wherever he went, he was unstoppable.

Being a bigger Honey Badger afforded him a reputation that few contested.

With reputation and ease of gaining whatever he desired, came the confidence that he could do as he wanted. And when one could do as he desired for long enough, there always would come a point that transformed into their own downfall.

It is those downfalls that become the pivotal point in every Conqueror's story and got passed down across history.

However, Alexander was a Honey Badger. He had no chronicles to write down everything he had done for future generations.

However, he did have Mir the Ghost/DreamWalker, and recent Realm Creator.

*

Inside the minuscule Dream Realm, Mir held on to the grounding line that Alexander represented.

Everything he did was for his sake, and what he did was constantly adding slight improvements to the Intent he implanted inside Alexander.

Over time every tiny increment that he added only increased the compounding effect on Alexander's body and behavior.

However, there was a silver lining as he did this.

There had to be a point where his help no longer was required.

It was at that point, that Mir truly began to contest his sanity, as his incorporeal state and the passage of time began to affect him again.

To offset the problem, he began to change his attention to different projects.

One of those was figuring out a body for himself in his Dream Realm. So when the third year of his bonded life with Alexander began, he succeeded in his endeavor.

However, it turned out that there were downsides to making changes to his Dream Realm while he was bonded with Alexander and used his brain as a calculator.

Mir stared at his paws and claws.

He stared at the muzzle before his eyes.

He stared at the black fur covering his paws and lower body.

Realizing what it meant, Mir let go of the Life Essence Body Construct he made.

It vanished and transformed into background energy that made up his Dream Realm.

Knowing where the mistake was, Mir sighed and downgraded the project in importance.

What replaced it was to find a way to increase the number of stimuli he could experience.

The next project was to use the essence gathered over a long period of time and improve the bond he and Alexander shared.

This time he began to improve upon the passive information gathering, specifically, he began seeking a way to receive visual information about what Alexander was seeing.

After many trials and a lot of wasted Life Essence, he succeeded.

By the time the fifth year of their bonding started, he had succeeded in achieving sound.

Two years after that, he succeeded with smell and taste.

When the tenth year of their coexistence came, he had succeeded in applying a tactile sharing effect through the bond.

The sense of touch had taken the longest because of the amount of surface that had to be analyzed, and the amount of information that the black and white fur created was greater than he expected.

From that point, Mir had begun to accumulate essence as much as possible.

The only expenditure of essence was the daily bonding he and Alexander experienced.

It never lasted long, especially if he used all five senses.

Usually, he used sight and sound. Occasionally, taste and smell got added.

However, it never happened when Alexander was eating raw flesh.

Somehow the smells and the taste bothered him.

Even though, it should not be happening at all.

The shared taste was attuned to the Honey Badgers, so if Alexander liked the taste of something, that like should be transferred over, not his own or the ones he had once possessed.

More years passed as Mir observed a Honey Badger's life.

In truth, rarely new stuff will happen, but not having any outside stimuli reaching his mind.

Then came the history-changing moment.

*

Year 17, Mane Savannah

Alexander, the Great Conqueror of Land and Females, cocky and prideful from long-term success, angered the Pride of Lioness that existed in his territory.

The reason was a dead buffalo.

The Pride had already gorged itself on the meat, but there was enough leftover that Alexander wanted to taste some.

Never before had Alexander tasted buffalo meat, so he wanted to try it, but the Pride of Lioness defended their kill.

The more Alexander professed his anger and prowess in order to scare them off, the more he ended up tying the cord around his neck.

He just did not want to give up. He got angrier and angrier until a point came when his anger bit one of the females.

The moment he did, her yell of pain echoed to the rest of the Pride, and their playfulness vanished.

No longer were they thinking of playing with the Honey Badger, but their instincts to kill manifested.

All of their killer instinct focused on Alexander's small and stocky appearance.

With skills learned by group hunting, the females circled the little aggressor.

“Khrya-ya-ya-ya.” Growled Alexander in his high-pitched voice, but it was of no use.

The Pride of Lioness began to swipe at his smaller body. Sometimes they even tried to bite at him.

Alexander growled and rotated at every Lioness that grew closer. He tried his best to seek a point of exit, but the females blocked any exit he went for.

“ROAR”

Only when he heard a roar that rocked his body did he realize the seriousness of the situation he found himself in.

There was no longer another option, Alexander chose a target and deployed his secret option.

His behind twitched, and the reverse scented gland in his bottom sprayed a putrid smell upon the female.

The sudden spray surprised the female. It hit her right into the face, and the smell only shocked her even more.

Cat reflex demanded that she jump back and avoid another spray.

Unfortunately for her, she had jumped away from the formation that the Pride had employed for Alexander.

Using the gap he made, Alexander zipped away, but that only caused the hunting instinct built into the big cats to flare up even more.

The Lioness began to chase him down hard.

To evade them, he had gone for the sparse bushes.

One bush, two bushes, then three bushes afterward, Alexander left them behind and escaped for his life.

However, a seed planted and hidden long ago sprouted in that moment of shattered pride and confidence.

The shattered Pride and Confidence fed the seed of Vengeance, and the seed fed on the negative emotions like a forest set on fire.

The flare of Vengeance grew so hard and so fast that it reached even Mir through their bond.

Recognizing what was going on, Mir tried to calm Alexander down.

“CALM!” Mir sent to Alexander alongside the Calming Intent.

To improve his chance Mir spent a large chunk of his stored essence.

Instead, that action was the last nail in the coffin for Alexander.

A large amount of Calming Life Essence clashed with the growing Vengeance.

When the two opposites clashed, a conflict of opposing interests happened inside the Honey Badger's little mind.

Chemicals fueled this Vengeance.

All Alexander needed was time for his body to process them.

By being forcefully forced to subside by an outside force, the external force rather became the pressure cooker for the chemically induced Vengeance, only waiting to be released that much harder.

The initial clash of opposing Intents became the flare that blinded the Honey Badger from any internal thought.

Alexander's biological instinct in response flared even more. Since the instinct was a physical response, in this case, its unconscious response sided with the chemical cocktail that produced the emotion of Vengeance.

Like a runaway train, a tipping point came, and Vengeance exploded from its confines.

It overpowered the Calming effect Mir sent through the bond.

Seeing and feeling where this was going, Mir finally realized what had occurred inside Alexander.

In great shame for not realizing it sooner, he considered if he should continue interfering.

But in that instant, he recognized that it would take every shred of essence gathered over a great number of years to help Alexander.

Worst of all, Mir knew not, if it would even help at all.

Maybe it would make it only worse? He imagined for a second.

Mir sighed and stopped any more interference on his part.

Thanks to that, Vengeance overpowered the leftover Calming Intent and rooted itself even deeper inside the little mind of the Honey Badger.

Mir, on the other hand, sighed once more.

He knew where all this vengeance would lead.

Knowing and feeling that it was too late, safety measures began to manifest in his incorporeal mind.