Despite going through with swallowing a creature double my weight, I never thought I’d actually be able to eat the Ōmukade. The centipede was at least twice my length. There’s no way it should have all fit.

But it did.

Somehow, I consumed the giant whole. I’d been expecting to tear the beast in half once I was full, but there was no need. It just kept going. I’m so gorged that I can’t eat a single leg more, but the urge to regurgitate thankfully doesn’t come.

The post feast lethargy hits me like a wave. It always happens, but I have something more important to do than sleep right now.

I slither along the soil, gazing across what was our battlefield. Because of the way I fight, it was restricted to a rather small section of the cavern, but nothing within that area remains untouched. A thousand gouges overlap through the earth, leaving it a mess of loose soil and gravel. Only where the weight of my or the centipede’s body pressed against the ground does it remain somewhat flat, but even that is compressed and entrenched.

The fungi hole with all that flying bug attracting juice is nowhere to be seen. Our combined struggle clearly having torn any of the plate mushrooms from the ground. There are a few recognisable scraps a fair distance from our battlefield, likely flung away before they could be mulched.

My body is sluggish. The wound in my back aches a lot more than I want now that the adrenaline fades. All I can do is ignore it until it heals. With such a massive meal in my gut, I’m sure to recover quick, but it is that very meal itself which slows me down more than anything.

Each twist of my spine feels like I’m carrying five of myself. Not an issue in itself — not with my strength — but on top of my growing exhaustion, it is draining.

My scales are scratched to damnation. I’d thought the filth and nicks I’d gotten in my fleeing from the Titan were bad, but there will be no buffing these out with baths of sand and moss. No, the only way these deep cuts into my scales will recover is my next moult.

Those claws dug through my body a lot deeper than I thought. If the centipede had focused its strikes, it would have taken no time to dig through my scales. A few grooves cut deep enough it wouldn’t even take a full strength strike to break through.

I finally return to little Scia. She’s still passed out from the exertion of creating a distortion large enough to pull me out of the path of danger.

For a while, I do nothing. I just stare down at the little bat as she sleeps.

She put herself in danger to save me. That’s not something I can truly understand, but I… I can’t try to run from her anymore. If she really wants to join me, then I can only welcome her.

The emotions she incited within me in that moment are strange. Some filled me with warmth and others a horrid dread. But even with the appearance of newfound negative emotions, I didn’t completely hate them.

One of those negative feelings disrupted my enjoyment of a battle with a competitor — a fight I’ve been waiting so long for — and yet succeeding still felt amazing. It wasn’t so much the battle itself which was exhilarating, as it was in the past, but knowing I took away a threat to my little… friend.

I’m far too full right now to shrink back to my favoured size. No, even if I wasn’t digesting, I couldn’t allow myself to be as carefree as I was before. I don’t have the benefit of distortions as I usually do at that size, so I need to remain as large as I am while up here. With as large as this cavern is, it should pose no problem to mobility.

Lethargy only grows through my body, and I realise there is no holding this rest off. There are still a few of those arachnids along the ceiling a fair distance away, but without the bugs swarming as they did when I had the viscous substance sticking to me, they appear completely uninterested with what is below.

I’m not all too concerned about them, but Scia will be vulnerable while I sleep. Well, the solution to that isn’t difficult. I slither up beside her, twisting around until she’s encased in a dome of my coils. I’m far too heavy for her to handle even the slightest touch, but by leaving a wide space within the walls of my body, there shouldn’t be a problem.

Laying my head down on top of my coils, I’m asleep in moments.

❖❖❖

I wake to the sound of a high-pitched droning wail.

A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

The first thing I notice is the permeating fatigue isn’t completely gone. My body feels better, but it feels like I got less than a quarter of the rest I need. While my back aches and muscles scream for slumber, it isn’t overwhelming. My body has the energy to find that annoying noise.

It doesn’t take long.

As soon as I lift my head, the wailing stops. My eyes drop to the safe pocket between coils. There, Scia stares up at me, shivering in terror.

Her eyes widen, almost further than they should for one so small. Scia’s lightly furred body shivers, but makes no attempt to move. Her eyes stiffen, unable to look away from mine.

Scia is terrified of me.

I hiss in exasperation. The loud, reverberating sound bounds through the cavern, and I watch as a dozen creatures dive for cover. Scia herself quivers, the earth shaking beneath her from the power of my voice.

My hiss cuts short.

Ever since I first found her, Scia has refused to show any amount of fear at my presence, regardless of my attempts or disdain. Only now that I don’t want her to leave does she show appropriate horror of her proximity to an apex predator. This has to be some manipulation of a greater being. The Titan must be messing with me… however it might be doing that.

Will Scia run? Does she need to wait until I unwind my coils before she can make an escape hole for herself?

I have a sudden temptation to clamp down on my pile around her. To block off any path outward and prevent any chance to flee. The desire to hold Scia back and prevent her from running away consumes me, but doing such a thing without killing her would be impossible. And I no longer want her dead.

Even if I wrapped myself around her, space cares not for such barriers. Not even a serpent’s superior scales can disrupt the flow of space. She can escape easily.

I’ve wanted her fear for a while, but now that I have it, it is regretful. The distasteful feeling of disappointment digs at my innards. I’m full, absolutely stuffed, and yet my stomach feels hollow.

Scia is minuscule now. At least, she appears so from my full size.

Before, she was about the size of a scale. The tiny claws of her wings stretched across three or four, and her full wingspan maybe double that. After revealing my full size, wingtip to wingtip doesn’t make a single scale. Not even close. Now, she’d fit in the gap between adjacent scales. The smallest of the teeth hidden in my gums are at least half a dozen times larger than her.

I guess I do pose a far more intimidating image at this size.

Despite my fatigue, I uncoil. Things have changed now. I don’t want to run her off, but as more of the cavern opens up to her, I can do nothing but wait for her to disappear. Never to be seen again.

Any second now, she’ll run, and I’ll be alone again. I don’t know why, but the thought is displeasing. For thousands of hunts, I’ve not had an annoying little bat follow me around, and never had an issue. Returning to that shouldn’t be difficult.

Soon, my length is entirely to one side of Scia. She has any direction of choice to run, but her eyes linger on mine, as frozen as the moment we first locked them. The earth around her is… well, the only way to describe it is devastated. Deep trenches curve through the ground where my movement carved it away. It is especially bad where I slept. Really, the only place untouched is where Scia lays.

Her eyes finally move elsewhere than mine after I look away to inspect the environment. They slowly trail down my form, taking in my sheer size and how the earth trembles with each of my motions.

My head drops to lay on the ground before her, slightly submerging in the soil. The motion is completely subconscious on my half, but I don’t oppose. It is completely against my nature as an apex predator to lower myself, but I can ignore the instinct to hold myself tall, just this once.

Scia’s eyes linger on the wound in my back, and somehow, her eyes widen even further than before. Those orbs will fall out of her head if she isn’t careful. It’s understandable, though; the open wound is a rather gruesome sight. She’s probably disgusted by it. Dried blood paints every scale over my midsection, and the injury itself has bits of my spine open to air.

It will heal — it has in the past — but it doesn’t make a pleasant sight.

Scia chirps and disappears.

Well, I expected it, but watching her run off stings. I’m not sure what this emotion is, but it’s just another in the pile of reasons sapience truly isn’t worth it. The good ones I felt since coming up into this cavern — the satisfaction of an answered curiosity, and the strange complex weave of them that came with being saved — they must all have been a fluke. Bait and temptation at most.

I hear the chirp again, and turn to see Scia. She’s almost unnoticeable upon the vastness of my back, but there she is, holding into the groove between scales as she looks into my ugly injury.

Is she mad that her typical riding spot is gone? Wait, no… she hasn’t run?

As if in response to my silent question, Scia turns her wide, wet eyes up at me and squeaks.

Once again, I’m astonished by the actions of this little bat, but this time, I feel nothing but warmth. It’s a strange sensation, and is not one I’m familiar with, even amongst the new emotions of sapience. Scia isn’t afraid… or at least was able to brush off her fear in concern for my injury. With her own wing in such a state, she really shouldn’t be so concerned about others… but I find that foolishness no longer annoys me.

I bring my tail up to my wound, and, careful not to bring it near Scia, I slide it over the air where my missing scales are. My intent was to show that it will be okay after a while, but the way Scia keeps staring up to me with those tiny-yet-massive eyes, I don’t think the message gets through.

As great as it is that Scia wants to stay by my side despite the terror of my size, my body is still screaming for rest. I curl up into the same coil as before and nudge my head toward the little island of untouched earth. Scia, thankfully, gets what I mean and blinks within my scales. The little pocket between my length should be enough protection for her while I rest.

My head lays upon the cushioning of my midsection, and I fall into slumber in more comfort than I’ve felt since losing the warm energy of my former favourite resting spot.