As soon as the attack on the humans starts, Mewl acts.
She pounces on Charles first, throwing him to the ground in a repeat of earlier in the day, except this time she kept her claws firmly around his neck. “Remove the restraint and I will let you live.” She snarls, Charles whimpering in fear at their closeness. Mewl watches as the human slowly presses a button on the gray box, and the colar collapses once again into an inert circle.
As soon as her snout is freed, Mewl savagely tears into Charles stomach, first with her claws then with her mouth, devouring him raw. Only, something compels her to stop her feasting and look up.
Straight into the green eyes of one of the pythoniade.
They -Mewl has never seen a pythoniade before, she has no idea how the male and female differentiate themselves- are standing over the frozen body of the scarred one, their violet scales reflecting the campfire’s light beautifully and contrasting with a deep blue vest they wore over their torso. They must be around fifteen feet in length, their tail ending in a cute rattle that, maybe without them realizing, was emitting its sound even now. Their entire body exudes power, their very apparent muscles still bunched with tension.
Only after a moment or three does Mewl realize she forgot to close her mouth.
Yet what catches her eye more than the beautiful pythoniade in front of her, is the human who was trying to sneak behind them. Mewl shouts out a warning, only for the human to simply… fall over screaming? With a start she realizes there was another pythoniade there, a hooded one with scales that seemed to just blend into the background. Mewl couldn’t hear or smell them, even from this close.
Soon after, the battle nears its end, the bearded one not being able to hold his own against the pythoniade fighting him without his gun for much longer. The pythoniade finish the dying and wounded off, as Mewl takes the time to rip off two of Charles canines, to add to her necklace once she had the opportunity, and then she takes his backpack from him, storing the teeth inside before going towards the assembling pythoniade.
“I guess introductions are in order,” the one with violet scales says in a stilted common, “I’m Ss’Vesh, though if you struggle pronouncing that you can call me Violet. These are my teammates,
“Sd’Aira,” they say, pointing towards a shorter, red-scaled pythoniade, who nods in acknowledgment;
“Sd’Dera,” another red-scaled pythoniade, almost a carbon copy of the previous one waves in response;
“Sj’Orus,” they point up to a green-scaled pythionade who was easily over twenty feet long and wrapped around the tree branches above their heads;
“and, lastly, St’Eris is probably somewhere behind me.” Ss’Vesh says, and the hooded snake Mewl saw earlier pops their head from behind the bigger pythoniade, saying in a even rustier common “they/them.” Mewl just stares at them for a moment, and they shrink more behind Ss’Vesh’s shoulders. “My pronouns, I use they/them.” They say, before disappearing completely behind Ss’Vesh again. In response, Ss’Vesh hisses, before hastily adding, “right, pronouns. Me and the twins use she/her, and Sj’Orus over there uses he/him. What about you?”
Mewl is rendered momentarily speechless by the barrage of information, and the revelation that the pythoniade she had been ogling this whole time was a she, before saying “I’m Mewl, though my common name is Melaine. She/her, I guess? Never really thought about it.”
“Alright Melaine! I, uh, didn’t really prepare for hostage situations before.” Ss’Vesh says, shifting from side to side awkwardly, ”so do you want help getting back to your village?” At the mention of her village, Mewl freezes up completely, and seeing that Ss’Vesh starts rattling, much to the audible amusement of Sj’Orus, “I guess that’s a no go on the village plan. Would you like to stick with us then? We are supposed to be coming back to our own village at this point, you would be welcome to stay with us while you sort stuff out.”
Mewl thinks about it. She really doesn’t have a better plan on how to deal with her situation, so she just nods. “Great!” Ss’Vesh says, visibly relaxing now that she has a plan of action, before turning to the others and speaking quickly in their tongue. The other four quickly split off and start going over the human corpses, looting anything valuable, as Ss’Vesh once again turns to Mewl, “Alright, once we clear the corpses we are going to move a bit away before making camp for the night. How’s your night vision?”
“Passable” Mewl responds, eager to get moving. The smell of corpses is sure to bring scavengers over, and she would rather not be here when they arrive. Just as Ss’Vesh opens her mouth to make a comment, Sd’Dera yells out something in their hissing language, and Ss’Vesh yells something back, before saying, in common, “ok time to move. Yell my name if you lose us or something,” before slithering off into the forest.
Mewl takes a moment to fully let things set in. She had, in the span of a few minutes, gone from stuck to a horrible group of humans to being rescued by -she admits to herself- a very beautiful pythoniade and learned that she is not as straight as she thought, which she is… unsure how to feel about.
Putting all that aside for now, Mewl dashes after Ss’Vesh. She can worry about her possible feelings later.
Following the pythoniade through the woods is a surprisingly fun challenge, as Ss’Vesh’s dark scales allows her to blend in pretty well in the dark of the night, and the overgrowth she so easily slithers through also partially covers her from Mewl’s sight. What gives her away is the unique sound she makes as she moves, and her smell, though Mewl chooses not to focus on the latter too much.
Soon, they arrive at a clearing, finding the twins to already be there waiting for them, curled on top of each other. Mewl drops down from tree tops, next to Ss’Vesh as Sj’Orus slithers in from their left and St’Eris seemingly materializes in the middle of the clearing. “How did you all know to be here?” Mewl asks, as they all had split off in different directions before arriving here, “smell,” Ss’Vesh responds, stretching herself before curling up around a stone she took from one of her vest’s pouches. “Sd’Aira decides a spot, and we follow her smell there.” Mewl wrinkles her nose, her tail swishing from side to side in annoyance, “I couldn’t smell anything,” other than you, she doesn’t add.
“Maybe you just weren’t smelling hard enough then.” Ss’Vesh says, sticking her forked tongue at Mewl, “anyways, you should sleep while you can, we have the last watch.”
Mewl huffs in annoyance, before curling up next to Ss’Vesh and closing her eyes, preparing herself to sleep.
----------------------------------------
Fire, everywhere she looks.
Her entire village is set ablaze, and no matter how far she runs, Mewl can’t get away from the faces of her clan members, their half melted visages screaming accusations at her.
“Coward!”
“Whore!”
“Deviant!”
“You murdered us!” They say, following Mewl wherever she went, not stopping no matter how much she begged them to. Yet, the worst came when she turned a corner and found her parents waiting for her, more burned than the rest, hand in hand.
“Nonono, not you too,” Mewl pleads, falling on her knees.
“Melaine, wake up.” They say, with Ss’Vesh’s voice.
So she does.
----------------------------------------
Mewl opens her eyes to find Ss’Vesh staring at her. “Are you okay?” The pythoniade asks, her rattle shaking behind her. Mewl nods, drying the tears from her face. Ss’Vesh nods back, still clearly agitated, “Nightmare? Sorry, I know that it’s none of my business, but you were shaking and mumbling to yourself pretty hard there.”
Mewl stiffens in response, looking to the sky instead. “Is it our watch yet?” She asks.
“No, it’s close though. Sj’Orus is just about done with his.” Mewl nods again, turning to look at Ss’Vesh, who was still rattling quietly. Slowly, she deflates, the tension in her muscles replaced with tiredness. “Yes, it was a nightmare.” She says, looking to the ground and scuffing it with her paws. “Ok,” Ss’Vesh says, slithering closer. “I’m assuming that you aren’t going to go back to sleep after that, so can I do something my nyska always did when I had a nightmare growing up?”
Mewl thinks about it for a second, before shrugging and saying, “why not? Can’t hurt to try it.” Ss’Vesh nods, and tells Mewl to stand up with her arms spread. Slowly, to not spook the pantherus, she wraps herself around Mewl, before bringing them both to the ground so that Mewl is laying on top of her lower half, her head sitting on her waist, with her arms free to move unimpeded.
This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.
“How does this feel?” Ss’Vesh asks, careful to not apply too much pressure.
“Surprisingly comfy,” Mewl says, looking into Ss’Vesh’s eyes from below and laying her arms across the pytherian’s coils, “even if you are pretty cold.”
“From where I’m standing, you’re the hot one.” Ss’Vesh says, laughing softly, “you would be so popular in the winters back home.”
“Why?” Mewl asks, absentmindedly scratching Ss’Vesh’s coils.
The pytherian shudders at the sensation before answering, “Well, we are coldblooded, and during the winter months the warming stones aren’t quite enough to keep us warm during the night. So we sleep in big piles, trying to get as much body heat distributed among us all as possible.” She then snickers to herself, “it’s also the season where we get the most fertilized eggs.” Mewl snorts in response.
Sj’Orus approaches them then, Ss’Vesh unconsciously tightens her coils protectively. They trade a few words, and Sj’Orus grabs his warming stone and curls around it, preparing to sleep. Ss’Vesh then notices her coils and says, “Oh! I’m sorry about that, let me relax those for you.” Only, Mewl stops her, shaking her head and saying, “it’s fine, I like it like this. Why do only you talk in common by the way?”
“Sd’Aira can’t speak at all, and none of the others can speak common very well.” Ss’Vesh says, right before Sj’Orus says in a heavily accented common, “your moons are very amazing tonight!” Both Ss’Vesh and Mewl burst into giggles then.
Ss’Vesh quickly explains what was wrong to a very confused Sj’Orus, who snorts and turns around to sleep. Ss’Vesh sighs, and places her hands on top of her belly. Right above Mewl’s head.
They both freeze then, pausing awkwardly. “Can I… pet you?” Ss’Vesh says out tentatively. Mewl looks at her own hands, how she had been scratching at Ss’Vesh this whole time without asking, and gulps, before saying, “yes, go right ahead.” Ss’Vesh slowly starts raking her hands through the soft fur of Mewl's head, making the pantherus close her eyes and start purring at the careful touch. “Y’know,” Mewl says softly, her eyes still closed, “I was planning to add Charles’ teeth to my necklace tonight, but I don’t really feel like moving now, this is too nice.”
Ss’Vesh hums thoughtfully, looking around for Mewl’s bag. Keeping one hand on the pantherus’ head, she twists her torso around to grab it, then brings it closer to them. “We can do it without moving, and I can help you, if you want.” Mewl opens her eyes then, and stares at Ss’Vesh, who is avoiding eye contact, rattling softly. Her clanmates would object to her getting help, but then again they would object about everything that happened in the last day. “Sure,” Mewl says, putting the bag on top of Ss’Vesh’s scales, “do you have any jilp sap?” She asks, as she roots around for the teeth inside the bag.
“I think I do, why?” Ss’Vesh asks, opening her medical pouch to see that she indeed has some left. “We use it to stick the teeth together so they don’t rattle when we are jumping from tree to tree,” Mewl says, handing the canines and a canteen with water to Ss’Vesh, “can you wash these? I really don’t want to get my fur wet.”
Nodding, Ss’Vesh opens the canteen and washes the teeth as Mewl unclasps the necklace from around her neck. Then Ss’Vesh hands the pantherus the teeth and the jar of sap, and Mewl adds, “every hunter gets one of these when they get of age,” she says, using one of the clasps of the collar to carefully drill a hole into the teeth, “or when they get their first kill. Every time we hunt a new prey, we add on to the collar, until there is no more space, at which point we get bands around our wrists.” Carefully, Mewl slides the canines into the collar, one on each side, and starts wrapping them in the sap. “Then, if we fill those up, we get bands around our ankles as well.” She finishes, handing the jar back to Ss’Vesh.
“What happens if you fill the band around your ankles?” The pytherian asks, placing the jar back in the appropriate pouch and moving the bag to her side. “I dunno,” Mewl responds, the necklace once again around her neck, “as far as I am aware, no one has reached that point.”
They soon fall into the pattern they had before, with Ss’Vesh scratching Mewl’s head, and Mewl scratching Ss’Vesh’s scales in return. The soothing pattern slowly makes Mewl close her eyes, and despite wanting to stay awake to help Ss’Vesh keep watch, she is soon dragged into the grasps of sleep.
Somehow she knows she won’t have any nightmares now.
Ss’Vesh watches the pantherian’s breathing deepen as the poor girl falls asleep. She sighs deeply, running her hands through Mewl’s gloriously soft fur. “What’s wrong St’Eris? You should get some sleep.”
“You’re too soft on her.” The silsper says.
“I think she deserves a little bit of softness.” Ss’Vesh counters.
“You’re catching feelings for her too.” St’Eris states.
Ss’Vesh sighs, shoulders slumping. Yes, she was developing a crush on Mewl. How couldn’t she? The pantherus was unlike anyone she had ever seen before, her fur shining despite days of constant travels through the jungle, the way her piercing violet eyes seemed to just catch every movement she did, the way she moved through the trees, silently jumping from tree branch to tree branch, so light on her feet she could sneak up on birds. And yet, she looks so soft, so vulnerable as she sleeps, holding tight to Ss’Vesh coils that it stirs her protective instincts.
“You know they will never approve of it.” St’Eris continues, “you don’t even know if she would like you back.”
“You’re right.” Ss’Vesh says, “but I’m willing to try. I think she’s worth it.”
St’Eris nods, vanishing back into the shadows. “Sylverna yat makh.”
“Jup nen silsper”
The rest of the watch was uneventful, if lonely.
In the following morning, after a quick discussion, they once again start their trek towards the pytherian village, moving slower and as a group on the return trip. Mewl finds it surprisingly easy to integrate herself in their scouting patterns, as the slithering from the pytherians left a significant blindspot above them, which her bounding leaps across the tree branches covered naturally.
Ss’Vesh, for her part, worries.
The talk she had with St’Eris during her watch weighs heavy over her, and yet she can’t help herself but to constantly look for Mewl’s scent on the air, trying to make sure the pantherus was safe and nearby. She knew that her stress was contagious to her teammates, yet she couldn’t bring herself to relax.
“STOP!” Mewl yells out from the treetops, and Ss’Vesh instantly rears up, hissing, looking out for the danger. Her team stops around her, all bunched up in a defensive formation. “Listen.” Mewl says, softer now.
Ss’Vesh tries her hardest to catch whatever Mewl heard, but try as she might she can’t. Looking around, none of the other pythoniades can either. Not until it reaches much closer.
Whistling.
Cursing to herself, Ss’Vesh yells out “Up the trees, singers!”
Quickly everyone starts the slow process of climbing the trees, Mewl helping from vantage points wherever she can. The last one she helps is Ss’Vesh herself, and by then the singers are almost upon them. They were definitely too agitated to be the only threat heading their way though.
Suddenly, the singers are upon them, and the reason for their agitation becomes clear. The red insects, each about the size of Mewl's fist, were harassing a giant treehaunt, their characteristing symphony in full force as the buzzing of their wings mixed in with the whistling sound from the launch of their stingers into the thick fur of the treehaunt, who was holding tight to a section of their nest with one claw, while swatting around with its free paw,
It was mostly unsuccessful in killing the singers, instead what it’s flailing did was felling some of the weakest trees around them. The entire time during the battle, Mewl holds Ss’Vesh with a death grip, worrying that the less nimble pytherian would fall off the branch they were both on.
Slowly, the treehaunt moves away from them, its howls of pain and echoing through the forest. Only after Mewl can no longer hear it does she let go of Ss’Vesh. Jumping down from the tree, into the new forest clearing, Mewl lets out the breath she was holding, and just lays on the forest floor, laughing softly. The pytherians approach wearily, worried about the hysterical pantherus.
“Are you okay Melaine?” Ss’Vesh asks.
“We almost died! I just got my freedom back and we already almost died!” Mewl exclaims, still laughing. Yet, to Ss’Vesh’s ears, the laughter sounds a lot more like sobbing by the second. She quickly wraps the pantherus in her coils and arms as the laughter turns into crying. “We are taking a break.” Ss’Vesh says to her teammates.
The others nod, as Mewl cries into Ss’Vesh’s muscular chest. “We al-almost died,” Mewl says in between sobs, “A-and it’s my fault.” Ss’Vesh tightens her hold around Mewl at that, both with her arms and her coils. “MY FAULT!” Mewl screams, “IT'S ALWays my fault” Mewl's voice lowers in volume as she goes on, slowly devolving into low sobs.
Ss’Vesh starts petting Mewl’s fur, hissing softly, her rattle shaking in tune. For minutes they sit like that, until Mewl’s sobbing reduces in volume “You’re not at fault here, Melaine,” she says, “though I don’t think that’s the issue here is it?” Mewl nods, her tears drying up as the rhythmic noises of both Ss’Vesh’s rattle and her breathing calm her down. “Well, I’m no hessyr but if you wanna talk about it, I can listen. We all have had our share of issues.” Mewl looks up then, into Ss’Vesh’s eyes, and around them at the assembled pytherians. They took the time while she was calming down to set up a cookpot, and the smell coming from it made Mewl’s stomach rumble. “I think,” Mewl says haltingly, “that I would like that.”
Ss’Vesh starts to release Mewl from her grasp, only for the pantherus to shake her head, saying “gimme a moment to adjust myself.” In the end, they end up in a similar position, but with Mewl slightly higher on Ss’Vesh’s body and turned towards the rest of the party, their heads stacked on top of each other. Soon they Sd’Aira distributed portions of the stew to each of them. “Do you want to start?” Ss’Vesh asks Mewl, getting a head shake in response. She then looks up at the other members of her team, and asks “do any of you want to share your stories?”
After a moment of deliberation, Sd’Aira nods, after a quick ‘talk’ with her sister in their non verbal language, Sd’Dera says “I don’t know about pantherus, but twin pythonades are very rare, and a very unfortunate accident when they do happen.” Ss’Vesh translated for Mewl softly, to not interrupt Sd’Dera’s flow. “Our eggs only have so much space in them, so if the twins don’t eat each other while growing, we tend to be smaller than others our age,” now that she mentions it, Mewl notices how both of the twins are significantly smaller than the other pytherias, both of them being around eight feet long, while St’Eris, the third smallest of them, sits around 13 feet. “Add on top of that the higher likelihood for complications during egg laying, and, well, there is a lot of stigma around twins.
Our childhood wasn’t easy. Sd’Aira was born without a tongue, so she had even more things for the other children to pick at. I tried my best to fight back, both with words and my fists, but it’s not easy when you’re half the size of everyone around you. Yet, we made it work. Together, we learned how to track, and since we could slither into places no other pytherian could, we eventually hunted enough prey to get the attention of the rangers. That’s where Ss’Vesh comes in.” Sd’Dera stops then to look towards the bigger snake, her expression unreadable to Mewl, her features too alien for her to understand. “We got singled out pretty much instantly in the academy, and one time we got ambushed by a group who thought we weren’t fit to be rangers.” Every single pythonade hisses then, their displeasure clear at the memory. “We were holding our own for a bit, using our sizes to our advantage, tripping them up and such, but one of them managed to grab me. Then out of nowhere, Ss’Vesh comes in and tackles him. The fight turned in that instant, and after, Ss’Vesh didn’t look down on us. She congratulated us on our fighting style, and offered us a place on her team.”
Mewl is silent for a bit, looking around. “Do all of you have stories like this?” She asks. Slowly, all of them nod. Clearing her throat, in nervousness, she starts, “My childhood was the best part of my life. My father raised me by himself, as my mother got taken by the humans very early on in my life.” She says, anger momentarily spiking in her at the mention of humans, “but we managed. He was an expert hunter, and taught me most of what I know. Until, he went out one day on a hunt and didn’t come back.”
Mewl takes a moment to control her feelings, Ss’Vesh translating her words for her. “From there it was pretty downhill. The only other pantherus that even talked to me were other hunters, and even then I struggled to make friendships. I thought everything was gonna be well after I did my three rounds of the human fair, but Charles just had to come in and ruin everything. Now I’m an exile, and a part of my mind keeps telling me that it’s all my fault, that there is a part of me so fundamentally wrong that I push everyone away. That—” Mewl’s speech is interrupted as a sob breaks free of her throat, “that I’m going to push you all away too.” After Ss’Vesh finishes translating, the entire clearing is silent, the pythonades disgesting what was said.
“You’re not cursed or something like that.” St’Eris says, after a long moment of silence, Ss’Vesh once again in translator duty, “I can guarantee you that. People just… suck sometimes.” They then look up to the sky, noticing the position of the sun, “anyways, as much as I would like to contribute to this moment with my own story, we are burning daylight, so I think it might be better for us to get a move on.”
Ss’Vesh opens her mouth to protest, but Mewl shushes her, nodding her head and untangling herself from the pythoniade. They all collect the dirty dishes and put them in Sj’Orus’s backpack. Soon they are moving again, adding a little bit of speed to make up for lost time.
The next two days of travels are uneventful, though Ss’Vesh insists on sleeping coiled around Mewl each night, and by noon of the third day, they reach the edge of the forest, the terrain morphing sloping upwards. The pythoniades all move faster, eager to get back into their home, and soon they enter a cavern, leading Mewl through the dark corridors until they arrive at the hollow core of the mountain.
“Welcome to Salvyin” Ss’Vesh says, smirking to herself at the slack-jawed Mewl.