I drifted off to sleep and dreamt of the beginning.

I awoke in the center of a fire. A woman gestured and grunted while pointing at paintings made on a stone wall. The picture depicted an eight legged fiend with a man in its mouth. I was warm and the story burned itself into my mind. I felt stronger as it ended and I stood, uncurling my body. The people saw me and backed up grunting and shouting.

I stepped out of the fire towards the storyteller. Her hair was a wild mop of tangled black braids. She wore a patchwork collection of furs from a dozen animals. I saw no fear in her eyes. I felt a powerful desire to protect her filled my mind. She reached out a hand and gently rubbed the scales on my chest. Her eyes roamed over my wings at all the paintings on them. I pressed against it and curled my tail around her twice over.

I looked deep into her eyes and spread a wing across the wall. I began to gesture and grunt the way she had. It was the story of the birth of a god. A nameless one who watched over those who told tales at campfires. The people watched and came closer. Soon as the tale ended they stroked my wings and scales reverently grunting their primitive language. A tale was born of my awakening.

As darkness descended I felt my first Call. I walked to the entrance of the cave they lived in and saw the very beast they had described in the cave painting. Midnight black scales rippled in the moonlight. Eight legs ending in powerful talons tearing into the earth as it let rip a mighty growl. It would kill my charges. Devour them and I knew my life would end with them. I spread my wings fully out and made myself as large as I could. It did not back down or flee.

As it coiled to pounce I folded my wings to my body and charged. The beast pounced high and slammed down slamming my head against the ground. The world darkened as the beast clamped its jaws on the back of my neck. I twisted my head and began to gore the belly of the beast. It yowled and disengaged. I felt hot blood roll down my scales as I stood back up to full. It went to pounce over my head again but I reared back and caught it by the front arms and slammed him down upon his back in a mighty crash. Its eight taloned limbs began to rake my underside and I spun bringing my tail slamming down into it. The titanic blow shook the earth.

It went to flee as it scrambled to its feet. I took to the air flying for the first time and felt true freedom. I dove back down and crushed my weight down upon its skull bouncing it against the ground. Stunned I dug my claws into its neck and tore out its throat with a gush of blood flowing from it. The beast gurgled and fought as it died and I pinned it down until it bled to death.

I turned and the cave people looked at me in awe. I spread my wings and roared my victory into the skies. The stars twinkled and the moons were bright in the sky. They came and the women pressed clay into my wounds and drew symbols into the patches. The men gutted and skinned the beast. Great spots were made and put over the fire. I felt no desire to eat with them as I pressed against one wall. I was so drained and tired from the short powerful battle. I watched as new paintings were drawn of me and the beast tangled in battle and me standing over its body. The storyteller gestured wildly and grunted as she told those that hid what had happened outside.

I felt a flood of power enter me as the people heard the tale and approached me. They hung necklaces and decorations on my horns. Touched the clay patches gingerly. I felt a sense of thankfulness. The first story ever told about me filled me with warmth and a love for these people. I slept to recover and the people revered me.

It took me three days to wake up and I was healed. The sunlight streamed inside the cave and only women sat around humming melodically. They shaped stones breaking off chips to form triangles the size of their fists. I was covered with the great hide of the beast I had slain. The storyteller drew on the wall fervently adding more details to what she would tell the people. Standing up various things rattled down around me. The women looked at me and stopped their humming. Their primitive words rang in my head filling me with their meaning. The men might need my help.

I walked out of the cave and spread my wings. A foreboding sense of danger filled me as I took flight. My keen eyes scanned the lands spread out before me. I saw a group of men stalking a pack of creatures as I soared looking around the great lands. Plains interspersed with clumps of large deep green plants. Beasts of all sizes wandered the lands. Birds the size of two men standing atop one another soared the sky with me.

Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

I felt that if I helped the men of the cave that they would somehow grow weaker. That I would rob them of something necessary to their survival. So instead I patrolled the skies looking for other groups of men that might have more stories to tell. I was connected to the people. I relied on their words to survive. There was something inside me that promised a coming greatness and purpose in my existence. As the sun lowered I returned to the cave. More creatures were being processed and more spits of meat prepared over the fire.

The storyteller approached with a spit and offered it to me. Gesturing to her own mouth and taking bites to demonstrate what to do with it. I snorted at the treatment and went to turn my head away but her hand touched my nose. I could feel a deep worry about me from her. I stopped and looked at her softly. My clawed hands were clumsy as I took the spit from her and tore the meat from it. Juices from rendered fat flooded my mouth, the tastes of what would later be called gaminess and savory coated my tongue and I looked at the stripped stick. It took a while to chew it but I didn’t know what else to do with it. The ritual felt unnatural to me in some way. The storyteller swallowed loudly and showed me her empty mouth gesturing for me to do the same. I swallowed for the first time.

Soon the men would come back and tell of other beasts hunting them down. They pleaded with me for help and I grunted as they did. Standing to go with them into the great beyond. I did not fly above them and instead walked the earth with them. I breathed deep and smelled the odor of the men wafting from them. It would be easy to track them down with how they smelled. We stopped the march as we came to a stream and the men knelt and drank from me. I followed suit to copy them and the cold fresh water washed the lingering taste of my last meal from my tongue.

I sniffed the water and noticed it didn’t smell at all. I looked at the men and felt a sense of mischief fill me. Quietly I swung my tail to just behind the group and shoved them into the water. They flailed and shouted up at me. As they went to return to the shore I stopped them with a splash of my tail and they halted, a stink of fear came from them. I gently sniffed each of their heads and noticed they were much less odorous and I gave a nod plucking them from the water and setting them down. I stood and stalked around them sniffing intently, tasting the air around them. I sat and grunted and gestured in their way trying to tell them they were easily followed thanks to their stink.

The men looked to each other quizzically and grunted back and forth before all nodding and held up a hand as thanks. They understood what I had told them and we continued on. Some of them shivered from the blast of cold but soon their blood pumped and warmed them up. The skies grew clouded as we walked across the plains. They showed me tracks of the creature stalking them. They were similar to what the eight legged one had left and I looked at the men.

They gestured and grunted telling me of a second and third beast of that kind. They were solitary and met with one another just to breed. I watched intently and bent down sniffing the tracks greatly and getting a sense of the beast’s musk. The men spoke of tracking them when food went low and working with me to slay one for the amount of meat they provided was vast.

The days went on as they taught me the ways of the hunt during the day and the women showed me what to do with hides. They shaped and draped the slain beast’s hide around me and nodded. I became one with the group. Just as important as any of them. A sickness of the stomach began soon after. Their bowels would run and pain wracked their bodies. They would sweat profusely and struggle to move as the whole cave weakened. I made great trips to the river for I was unaffected and filled the skins they had finished to keep their thirsts quenched.

The sickness continued and people started to sleep for more and more time. A fear burbled inside me and one night as everyone rested I went to the wall. I dipped a claw into the paint and drew the symbol of my father. The god of stories. I built a fire and gently gathered the people around it. I felt an energy stirring deep inside me as I began to tell stories. I told one after another throughout the night never resting and I felt something leave me and sink into the people. Their bodies cooled to normal and their groans of pain subsided to a few whimpers. I felt something be told to me from far above. From a being I knew to be who made me. I could heal these people but I would need to rest for a time to regain that strength. So I healed them with my tales.

As they awoke and stirred around a dying fire their fevers broke and their bodies healed. I sighed in satisfaction and pressed myself out of the way and collapsed. The storyteller ran to me and pressed herself against my snout. She grunted in worry and tried to keep me awake. I nuzzled against her feeling the sheer care she had for me and tried to tell her I needed just to sleep, that I would wake when I was ready. She ran to the wall near me and began to draw. The people of the cave went to clean the foulness from where they could. I could keep my eyes open no longer and a deep slumber gripped me. I did not know when I would wake but I did know the people would live.