Destroyed rubble surrounded him, the remains of a once thriving community that sheltered him his whole life. The walls that kept away predators now had a gigantic hole torn in them. Several corpses were spread around, some in a state that he tried not to think about. He was sitting just in front of his home, which was now nothing more than a pile of broken masonry. He didn’t know what happened to his parents, but deep down he knew it was already too late for them, and that nothing would save him from the nightmare he could see in front of him.
Baleful eyes that had no trace of reason in them, yellow scales tainted by countless splotches of blood, still dripping. A gigantic maw that would take no effort to swallow him whole. He was paralyzed on the spot, but he also knew there was no escape from this, as he saw the nightmare take a deep breath and roar.
The roar was so powerful that even from the distance that separated him, the concussive force was enough to knock him on his butt. It was then that the beast decided it had enough and tensed his muscles… Then it exploded in movement, its footsteps thundering the ground and he wanted to close his eyes, to not see the impending doom, but he just couldn’t, he couldn’t tear his gaze away from pure malice.
The loud whistle that he hadn’t noticed until now increased in pitch, but he dismissed it, staring at death incarnate, but, for once, the impossible happened.
A blur of silver and the nightmare was stopped, knocked away from its path of annihilation. He looked towards his unexpected savior, but he couldn’t see anything except an indistinct form of silver, but he knew, for once in here, that he was safe.
Valen woke up with a gasp, breathing rapidly. His mind was racing but it took him but a moment to realize it was his usual nightmare. So he closed his eyes and did his usual breathing exercise. Deep breath in, deep breath out. He did this for a couple of minutes and then opened his eyes, though one thing bothered him. ‘I usually wake up in a scream and with a much more pronounced panic attack… And that feeling at the end, I always feel hopeless when the nightmare ends, and never have I felt safe. So… Why?’
It was then that he finally looked around him and instantly froze, because around his bed, and curled up, sleeping soundly… Was the Valstrax. Valen was nestled between its paws and its head, the powerful breaths the elder let out causing a deep hum in the air. The hunter dared not to move, lest he wake up the beast and be instantly torn into shreds for daring to enter its personal space. But then suddenly he realized something.
‘Wait a minute… I didn’t move myself, since my bed is still below me and I doubt I’d manage to move it while sleeping. Which means…’ His eyes widened in realization. ‘That it’s the Valstrax who moved and not me! But… Why would it do that? I can understand bringing me food and water, as I’d need these to stay alive. Bringing me the stick allowed it to understand how I made tools, but trying to comfort me while I’m sleeping?’
Valen was completely lost for words. He wanted to reason that it did it to comfort him yet again, but his reasoning fell flat and sounded false. Every time he thought he found a reason to pursue his previous train of thought, he found a hole in it that completely demolished it. Make itself appear vulnerable and so less hostile? It already did that, he couldn’t remember one instance of the monster appearing hostile. Making sure he couldn’t escape without waking it? Then why did it start only now?
After a while, Valen stopped trying. He didn’t want to descend into a spiral of despair where he made absurd jumps in logic to find something that would fit his current theory. ‘Okay, stopping there, it’ll only drive me crazy. That means I have to rethink my entire reasoning until now, but… I want to see what its reaction is first. Because if it’s the Valstrax that moved… It shouldn’t react negatively when it wakes up, right?’ He was nervous about his plan, because if he was wrong… Well, he didn’t think he’d be able to think about the consequences anymore anyway.
The decision was taken out of his mind when he felt the dragon shift, and he held his breath, as he was sure that the wrong movement could be interpreted negatively by his jailer, so his best course of action was to… Not move.
The elder shifted a bit more, and then his breathing shifted, going back to a normal pace. It was awake. It blinked, adjusting to the ambient darkness, then looked directly at Valen with a single eye, staring at him. The hunter gulped, he knew everything rested on this single moment, on what the silver-scaled dragon would do next. The moment felt like an eternity to him, but just as he was about to abandon his hopes and resign himself to being struck down, he felt a powerful vibration as the Valstrax rumbled.
Valene was speechless, he couldn’t believe that the elder hadn’t just disposed of him Then and there. Which meant… It was it that curled up around him trying to ward off his nightmare. Exhaling in relief, Valen realized that death wouldn’t come to him just yet. He looked at the dragon that was curled around him and then sighed. ‘I don’t know what to think anymore… I’ll try to observe it for the day without associating its actions with the justifications I thought previously… Then probably rethink my whole stance. Yeah, I want to get it right this time, because if what I thought was true wasn’t, it suggests something’s wrong with what I’ve been taught.’
Deciding on being open-minded, he set out to start his day by exercising, in front of the Valstrax this time. ‘Screw this,’ he thought. ‘Even if this elder has malicious intentions and has been acting, I don’t care anymore, it won’t be my problem either way.’ Using his crutch, he walked towards the entrance of the cave and then back, testing his injured leg cautiously a couple of times. It hurt, but not as much as he expected, which meant the injury was healing nicely. ‘I’d heal faster if I still had potions, but I used everything I had on me when I first woke up, and I’m all out of herbs. Nothing I could do about that… Unless?’ A wild thought suddenly came up to him, and he stopped mid-step.
‘This is a crazy bad idea, because if I was right about it being malicious… That’s the worst thing I could do. But if I’m not? It could help my situation.’ He paused for a minute, deliberating. ‘I’m going to wait for tomorrow just to have some relative safety though.’
If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.
He looked at the elder, and sure enough, it was interested in what he was doing, but Valen just acknowledged it and continued walking. He continued for a while until he felt he was doing too much, then, with one last push, he walked back to his bed, sat down, and exhaled in relief. That was easier to do than when he used the wall, but he might have pushed himself a tad too far. But that just meant he knew his current limits now.
He decided he’d do the exercises for his arms after he ate and digested his meal so that he got the time to rest. It was still early in the day so he supposed it’d be a while before the Valstrax would go hunting, as it usually did so around midday, which meant he had some time to kill. Valen watched as the elder stretched itself not unlike a Felyne, though he also noticed that it also did some weird motions with his wing, pulling the membrane between the trident spears taut. It also yawned, revealing small teeth—relatively speaking, compared to other monsters—in its beak, which, the hunter reflected, he had never seen on any kind of bird. But he supposed that at its size it needed something to help tear apart its large meals.
After a while, Valen got bored enough and fished his notebook from his bag, deciding that reviewing some of the entries in it would be a good enough way to occupy his day. He pulled out his pen, preparing to amend some of the entries, because most of what he wrote was from classes they did at the training school or from emergency reports when discoveries about a monster were publicized. Then he got to work.
To his surprise, there were many more entries that he expected that had “facts” that seemed pure speculation, most of them regarding Elders—but that was logical, barely anything was known about them. But some of the more ordinary monsters were also surrounded by mysticism. One of the most famous examples was about a superstition around Mizutsune, the water fox leviathan. As the story went, it was supposedly able to curse people who invaded its domain.
This was false, but several monsters had such beliefs about them. Another example was about Rathalos. It rather famously had the moniker “King of the Sky,” but the title had been given at a time when they were found everywhere, and they seemed to rule the wilds as a whole. Hunting culture also wasn’t as developed then as it now is in modern times, which meant an encounter with them was often considered a death threat, as they do not take kindly to invaders to their territory.
Thinking about it more, Valen chuckled to himself. If any monster deserved the “King of the Sky” moniker, he would give it to Valstrax, as he didn’t see any way they could be beaten in the air. Even ambushing them was close to impossible. If Rathalos had to keep their title, elevating Valstrax to “Emperors of the Sky” would only be fair.
Then Valen suddenly felt a small breeze in his neck, he turned around and suddenly jumped as he found the elder’s head almost right next to his. Quickly calming his speeding heart, he noticed the dragon’s head now tilted as if to question his surprise. The hunter shook his head, he should have expected that, but even still, the fact that a creature so large had managed to sneak up on him was surprising. But then again, he also supposed that he was so engrossed in his book that he had kind of shut out the rest of the world around him.
After he regained his wits, he closed his book and walked up to the entrance of the cave to check out what time it was… And to his surprise, midday had passed already. He hadn’t the time fly by while groaning at the obvious errors in the notebook.
He took a deep breath, to bask in the air that was at the entrance of the cave, then walked back to his bed, noticing that the elder was up and seemingly waiting for him. It walked past him, but the gaze of its stare was different this time. It was… Curious and, for some strange reason, approving? Valen had no idea where those feelings came from, but it was what came to his mind for sure. He would have to figure it out at some point.
While his host was flying for the daily meal, the hunter decided now was a good time to get a small nap, to recuperate from his exercise of the morning. He got into his bed and closed his eyes, resting himself, but still staying half-awake, his mind wandering.
He was thinking about his days at the academy when he heard his host coming back. Valen then stretched and yawned, feeling a bit better, opening his eyes just as the dragon passed by him a side-along glance with an expression Valen couldn’t decipher. Surprisingly, it was once again carrying a Bullfango, but Valen supposed he switched to another hunting ground because the Ludroth might be wary for now.
The hunter then waited for the elder to eat its fill, noting that it started by the innards before going for the meat. Seemingly knowing how to efficiently strip the bones bare by experience. It then split the rest of the carcass in twain, getting the marrow from the remaining bones. Valen was sure it would be a gruesome sight for any civilian who had never known anything of the hunting life, but he had seen worse throughout his career, his job made sure of that.
Once the elder ate its fill, it pushed the rest of his meal towards his guest, giving Valen his share. It was only a fraction of the original meal, but given the difference in size, it made sense, and Valen didn’t complain. He was glad to be able to eat at all.
He went along with his normal routine, scraping the pieces of meat off of the bones and spearing them on his stick. He turned on the flame and tended to it.
The captive hunter thought at this moment that he would love being able to make a stew instead of only roasting his meat. The problem was that he was out of herbs and vegetables, he thought for an instant about trying to get the dragon to collect some for them, before shaking his head, the main problem being how would it harvest most of them. He would have to bear with simple meat until he could get down the mountain.
The meal was quickly cooked and eaten. Then, once he stowed back his utensils, Valen just rested, digesting his meal in silence. Surprisingly enough the Valstrax did the same, laying on its side and just resting. It looked to be a somewhat awkward position but who was he to judge what a dragon found itself comfortable in?
After resting, the wounded hunter went to exercise his arms, wanting to keep in shape, so he picked up his improvised weights and trained his arms. He spent a bit longer than the previous day, but eventually, his muscles protested enough for him to stop.
He then spent the rest of the day thinking. He had observed the dragon’s actions all day long, instead of only throwing glances when he thought it wasn’t looking, and what he observed truly was something.
It hadn’t made a hostile move, at all. It had always been delicate and careful with its movement, especially when close to him. The elder made sure that Valen was left alone as much as he could, the closest it had come was this morning when he had his nightmare. It then hovered around him all day, breaking its usual pattern of being outside flying… Valen realized that it was simply curious about him and his actions and when it realized he’d do the same thing, went back to its usual routine. But now that he broke it again, he guessed it had stayed all day, only going outside for food, however, Valen noticed that the dragon felt… Odd today, it was barely perceptible to him, but he noticed that its tail was way more agitated than usual. Was it worried for him after his nightmare?
The man didn’t think that monsters were such bloodthirsty beasts that they didn’t even feel emotions, but it was truly the first time that he saw one convey any other than the most common ones being anger, fear, and impassivity. Thinking about it, the Valstrax displayed several other such emotions while he was here, the main one being curiosity, but also concern, and… Once, it was fleeting, but he remembered that this morning it had seemed to feel… Relieved?
It was all very odd and new for him but, as the night started falling, he told himself. ‘Tomorrow, I’ll do a last test, a huge jump into the unknown… If it goes the same way everything went today? It’ll be the start of something new for me. But will I have the resolve to go through this step? I… Am not sure. I hope I will.’
He had been getting sleepier and sleepier the whole while, and as soon as the thoughts had finished going through his mind, he fell asleep, a new resolve filling him.