Tail whipping behind him and the wing like filaments of his ears spread out their farthest, he sat on the highest rock in his swamp.

"Hungry", Spoke the beast. "Danger", replied the man. He slowly shifted his tense body, looking around for something to distract him.

The swamp felt fuller now than when he awoke eight winters ago. There was life in the air. But it looked emptier. He had eaten much of many of the dominant species here and so there was now space for other, rarer species.

And now few things in the swamp provoked his appetite.

His gaze once more turned to the forest. It was silent and filled with appetising smells. He knew many creatures that lived there now, having seen them during his stargazing sessions over the years, and even though he had grown from the approximate size of a housecat to that of a wolf, he felt no way confident to live there.

"Hungry", complained the beast anyway.

It was the end of summer and so the man was also restless, but still he held back.

For giving in might give the beast control and it might throw all caution to the wind.

And so he waited for the day to end, like he had for weeks now.

Until a new smell entered his nostrils.

And it was different. No. They were different. A herd of totally unknown creatures, but they smelled sublty like him.

The man was confused, but the beast was already gliding though the swamp at speeds exceeding every olympic swimmer in the mans memory.

He cautioned: "Danger", but was summarily ignored. They smelled like him. No, the man could not stop it, for he wanted to go too.

Too long had he rested in the swamp. Too long had he not truly celebrated his freedom.

And so they went. And where the swamp ended, they breached the surface with a swift leap and left behind all mud and dirt, their dark emerald scales emerging as they rushed into the forest in a run. As first they were loud and shaky, but as the man remembered and the beast learned, they grew graceful and quiet.

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Trees rushed by ever faster, sleeping beasts and hidden lairs half seen and remembered as they focussed on the creatures that smelled ever so sublty like them.

And soon the smell grew nearer and clearer. "Danger", the man cautioned once more and looked up to the trees. The beast understood and soon they were slowing down to a mere quick walk. Then his ears perked up. Sounds in the distance. The man led them downwind of the commotion in the distance and when they were, they carefully climbed a tree with broad branches. Once they were on a suitable branch, they jumped. Their young wings unfurled and just like they had glided from rock to rock in the swamp, the traversed the distance to another tree.

Beneath them, a herd of strange herbivores watched them, but made no move to do anything but continue to eat. Their brown and mossy green fur blending into the forest quite well.

And so they continued jump after careful jump. Until they came upon a clearing. And saw five dozen strange people gathered below. They were sitting in groups, eating dried foods and chatting away. And they were big.

While their upper bodies reminded the man of his former kin, their lower bodies were humungous snake tails. And their proportions meant that many of them, especially the women, were over two times his length, with his tail included. About five meters, the man guessed. Some of them had strange stumps on their backs or somwhere on the front of their snake tails. Some even had horns or antlers. These smelled a lot closer to him than the others.

But they were still not kin. That's when another, very faint smell hit him. He focussed on it and searched the group frantically. In it's midst sat three people that were sublty different. The first was a woman that was covered in fine garments instead of the fur the rest of the group were wearing. And she was holding a great colourful orb over a small fire. Her strange chants, like half forgotten memories, reached him all the way where he stood.

The second was an especially big male. He bore the most beatiful of the furs. And beside him lay a spear tipped with a sharp piece of bone and a big shield of the same strange material. And the third was by far the oldest of the group and he moved strangely. He never looked to places he did things.

Then the woman turned the orb. It was an eye. The shield was a scale and the spear tipped with the broken off tip of a claw. A part of his people. And suddenly, he shook in anger. The man came to his senses first and refocussed them. The people were looking up. Looking at him. One made a strange noise and threw a spear that barely missed.

He didn't even have time to react. He turned on his feet and jumped off as hard as he could, gliding into the deep green. But he could hear them coming. He jumped and jumped and jumped, getting better, getting faster each time, but still they came closer. A thrown net barely evaded. His young wings were growing tired as well. So he did the only thing he could think of. And as another group circled around from the front, slithering closer with their upper bodies close to the ground.

He jumped into the ground. If the swamp was to him like water to a fish, then the ground felt like tar. Sticky and tough and every bit took him incredible effort. But fear drove him on until he could go no longer and he rested, slowly fading to darkness deep in the rock.