Competition is hottest between individuals trying to fill the same niche.
-From Aphorisms: 1:4
The neonate replaced the newly smoothed head of her bloodoak ax back into the haft, pulling the rous sinew snug and tying a tight knot.
What once had looked like a half-gnawed hunk of meat, chunks here and there bitten out of the surface, was now smooth. Its edge was sharp enough to gouge into wood, but rounded enough that it wouldn’t break easily. It was a thing of simple beauty now, like her knife.
She had ground in furrows along each side of it so that the split haft would sit more snugly around it as well.
Good! Learned. Her Instinct purred, looking at the hole she had dug to give her a space to use the rounded corners of the path stones for the cheeks of the ax head. The path had turned out to be the perfect surface to do all the work on the ax.
None of the stones had budged, and there were no signs of wear at all on any of them either. The runes carved in them were each a little pool of water in the stone, and some were now full of fine sand from the ax head. The rain was doing a good job washing it all away.
Before working on the ax, the Greenscale had experimented with small amounts of pine sap, charcoal, and rous dung, having pulled one from a snare over by the Ropemaker exit. She wasn’t sure what she was looking for, but she knew what she was smelling for, and she had found a ratio that seemed close enough.
Two, one, one. Two parts sap, to one part each of dung and charcoal.
The best part in her mind, apart from the functionality itself, was the pine tar was black, and would blend well. The sinew had always been a bit too bright, not blending well with the shadows and underbrush.
She gave a generous coating to the ax, strengthening it, but by the time she was done there was quite a bit left.
Misjudged how much I’d need. She examined how much remained.
Waste. Her Instinct hissed.
The neonate didn’t want that. It could be useful somewhere else. She contemplated what to do with the stuff.
Could try and… She looked at the stick she had used to apply to the ax. It had cooled pine tar on it in little drips. Hang on. Would the pine tar melt again?
She held the application stick over the coals, and was delighted to see that it did indeed get glossy, starting to flow once more. The little predator took the stick away from her fire and let the tar cool while she moved the stone she had made the whole batch on near the fire to heat once more.
Scoop by scoop, she gathered what remained onto the stick, letting each layer cool in between. As she went it got faster to do, and when she was done, she rubbed it between her scaly palms.
She had realized early on in her experiments that she could make the coating matte and also smooth to the touch by touching it. The neonate then took a thin cord and knotted it around the stick, hanging the whole thing from the end of a branch that was part of the rafters.
Good, can keep it on hand and out of the way now.
Her Instinct hummed, pleased she found a way to not waste it.
Looking at the small stick of pine tar, the neonate blinked thoughtfully.
Lightning flashed.
I should get more.
Thunder clapped.
Dangerous. Her Instinct thought of Bowmaker.
Yes, so I’ll have to look for other pines. She walked through to the back of the shelter, scooping a handful of water out of the rivulet as she went, drinking it before climbing up her tree in the back.
Up in the branches she looked across the island, protecting her eyes from the rain. She thought she could see pine trees off in the distance to the northeast of her. Could explore that path in the temple then.
She wanted to try one more thing though, the darkness of the pine tar giving her an idea to help her ax blend even more. She slid down the side of the tree and hopped back under her shelter.
She fed the hungry little fire, placing larger pieces of wood that it would take some time to gnaw through before searching through her possessions. She grunted when she found the little container of the black liquid, pulling out the stopper.
Smell. Her Instinct noted as she poured a little of the liquid on and coated the wood.
I’ll coat it with moss after.
The little container bounced against her hip, inside the bag. She hadn’t been sure if she’d need to use it again in the rain. The pigmentation remained for now, she had let it dry a bit, but she didn’t want to be out there and need the liquid and not have it.
In a perfect world, the stoppered container would be tied directly to her belt, but the clear material it was made of was too shiny, especially in the rain. Her tongue flickered out and she winced.
Haft still smells.
Warned.
She wasn’t concerned. The Greenscale had transplanted some scentmoss from outside her territory and placed it on several branches of her tree, hoping for it to grow. Like planting the herb berries, she wanted to have a supply within the safety of the warren.
Because of that plan, she had taken only the tiniest amount of the moss from each spot, not wanting to disturb the growth of the rest, just to see if it would work. She was pleased to find that it had lessened the smell.
Just need more moss. It would be the first thing she did after leaving the temple anyway. With that in mind, the little predator walked down the path towards the temple stairs.
The herbs had sprouted. She tried not to notice for now. Her Instinct tried to force her to look.
Lightning flashed and thunder gnashed.
She’d use more moss once she was out of the temple. On the haft of the ax. She jerkily made her way past the dried herbs and down the stairs.
She couldn’t help but acknowledge that she was fleeing from plants.
I am fighting for my survival though. It didn’t feel true.
At the dais, she did her usual prayer and quick touch up of some of the luminescent markings before heading northeast. She also filled the bag with the mushrooms too, and it ate them greedily. Just to make sure it wouldn’t flicker and flash in the new space.
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Good. A challenge for you, last daughter of the hero. Last hatched of the bloodline.
This Guy, I swear. Good luck Kiddo.
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The path in this direction led to several huge rooms, hundreds of niches carved into them, about two feet high, four feet deep, and six feet long. And every single one was empty.
The feeling of being observed shifted as soon as she stepped into one. The room was dry. Cold. And the unseen gaze on the back of her head shifted owners. She wasn’t sure how she knew, but the little predator could sense it.
It was a calming presence, an enticing presence, and that alone made her not trust it. It made her think of pitcher plants, luring flies with sweet nectar only to snap shut over them once they fell in. The neonate growled, glaring, daring some beast to spring its trap.
Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.
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Yeah, sorry about that Kiddo. It’s cause She is lonely.
Silence.
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The sound of pouring water continued to echo.
Nothing leaped out to get her.
She gripped her knife and backed out of the room. There was nothing in there for her, so she continued towards where there would inevitably be a door.
When she got to the end she found that the door had a particular carving in it. A half circle, a line for the pupil.
Ravo’s eye. She looked back at the rooms. Carved slots just big enough for people to rest in. A barrow?
Ignore. Door.
Turning back to the exit, the neonate looked at the eye, searching for a mechanism. But try as she might, she couldn’t discover any.
Then she remembered how Tok had drawn it in the mud.
Half circle first. She traced the shape with her claw, the same way she remembered Tok drawing it when he had talked about the spiders.
She waited, feeling a little silly.
Click.
She blinked.
Click-Clack! Scrrrrrrrrrrrnnnnnn…
The door slowly opened, and she could smell the rain outside, hear it assaulting the leaves and stones. The opposite side was smooth, covered in moss and lichen, and there, on one side, tiny, was the same carved symbol. A huge rotting trunk of a tree blocked the way in from sight, and the door came out of what looked like a huge bolder, not a ruin.
With yellow thoughts she let the door shut, the leaf of a vine from the trunk covering it.
She placed her hand over the symbol and heard a much muffled click-clack as the latch came undone again. She lifted her hand and let the door shut once more.
Easy. Good.
The little predator shifted her pattern and made her way up into the canopy, climbing the tree.
Bloodoak. Her Instinct hissed as soon as she touched the rough bark.
So was this where Ropemaker had gotten the haft for her ax? She knew from both use of the tool and her Instinct that Bloodoak was incredibly good for tools, but this one was old enough to be punky.
Grubs. Her Instinct confirmed, picking one out that was about five inches long and popping it into her mouth. It burst in a delightful way when she bit down.
Perhaps there is more than one tree of interest up here. The Greenscale swallowed before her tongue flickered out. Her eyes bulged.
That smell!
Dread filled her.
She knew that scent. Biter’s rival. A contender for the apex of apex competitors on the Island.
Slash!
Claws tore up bark as she scrambled.
Higher! Safety!
She leapt from the rotting log and grabbed the end of a bough, pulling herself up and into it and going even higher. She needed the safety of the thinner branches, not sure even that was enough.
Hurry, need to see. She didn’t know if he was ten yards away or a hundred, but he was a deadly problem for her.
She ran to the end of the limb and sprung from it, grabbing a vine and using it to swing up onto the branch of an even taller tree.
When she finally felt safe she slowed down, blending, taking some sharp turns and finally coming to a halt to look and see if anything was approaching.
She spotted a python several trees over, some rous fifty yards away, and maybe the trail of a tikabo, slimy and sinuous. But that was all. She was alone. For now.
I’ll have to be careful.
Agreed.
It wasn’t quite strong enough to be deep in his territory, but he had just passed by. Ran up the log from the smell and traveled west.
Why west? That was towards the original nest and Tok. Past that was her first shelter, the grubby log. She tried to think of what else.
Focus. Moss. Sap.
She shifted on the branch, pulling some of the moss up and scrubbing herself and the pigmented ax. It rubbed some of the coloring away, but it no longer smelled. Looking around she got her bearings, and could see the tall pines she had noticed from her territory. She headed off in that direction.
When she finally got to the grove of pines she found herself in awe. Not of their size, though they were large, but rather the colors and smells all around.
Bowmaker’s camp was pungent with the smell of pine, but this…
It had a sense of being something established, immovable, everlasting.
A place where Szez’tek Vooznal itself placed its claws. It wasn’t verdant, or particularly lush, but there was something primal about the area. So vibrant, so different. Mushrooms, needles, and bright red squirrels.
She eyed a particularly fat one hungrily, but she stopped herself. The last thing she needed was the smell of blood, especially with the wind blowing in the direction that she suspected Slash had headed.
So ignoring that for now, she slipped through the canopy of the pines, drawing her knife in preparation to gather the resin she had come for.
Her Instinct growled, full of granite gray suspicion.
She turned and looked behind her, not sure why but needing to check. It was much the same as everywhere else though. Slowly she moved into the pines.
This is incredible. It was so easy to move from tree to tree, the branches just like the pines over by Bowmaker. Leveled. Making it easy to traverse and climb vertically. But it wasn’t perfect.
More than once she found herself looking for a vine that just wasn’t there, or was too small for her, or was so long dead that she worried that it would snap in her grip.
I am not used to this territory.
It was worth it though, as there was an incredible amount of resin to collect. It was everywhere.
It was where limbs had been broken off, old scrapes from the fauna, even a place that looked to be a healed over lightning strike. She dug at them with her knife, piling them into the bag, working to get as much as she could.
She found a particularly large chunk and broke it off, opening the bag and putting it-
WHACK!
Her vision shuttered as something cracked her on the side of the head and the neonate nearly tumbled out of the tree.
The neonate barely managed to grab the branch as she fell, swinging to the layer below instead, snarling and trying to blink away stars. She could hear the soft sounds of pursuit behind her.
How?
Smell.
Not the ax. She couldn’t smell the pigment.
Smell! Her Instinct repeated unhelpfully.
Ignoring her confusion she landed and spun, slashing with the matte black blade.
Design hissed behind her, leaning back and away as the very tip of her blade knicked his throat, a tiny cut that didn’t even go through his scales.
His skin matched the bark of the pine tree. Moving like he was comfortable in the pines, he leaped back onto a different branch, out of her reach for the moment. The little warrior noted his hues and patterns were a lot closer than the last time they had met.
He’s been practicing.
“I am glad you came.” He hissed in a whisper, “Accept this gift.”
His arm shot forward, something jagged glittering there.
No!
Move!
She leaned back and slipped, an obsidian blade, shining in the male’s hand. She gripped with her toeclaws so that she didn’t fall out of the tree and hissed as he stamped on them, forcing her to let go.
Lightning not even fifty yards away lanced into the river with a deafening bang, ruining her vision for a moment.
Still seeing spots she tried to grab at the next level of branches as it rushed towards her, hands spread wide. One slapped into her palm and she swung out, letting go and still struggling to see. With a thump, she hit the trunk of the next tree and frantically held on to it.
Down! Her Instinct barked, pushing the pain aside.
She had to move, regroup, lose him. And the bolt that had ruined her sight had to have ruined his.
It was to his back!
Shit!
Suddenly he was swinging in on a hidden rope, stone blade humming.
“Consume you!” One-eye’s voice invaded her mind.
No! Not again!
The neonate leaped away, and a thin painful line opened up along the ridge of her snout. She had barely gotten away.
Aiming for my throat! She growled, her black and red flickering across her body for an instant. Fine! He already knew her secret skill. Time to see if you can keep up!
She flexed her skin scanning the area, shifting color and pattern as she moved more intricately than ever before. Eyes wide, roving, the neonate set about memorizing all the hues and patterns and levels of saturation even as she landed on a fallen pine propped up by three others.
C-crack!
The whole thing shifted as her weight was added. She ran down the propped tree and glanced behind her, seeing Design swing back and let go of the rope as he leaped after her. A thin branch smacked her in the face, the scent of pine pungent in her nose for a moment.
Needles!
The moss was what had given her away, it was the wrong smell. Like at Bowmaker’s outpost.
Jump now! Her Instinct snarled.
She sprung out into open air, seeing a branch lower down to land on.
CRACK!
The propped tree broke through the branches!
Design yelped as it fell out from under him, the needles of all the surrounding trees hissing like a thousand reptiles. They drowned out the squeaking cries of the birds nesting there as they fled, startled.
The neonate landed on the branch of a far tree, startled by just how much it bent but staying on and running towards thicker sections.
She glanced back, eyes slits, seeing where her opponent was.
THUMP!
The tree was caught by lower branches and Design staggered.
Damn. It would have solved her problem if he fell the whole way, but it wasn’t a total loss.
He growled, glaring up at her, too far down to get to the same tree she was in. Even as she watched his own camouflage locked in, and he became hard to discern as he leapt into a neighboring tree.
Perfect.
She rushed forward, thinking rapidly.
Break line of sight. Find a hiding spot. Ambush or flee after. She did have all she had come for already. If she could get away that in and of itself would be a victory.
She tore free needles left and right, scrubbing her body and the ax with them as she found a thick branch to hang under. Her bag she had resting on her stomach to hide it. She hung there, listening, trying to hear him through the rain and the branches and the roar of the monsoon. She kept her eyes mostly closed, trying to move her head as little as possible.
She adjusted her hues the tiniest amount as lightning flashed bright. The flare of it giving her a better look at what colors she should be using.
She had to pay attention to those for offensive reasons too, as Design still wasn’t perfect at it like her. It was hard because she couldn’t really look down without feeling like she would give herself away.
Need to move. Better view.
So carefully, painstakingly, she let herself slide down the trunk, shifting her pattern as she went.
There were some ferns down at the bottom, and she deftly sunk into them, the greens much easier for her to match than the cloud grays of the trees around her.
Where? She sniffed the air, but of course she couldn’t-
There!
It surprised her, she could smell him?
No, that male is too tall to be Design. Then she realized.
Shit! She slowly backed deeper into the ferns.
Fear filled her.
Slash was stalking through the undergrowth.
Eloquent as ever, her Instinct hissed.
Fuck…