Never think that indirect competition is invalid. Always prepare for direct conflict. The pinnacle of dominance can only be reached through the utilization of these two things.
-From Canticles: 1:1-3
Soon.
Her Instinct woke her before the obscured light of the sun even began to crest the horizon.
She sat up, tossing a couple of logs onto her fire to keep it going, and her joints popped and crackled back into place as she shook her whole body. She took a piece of dried meat from the rafters. Smokey and hard.
She hissed before gnawing on it. She was getting a bit tired of how much dried meat was in her diet though. Food is food. She poked at her Instinct, confused at the statement.
Rain. Her Instinct explained, pulling her over to a small pile of whiptail bulbs. At least those would be a change.
She took one and put that into the coals to roast. She looked out into the clearing of her shelter. Up at the falling rain. She wasn’t sure.
It doesn’t look like it will ever stop.
Soon. Her Instinct repeated. The neonate’s hindbrain knew how long it had been since the monsoon had started, not in terms of days and nights, but in terms of something she couldn’t describe to herself. Moon cycles, a sense of the natural changes of the year, or an interpretation of something from the gods. It didn’t matter which. She knew it. She could feel it.
It was like her tongue. Forgotten until thought of or used.
Need to act soon then.
Compete!
She finished the soft flesh of the bulb, licking her claws clean. Not only did it fill her belly, the heat radiated through her from her core. She savored both things equally.
Fires first, then I’ll check the snares on the way back.
Agree. Near nest. Near grave.
She didn’t like the idea of going back towards Biter and Slash’s competing territories. It was the chance of running into them that bothered her. They would likely still be recovering. Close to their nests. But both had every reason to attack her on sight now.
Injured. Her Instinct spat from her full belly.
This is true. She grabbed the bloodoak ax, sliding it into its loop. But it can’t just be them over there though. We know that Design is there, but there has to be more in that area. The matte black blade was at her side already, as it ever was.
Weaklings. Dominated. Her Instinct agreed as she started to walk towards the stairs down into the temple. Any that were there would be suppressed pretty hard by those two. Maybe a nudge would send them into a terminal spiral. She shook her head, cracking her neck above ground so it wouldn’t echo.
She walked past the carved murals as she headed down into the earth once more.
Later she found herself south of the Log Entrance, away from Biter and Slash but still on the north end of the Island. She was reapplying the scentmoss, out from the rain as best she could under the drooping leaves of a willow. She stood in the broken crotch of one of the larger branches.
It hung on to the tree with a tenacity that the neonate appreciated. Now, the fractured limb propped itself up, reaching once more to the sky even as its leaves hung towards the ground.
Vines, thick as her tail, grew up and into the tree. Grubs and beetles had bored into the wood of the exposed bark. Greedily she tore out a large chunk of punky wood with her claws, pulling out the insects and eating them.
Something fresh again! She basked in the way the beetles crunched, the way the grubs popped, the rich and unique flavor they had gained from eating the bones of the willow. Something besides tough leathery meat, tasting of little more than smoke.
A simple pleasure she appreciated.
Woodpeckers had dug into the wood for the insects before her, exposing deeper wood for the next batch. And yet the tree, like its branch, still hung on.
It refuses to lose. Not without a fight. Like me.
Not a tree. I am a predato-
Splash!
The neonate looked up. Perfectly still and listening as lightning flickered. She waited until after the rolling thunder had dissipated, somehow knowing it would happen again.
A cicada buzzed its serenade.
A Skirnet let out a mournful cry.
Splash!
Closer this time, with what could be smaller, more desperate splashes? It was hard to tell with the constant drone of rain.
She slid down the hanging branch, leaping free to take hold of the hanging leaves, She swung into a sprint along the ground. It couldn’t be Biter. She would have heard the other female’s mouth snapping shut.
Fisher? She wasn’t sure.
She slowed as she got to the pillarwood grove. Almost all of the saplings were gone.
I’ll have to start harvesting branches if this continues. She didn’t like that idea. The branches were much less uniform than the actual trunks of the young trees.
Several splashes. Someone running in the shallows.
There! Her Instinct yanked her forward, slowing at the bank. The neonate’s skin shifted to the dark green oblong shapes of the bushes. A splash of umber, thin lines, only roasted, not burnt. She watched as a frail female stared in the shallows, up to her knees.
She was thin. Not starving yet, but certainly on her way to it. She was focused on the water, where there were moving shapes. Gulpers.
Thunder snapped loudly the fishing female jerked, glancing over towards Biter’s nest.
The neonate hissed softly under the sound of the rain on the water, tongue sliding out. She noted the scars on her one shoulder.
A bite mark.
A victim of Biter’s dominance. She looked at the wound again. It had healed some time ago. Does everyone know of the herb then? She hoped not.
If that was true, she would only manage to use that aspect of her plan on Trapmaker.
Near Biter. Spied.
That made sense. She’d probably have had more success farther east, like where Harvester had been. Away from the apex competitors.
Thunder snapped loudly the fishing female jerked, glancing over towards Biter’s nest.
The neonate pondered that, scheming silently, hidden in her bush. Waiting for just the right moment. The building tension helped her ignore the chill of the rain. Settling in for the most advantageous moment.
There were several false lunges. Each only serving to make the neonate more impatient and disgusted by the lack of skill. That latter feeling only intensified by the unfairness that one that ill suited for survival was bigger than her.
She banked her rage. Storing it. Wanting it for when she pounced.
Finally, the other female shoved her head into the water. Jaws wide. Snapping down. Blood boiled up to the surface. Her shoulders getting jerked back and forth by her dying prey. Success for her at last.
Now!
She charged, the black and red coating her as she snarled. Her new rival’s head was still under the water. The neonate leaped. She was on the lesser female’s back.
Snap!
Her jaws clamped down hard on the other shoulder, shaking violently. She tasted blood. Growling loud in her foe’s ear. Making it deeper, louder, saturated in hues of menace.
The other female squealed in fear, dropping the dead fish and spinning to try and throw the neonate off. Her rival’s yellow eyes widened even more when she saw the pattern of the neonate’s black and red. She hadn’t used her own. She had copied Biter’s.
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She let the other female break free, standing on a submerged rock to look taller, snarling at the female as she fled west.
Excellent! Her Instinct hissed from the black and red, pulling at it a little, wanting her to take on her own more complex pattern. She held it for a moment longer before diving into the water to take the fish.
It took control of her movements, guiding her through how to swim. Tail undulating, hands free to grab, her legs guiding her head in the right direction.
Scentmoss. It hissed as the water flowed over her, most likely washing away the previous application.
She’d find some on her way to that other female’s nest.
She felt the warmth of sunshine yellow thoughts. They seeped through her mind like the cloud of blood seeping out of the fish into the water.
The fish wasn’t large, so it wasn’t hard to climb up one of the mangroves with it. The neonate managed to swallow large portions of it whole.
Bones. Nutrients. Good.
She moved through the dense canopy across the flooded section, heading west towards the new island. Biter’s island. The neonate spotted her defeated opponent farther north. Saw her flipping stones, searching for snipbugs. She continued towards the tidal island.
She started this way at first.
The neonate had contemplated what her response would be to being ambushed. The solution was simple.
Flee to familiar ground. Her nest is probably this way.
Learn!
This is true.
She would need to know all of the island. To study it more thoroughly than she already had. If she was to keep her subterranean pathways hidden, she would need to be able to hide from pursuit above ground. Not just that, but to also not have her first impulse be to sprint towards whatever entrance she had first used.
I also need to know where they all come out.
Distracted!
She made it to Biter’s island, running, one foot in front of the other along a wrist thick vine. It stretched under her weight, lowering towards a toppled column. She jumped from the vine to the ruin, the vine swishing back up to its usual position. From there she jumped to the ground, tongue flickering out to smell which way to go. It was close. The smell of the bullied female was strong.
Following the scent, she found it by almost falling through the roof of the shelter. The female had built up against a notch in a small earthen cliff. It was efficient, the gravel laden soil held in place by a tight blanket of roots from the spruce pine trees and the creeping vines. All she had needed to make was a sloping roof to keep out the rain.
Why hasn’t Biter destroyed the nest here? It didn’t make any sense, this female was close enough. A short journey for the apex to assert her dominance.
Resource. It wasn’t just an explanation, her Instinct named the other female that with contempt.
The neonate hissed with pleasure. She would be striking a blow against Biter too then if she ruined Resource’s chances of survival. Biter had to be using Resource in that way, stealing kills occasionally, supplementing her own hunts with the work of others.
All apexes must do this then… Slash, Bowmaker, and Fisher, maybe even Axmaker and Design. Utilizing the remaining energy of the weaker hatchlings to supplement their own feeding and resources.
If I want to be an apex I-
I am an Apex. Her Instinct snarled.
A sudden flare of understanding burst in her mind.
She had stolen knowledge, tools, food, and provisions from the most dangerous competitors on the Island. She had faced beasts, abominations, and Smoothskins with otherworldly weapons. She had even tricked the most powerful being amongst them, Tok.
She was an Apex.
Yes! The sibilance of that thought flowed from her Instinct.
Time to start acting like one.
She slid over the side of the hill the shelter was built into, using her claws to slow her descent. Smoke still wisped out of the open front form some coals. The inside of the nest quite sparse.
She dug through the bedding, made from leaves instead of nice soft pillarwood fibers, searching, not finding anything of value. She spotted a crude hand ax, not even hafted yet. She took that and what meager stores she could find, berries and a few whiptail bulbs. No dried meat at all. She growled.
It’s pathetic. Resource really was a weakling for letting Biter stagnate her progress like this. She looked at the coals. The wood piled in the corner. The reed thatched roof.
Destroy… Her Instinct growled from her own bared teeth.
The neonate tossed the bedding and the stacked wood onto the coals. She even tore out some of the roof reeds and tossed them on, little flames starting to kindle again. It flared bright, the fire growing and growing.
More! Her Instinct demanded, and she jogged back out and up to the roof.
Lightning flashed and she lifted the bloodoak ax. She brought it down with force, working quickly to smash the roof open. Each strike echoed. She knew she had to be quick. She tore with her claws, throwing the dryer thatch at Resource’s fire. It reached higher, hungering more and more the bigger it grew. Sparks jumped high like fleas out of it.
She checked over her shoulder, looking out across the water. She could see Resource looking up, then start to slosh in her direction.
Biter too! Hurry! Her Instinct snarled, yanking her away from the shelter as the roof finally caught.
The wet wood popped and shot tiny coals and embers every which way. Some bounced off her, stinging as they burned, but others got caught in the needles of the pine trees. Smoldering, smoking, and then catching into little flames.
In a matter of moments, almost too quick for her to escape, the tree and its neighbor were ablaze. Heat assaulted her. She ran from it. She hadn’t meant to make a beacon for all to see. Smoke for all to smell.
It roared in the night, dominant black smoke and submissive white steam spiraling in oxymoronic spirals to make gray.
Snap!
Her eyes went wide. It was coming from the north! She would have mistaken it for thunder if it wasn’t for the day before.
Snap snap!
Like two heavy stones smacking together. Getting closer.
I have to run! She didn’t think it was to defend Resource, but it didn’t matter. The neonate was in the sphere of Biter’s influence, and so Biter would chase her down if she could. The little predator started towards one of the trees, to hide.
Moss! Idiot!
Fuck! She had forgotten to reapply the moss after diving into the water.
Biter would be able to follow her scent. She’d notice if the neonate tore up the moss from one of the branches now.
Snap!
She could also hear Resource’s screams of rage too, coming from the east.
There wasn’t anything for it. She ran south. She shifted her scales to match her surroundings, looking over to the main island.
Where is it? It had to be somewhere visible! He had dumped the guts into the river from there!
She looked back.
Biter came around a boulder, using a branch she had torn free, leaning on it so that she charged forward with a skipping hop. The jagged zig zag of the black and red around her mouth looked like blood in the light of the burning pines.
The neonate looked to the east, the earthen cliff tapering off as she continued south. Resource was just getting to the bank, but she only had eyes for the burning trees.
Good, distracted by loss.
Run idiot! Find!
She looked back to the southeast again.
There! Ropemaker’s tree. She could see outcroppings of rock that would lead her there if she swam.
Those look close enough.
She heard Biter’s bellow just as she dove into the water.
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Now let’s see what you can do, child.
Yes! Perfect! What a lovely challenge.
Don’t get too excited Maruc. And don’t interrupt, I need to concentrate.
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She swam as hard as she could. The current was stronger than she had expected, but she struggled through. She made it to the first algae covered rock. It was under the surface, but close enough to it that she might be able to get her bearings. She reached out, but her claws scraped the green algae free as the current yanked her away.
It sent her into a tumble, and she cracked her head against something. Stars burst in front of her eyes, and she was completely disoriented.
Live! Air! Her Instinct forced her to push herself, her struggles scaring away fish as she thrashed towards the surface. Lightning lit the world around her, made eerie as the water tinted it greenish-brown.
She could be floating away downstream. Lost from the island.
I have to see! She reached out for another stone, catching hold. Trying to get her head up!
It pulled free! Wobbling weirdly.
Snap! She hastily let go as the snapping turtle bit at her, missing by the width of a scale. It sank back to the bottom, beaked jaws opened in a threatening way as she was dragged farther downriver.
The neonate tried to surface, but the roiling waters shoved her back down, and she refused to ditch her things. She needed them to compete. The bag was blazing with light now, illuminating everything around her with the steady blue light of its runes.
In its light she saw a silhouette that filled her with almost gibbering fear.
An alligator was swimming towards her.
Shit!
She drew her matte black blade. As it moved within reach she stabbed at it, still holding her breath. It snarled, jaw wide. Blood filled the water, but the wounds couldn’t have been serious as the beast kept coming after her. If she had solid footing she knew she could do better.
It was going to rip her apart!
Live! Adapt!
She didn’t know what to do. The alligator’s jaw opened wide as it rushed forward. It was charging like Biter.
Have to get away from those jaws. But she couldn’t outswim it. She had to fight it.
Snarling she relied on the creature’s Instinct, tapping the tip of her knife on the roof of its mouth.
Thump! The jaws slammed shut, the sound muffled under the water. Blood spurted out from the bit of the knife that was in between the teeth.
It tried to snap again, but she had already grabbed the jaws, squeezing them shut. The beast started to roll. Smashing her against the bottom to try and knock her off. She stabbed at the beast, but the tip of the knife kept bouncing off of the thick bone of the skull and scutes.
Damn it! She needed air!
She couldn’t hang on forever. But she needed to find a safer position. Growling, still holding her breath, she twisted, getting onto the thing’s back and digging in her toeclaws to free both hands.
Lit in the light of the bag, she and the beast tumbled downstream. She grabbed her ax. She slammed it into the beast’s head. Once, twice, three times! Each strike leaving gouges and shattered scutes.
Base of the skull! Into the brain! Her Instinct guided.
It bellowed, thrashing ever harder, jaws snapping, neck twisting, trying to get a hold of her. The claws on one foreleg scratched her shin and she shuffled back away from them as best she could.
They broke the surface. Still spinning. Not long enough to get enough breath.
It was long enough to properly aim the ax though.
Lightning flashed as the ax went high. Thunder boomed as the ax went low. She smashed the beasts thick scaled hide, doing her best to make blood flow.
Right into the at the base of the skull. Feeling something break.
As the beast crashed beneath the rushing water, the neonate stabbed in as hard as she could with her knife.
Something resisted the point. She growled, leaning against it as the beast rolled and thrashed.
Die!
She lifted the ax again. Gripping the pommel of her knife in the other hand. The beast broke the surface, she was about to get thrown free.
The neonate used the bloodoak ax as a hammer. Smashing the back of it onto the pommel of her knife, driving the earthbone blade into the skull of the giant reptile with a satisfying crunch!
The pommel chipped the ax, but she didn’t care. She had killed it!
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She is resourceful. I can see why you like her, Fire-Bringer. She turned to smile at me.
I didn’t like Her tone, or that smile, but Maruc stomping about and starting several skirmishes in His rage was distracting.
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The creature sank below the surface, bumping along the bottom and lodging itself against a long sunken log. Frantically she yanked at her knife, still needing air. Her lungs were screaming. Her vision fading.
But she couldn’t let go of the black blade. It was hers!
Live! Struggle! Her Instinct screamed, filling her whole body and joining her will as she pulled.
The blade slid free! And again, she was tumbling through the water.
Air!
She struggled upwards. Forcing herself.
Her head cracked against something as she rushed by!
Wobbling bubbles of her held breath fleeing from her lips.
Need air!
The neonate struggled to figure out what way was up as she was washed downstream, away from the island.