Some challenges though, are too much for a neonate to face. The goal is to have them prove themselves worthy of a name, not to die where any neonate would. Step in when necessary if you can. Do better the next time if you can’t, and kill their killer.
-From Neonatum Provisae: 1:10-13
The bottom bumped against the neonate’s feet and she redoubled her efforts, her head finally breaking the surface. She gasped for air, gagging, battered, bleeding, but alive. She staggered into the shallows and collapsed in the sandy mud. Gulping down air.
She had survived! Now to figure out where she had ended up. She was still in the smoke, so not overly far, but a fire like that might send the smoke traveling for miles and miles. The neonate staggered to her feet, the bag at her side no longer glowing.
That’s not good.
Weapons!
She checked her belt. The matte black blade and the bloodoak ax were both still there.
Well, that is something.
She checked inside the bag. It was filled with murky pinkish water. All the meat was waterlogged. Ruined. Floating in silt, the color leaching out of it.
What was worse was, digging into the bag, a lot of the meat was missing. Whether washed out or eaten like the glowing mushrooms by the bag itself, she couldn’t tell. Some of the fragrant liquid spattered onto the sand as she checked.
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I cannot stand this. Recall me if something INTERESTING happens. I was glad to see that idiot leave.
So, why do you care so much for her? Sallinnia asked once Maruc was far enough gone not to hear.
“I like her spirit.” I couldn’t mention anything more. She’d use it against me.
I don’t think she bought it.
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The neonate snapped her jaws, scales flickering hateful red.
The neonate wanted to smash something! Hunt something, anything!
Kill!
Her clawed hands clenched painfully on the air, wanting, needing to drive the life and blood out of some struggling thing!
That had been her meat! Her prize!
It explains why the crocodile came after me. The thought was underpinned with caged frustrations. She looked back upstream as something splashed loudly. Maybe it survived? It would be surprising if it did.
As she shifted, she found the slightly abrasive feeling of the sand in-between her toes pleasant, trying to look through the choking smoke. She coughed.
Distraction! Find!
She couldn’t see the island! She moved towards the smoke, at the edge of the water. She couldn’t see it!
“No.”
Somewhere in the back of her mind, her Instinct screeched in utter despair. Dread, heavy as the tree in her territory, nearly crushed her then.
She snapped her jaw. She adopted the red and black for her own emotions.
I could just be looking in the wrong direction. No that was wrong. Or rather, too far away. Just means I need to make it to the mainland and trek north.
Survive! Thrive! Her Instinct choked out as she coughed.
If she really was away from the island, she’d most likely die, but that just meant she had to try harder. If she lived, then she needed to be on the hatchery island to pass her trial. That meant that she needed to get back.
Nothing new, and I’ve been through too much to give up now.
Live!
She coughed, the smoke of the fires she had started making it hard to see far.
I need a tree.
No! Smoke! Stay low. Her Instinct hissed from her toes.
But she needed to see. It pained her to hold her breath again after nearly drowning, but she forced herself to as she climbed. She spotted a nest, still ever hungry. It was empty. With a snarl she knocked it out of the tree and continued upwards.
Maybe if there is another camp here on this island I can recoup some of my losses.
Doubt.
She climbed higher, the wind making the tree sway and forcing her to take her time lest she lose her grip and fall. She kept an eye out for snakes, constrictors preferably, but found none. If there were any on this island they had been forced lower down by the smoke. She looked towards the fires. She would have to speculate.
I know I am south, but how far?
She hissed softly, immediately regretting it as she coughed and gagged. Blinking the rain and smoke out of her eyes, she scanned the shoreline. She thought she could recognize some of it. It was hard to tell though. She had never really had a need to pay too much attention to the far shore.
I think that is the same tree that got struck by lightning all those cycles ago.
It was almost the right shape. Which meant she wasn’t hopelessly far away.
If I am right about that tree.
She wasn’t sure how she was going to get back, not without getting a better view. She coughed again, getting dizzy.
Get down. Her Instinct was in her lungs.
But she hadn’t figured out where she was. She needed to take advantage of the smoke to get back. She kept looking, and a thought started to form in her mind.
Am I on that little island? She coughed again, spitting out the taste.
Her Instinct grunted. East. See. Get down!
The neonate was running out of breath to hold. The smoke had completely enveloped her up in the canopy. She nodded to herself, and clambered down, focusing on one claw at a time. Coughing and snorting. It burned her eyes and tore at her lungs. She needed to breathe.
Lower. Her Instinct wheezed, guiding her down and under the smoke.
She stumbled onto the ground and was glad that she had gotten out of the haze, for the second time that day gulping air. She made her way east, prowling through the undergrowth, finding a berry bush. She picked it clean. She looked at the cuts on her arm, surprised to find she had completely forgotten about them.
Need to take care of this as soon as I can. She made a point of clamping down on her Instinct before it even started.
Something was odd about the island, and it took her a while to pick out exactly what. The neonate pushed aside a fern, ducking under a vine. She walked around a cypress tree. That was when she finally realized.
Where are the ruins?
There were none. No strangely carved stones, no unnoticed paths that led nowhere. No uniform shapes at all.
She had become used to seeing them, looking for them, being curious about any other paths down under the island. That made her worry that she was farther down the river than she had previously thought. Thunder grumbled off in the distance.
She pushed out of the underbrush, reaching the other side. She snapped her jaw. The smoke was even thicker on this side, billowing gray clouds of it blocking her vision. She didn’t have any idea of what to do now.
The neonate shook her head, neck joints popping, and something caught her eye. Long strands of cordage, stretched between two pillarwood poles sunk deep into the sand. A net stretched between them. The river sloshed loudly.
Someone does live here.
She moved farther out, and spotted an odd construction. Several tree trunks had been sunk into the mud and sand on this side of the island. Shaped wood, like the pieces that made up Tok’s smoker, but straight, had been attached to them, forming a path out over the water. Several gaps here and there spoke of some being knocked free or pried up.
And not too far down the beach there was a shelter made with the same material.
She let her tongue flicker out, but she could only smell the smoke.
Closer. Carefully.
She slid forward, but as she got around the corner, she could tell there was nobody there. Once she was close enough though, she could smell another’s scent in the structure. Female. Greenscale. But that was about all she knew for certain right then.
Maybe it is an adult, could take me back to the island?
No! Would kill me! Live! Her Instinct snarled contemptuously.
She continued to look around the shelter. It was the strangest one she had seen yet, built with more of the strangely shaped wood.
Probably the pieces from the weird path that had been pulled up.
She ran a claw along a corner. Hard bumps and orange stains dripping down the wood made it clear. The pieces were held in with earthbone, fastening the wood together by piercing it.
The story has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.
The uniformity of the pieces made for a unnatural square structure, sort of like Trapmaker’s, but this construction was recent. Some of the ends were much brighter in color than the long flats. More of a sunset orange than the faded sun-worn gray-brown of the rest of the wood.
Been resized.
The neonate moved closer, coming around the side, finding an open doorway of sorts.
Shells and fish bones of every possible description were separated into several piles inside. Clam shells, fish skulls, the cracked armor of snipbugs, freshwater crabs torn into pieces. There was even a cracked open ikakiax, though it took her Instinct a second to name it for her.
The shell of the swimming crustacean was about two feet long, only slightly bigger than one of her arms. It had been split down the belly, the many swimming legs like a millipede’s still attached. The meat had long been scooped out. She had checked, hopeful there might be something inside, considering the size of it. But no such luck.
Why keep this? It seemed pointless unless there was some use she wasn’t thinking of.
The nest though, that held the answers she wanted. It was like hers. Exactly like hers. Made of shredded smoothskin rags and the inner fibers of pillarwood bark. She sniffed the nest.
Fisher. Her Instinct confirmed.
It wasn’t for certain, she didn’t know the unique parts of the scent. She hadn’t been close enough that one time she had spotted Fisher. All of the hatchlings shared similar scents though. Which meant it was definitely one of her rivals.
She’s the only one that could get here and back. Though she hadn’t thought it possible. That meant she had to be on one of the southwestern islands.
Big one. Her Instinct speculated.
I am not too far from the Island then!
Calm. Swim.
Her joy crumpled into ash. That was true, against the current.
She dug through the shells, looking for something to eat. Dried meat, whiptail bulbs, more berries, something. Nothing.
Is she eating only fresh fish?
Well, she might as well do what damage she could to the Apex.
The neonate used her ax to dismantle the shelter as best she could, tossing each piece of it into the river. She wasn’t going to be able to take apart the strange path, but at least Fisher would have to work to rebuild. The demolition went quickly, the little earthbone fasteners coming loose more easily than the wood split.
That just left the shells.
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Push them in, child.
I had a bad feeling about this.
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If she wants to keep them, I should get rid of them. She couldn’t think of a use for the things, but it was as simple as that. She started piling them into her bag, packing it full. She took several trips over to the river, pouring out the reeking shells into it. She moved quickly. There was no knowing when Fisher would return.
Pouring the last of the shells and tossing the unfinished net with them, she felt a general feeling of accomplishment. Now she needed a way back, though there was only one tree she could see on this side of the island.
Maybe there is one to the south. She thought she remembered.
She turned away from the raging river, taking a step to head inland. The river roared behind her.
The back of her neck bristled and she lowered her head between her shoulders.
Something is wrong.
Exposed!
She crouched, scanning the tree-line.
It’s getting closer whatever it is. She bared her teeth, pulled out her knife and ax. It felt like eyes again.
Again with these damned eyes! Where are they? But the feeling was different now. More… terrestrial.
The feeling grew stronger.
Splash!
Something huge! Right behind her!
Yelping, she leaped forward, looking over her shoulder.
Her scales went deathly white.
A colossal snapping maw of a mouth sped after her. Flat head, wide jaw, attached to the end of a long snakelike neck with a strange bump on top. The teeth were splayed out, as if the head had been pounded flat with a bolder to knock the dental spikes out of alignment.
The same species as that skeleton! The one by Trapmaker.
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“No! Run Kiddo! Now!” I reached through the bars, extending myself out, shoving past my restraints and slamming against the door, rattling the essence of Ravo’s realm.
Right in front of Sallinnia. Her grin was horrible as Her long fingernails sunk into the plethora of burns that ran along my arm. A mark of my original theft. My attempted intervention fizzled.
Hook, line, and sinker, Baha’an.
Oops…
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The neonate sprinted for her life as the head continued to pursue. More and more of the neck slithered out of the depths.
Now! Her Instinct seized her legs, yanking.
She rolled, and the beast’s jaws latched onto the stump of an old cypress tree. The rotten wood squelched under the force of the bite. She was back on her feet in an instant, grateful for the rain. It had stiffened the sand of the shore.
Trees! Now! Her Instinct snarled.
She looked around. The closest tree though was out in the water. A mangrove. She needed to get into the canopy. It’d give her more room to maneuver. More routes of escape. She could reach a branch, but it was a risky plan.
No! Live!
No choice!
Overriding her Instinct, the neonate leaped onto one of the remaining cypress knees of the long dead tree, using it to spring onto the creature’s head. She coiled her legs to jump up to the closest branch. It was going to be close, bu-
An eye as large as her chest opened on the top of the creature’s head, explaining the hole she had seen before. Staring at her with a vertical pupil. The eye was red like Tok’s. Her hopes drowned.
I’m prey…
The beast jerked its head up.
She gibbered, squealing again. Her whole body cartwheeling muzzle over tail.
Ten, twenty, thirty feet into the air and still climbing.
Thunder clapped like a huge fish slapping the water.
I am going to die…
Her thoughts retreated, becoming distant. Fleeing from the stress of her reality.
Survive! Her Instinct gnashed from within her ear, desperately trying to pull her back into full focus.
As the ground and sky spun, she caught a glimpse of the beast’s body.
Distraction! She needed to focus!
A bulbous body almost exactly like a whiptail tuber.
Live!
The impression of fins.
I will be eaten! She closed her eyes. Too scared to watch her own death.
There was an impression of firm claws grabbing the neonate’s shoulders, her… Instinct?
Continue, become victorious!
Yellow eyes burst open! Full acceptance of what was happening to her tightening around her throat like a noose.
She squealed in fear.
Sharp and staccato.
It echoed across the water.
And yet she refused to be defeated without a fight.
Yes! Her Instinct snarled, and she tried to as well, though it was more of a whine.
She flailed, trying to stop the spin. Her Instinct ripped her mind away from the escapism of curiosity. A claw grasped something as her ascent started to slow. A leaf. It tore away from the mangrove, useless to her.
Lightning flashed.
Thunder bellowed hatefully.
She reached the pinnacle, seeming to hang in the air as she yelped and whined. She caught glimpses of the head moving upwards towards her. She started to fall. A vine slapped against one clawed hand and she grabbed. She yanked herself into the tree, pulling on the vine. The top of it tore loose, but she managed to avoid the snapping splayed teeth of the beast by a scale’s width.
The beast hissed, a colossal exhalation that reeked of fish and death. Humid even in the rain. Like a stone breaking through twigs, it battered its way into the canopy. The neonate could hear the water roiling by the shore.
Run!
She ran!
Uncaring of the branches and twigs that scratched her scales, ducking around the trunk of the mangrove as it groaned against the weight of the beast. A horrible racket of smashing branches and shivering leaves. She had to dig her claws in to keep her balance.
She matched the coloration of her surroundings, but didn’t have time to hide. Thunder snarled, getting closer. Had there been lightning? Sprinting along one branch she leaped into another tree, still going, heading inland.
The head retreated, but she knew it would be back. The neonate clambered. Panting. Desperate.
Inland!
Faster! Where the aquatic beast couldn’t follow. Damn her short legs and weak body! The whole time the sound of crashing water churned up by titanic forces pursued her.
In complete silence the beast’s head swung down onto the branch she was on. She leaped at the last moment, the branch splintering like a twig. The matte black blade was in her hand.
She was sailing through the air, pulling up her tail as the jaws of the monster snapped right where it had been. She smacked into the trunk of the next tree and she rammed her knife into the moss slick bark. The earthbone blade skittered and slid before finally sinking in, jerking her to a halt.
The water below her dangling feet roiled with the beast’s eight mighty flippers. Far too many, not for something that wasn’t an arthropod.
And yet also the correct amount for this three eyed nightmare.
It was bigger than Tok.
Three red eyes glaring at her.
Inconceivably large.
A disaster of teeth permanently bared at her.
The smoke was gone.
Thum! Thum!
There was another roar, and she realized it wasn’t thunder.
Thum! Thum!
She blinked. The beast’s mouth opened wide. What was that sloshing sound?
Thum! Thum!
It was closer, and even the beast paused. It started to turn. She could hear the sloshing. Hope returned!
Thum! Thum! ThumThumThuThuThuThu-!
With a roar that drowned out the sound of cascading water, black as hate, Tok crashed into the tree-thick neck of the beast with enough force that it shook the entire island!
BANG!
His shoulder lowered, clawed feet sinking deep into the sand. Her tree shook. The mighty river predator swayed with the impact, flippers adjusting, but Tok wasn’t done.
Fingers spread, claws gleaming, he slashed at the beast’s neck. Scales tore free. Blood spayed forth, slathering the tree line in scarlet. Even though he had only scored a glancing slice.
Tok made his own thunder as the other fist clenched, cracking into the side of the beast’s head with another tremendous BANG!
The earth quaked under the Provider’s might.
His head shot forward, faster and more precise than Biter’s.
SNAP! Her ears rang it was so loud.
Somehow, the river beast slipped out of range of that, its hiss conveying its own red and black.
Suddenly the greatest weapon of the beast became a liability, and the Provider seemed intent on not letting it be anything else.
He strode into the river after it, head lifted, red neck bright as lightning filled the sky. The river surged around his ankles, his knees, his waist, even his arms as he bent down and hefted a bolder off of the riverbed.
The beast dove under the water, disappearing from sight. Tok didn’t move. He waited, eyes wide and alert with terrible focus.
I need to do something.
No! Live! Flee!
Lightning flashed and Tok roared in pain, the beast’s jaws biting into his leg and dragging him under the water. The water roiled. Tok’s hands broke the surface and lifted the boulder high, bringing it down with titanic force.
CRASH!
Blood boiled into the water.
Tok burst through the surface, snarling and snapping his jaw with frustration, his thigh ripped and ragged. The beast flailed about in the water, blood streaming from its back. Tok threw the rock with another bellow and its head lifted up again above the water as it hissed voicelessly in pain.
All three of its crimson eyes glared at Tok. He took one step to the right, standing between her and the beast. His leg buckled, but he didn’t fall. He shook his head, even the bass crackling pops of the joints in his neck and spine impressive.
The beast’s eyes narrowed. The cut was gone. Something was budding there.
“Try it.” Tok rumbled, “You know how this ends.”
The beast hissed, the bud growing, changing shape. But before she could see what it was, the monstrosity turned and dove into the stream of water. She saw the dark mass of its form swimming away. Fleeing.
Snarling, Tok planted his feet. Once lazy eyes opened wide, roaring his dominance out into the night!
A wall of sound!
Echoing louder than the thunder, louder than the raging river!
Louder than everything.
She could see birds fleeing trees, even all the way to the far bank across the mighty river. They fled in jumbled panic.
She wanted that. The power. The respect.
Compete. Her Instinct hissed.
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“That was your plan all along.” I couldn't believe it.
Not all of it. But yes. Don’t worry, I’ll keep your secret.
I knew it would cost me though.
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Rain poured down.
The big male Blackscale hissed, vibrating the scales of the neonate with it. His bright blue tongue slid out as he limped over to the shore. Blood poured onto the sand as he limped onto the island.
The neonate clambered down out of the tree.
Tok turned towards her, lip lifting, growling, but when he saw her cowering under his red-eyed gaze he stopped.
She stared up into those red eyes. Same red as the beast. The eyes of a monster. Eyes she wished she had.
Her Instinct stirred, but it was an honest thought. She hadn’t begrudged the usual things, her size, her frailty. It was aspirational.
Lightning flashed, orange in the smoke of the fire the little warrior had started. That the Provider had most likely put out.
Thunder rumbled rolling along lazily.
The neonate wasn’t sure if the Provider had grunted or not.
Still limping, the Provider turned south, moving with slow deliberate strides. Sanguine drops spattered onto the ground with every step.
Follow, idiot!
She jerked, and scrambled after him. Running through a puddle of his still warm blood. It splashed her up to her knees as she sprinted to catch up. The sand clung to her damp scales, making her itch for a wash.
The Provider found a trail of several mangroves and cypress trees, and waded into the river, heading east now and using the trees to rest occasionally.
The neonate was elated, charging up into the canopy again. She caught up quickly with the Provider, his red eyes swiveling to glance at her before looking forward again.
“Was lucky I didn’t have a weapon.” He growled.
“You didn’t need one.” She replied, prefixing her words with the awe that she felt.
He grunted. “Never be ashamed of the tools you use, little one. Especially if they work.”
Lightning flashed. She grunted before the boom of thunder.
The pair made it back to the main island in silence.