Monster: First Blood

My memory of the following events is sketchy at best; I remember only the vaguest details of that first year the two held me, so the quality of this recount will be lackluster.

They stole me away from my home. For the first few months I was petrified; a caged animal being held against his will under the guise of good will. I hated those two women with all my heart. They skinned my mother and tanned her on a rack outside their tent. They spoke in the human tongue which I did not comprehend. They forced me to wear the skins of beasts, brush my hair, and defecate in a pot. They brought my peaceful life to an end.

I believe they knew what they had done. When I finally mustered the courage to leave the tent and saw my mother's face staring at me without eyes I collapsed. For days after the fact I would leave the tent and sit next to the hide. Sometimes tears would fall and other times I would make strange, high pitched sounds from my stomach.

The two women would whisper behind my back, watching me; as if they needed to speak softly. It was evident that I knew nothing of the human world. Sometimes the tall, spindly one would try to speak to me. Shushing my cries with quieted tones and stroking my hair. She had a thin frame, the polar opposite of the one who killed Gleam Fang, and long blonde hair which fell to her waist in a plait. Her bony face was youthful, the both of them were young, and her green eyes were always bright and consoling. Of the two women I hated her least; I cannot be certain but I believe she may have actually apologized for what they had done.

The gruff, compact woman was hard. I saw a little of the beast in her, oddly enough; she was no stranger to the natural world or its harsh conditioning. She kept her hair close cropped and always wore a quiver over her back when not asleep. Her slanted eyes were a deep brown and she always seemed to wear a scowl. Her loathing of me was axiomatic; I whined frequently, I was uncooperative, ungrateful, and generally a burden. I learned her name, first.

I studied the two out of both spite and curiosity. The stocky one, who I came to identify as Letta, was the hunter. Day in and day out she would depart into the tundra and return each evening with carcasses slung over her back. The thin one would skin, tan, sew, and work the prior day's catch during this time.

For those first few months I watched the lean one perform her craft, never once letting her touch Gleam Fang's pelt. It disgusted me. So much meat was wasted to make these things we wore on our bodies. When I tried to tear into the corpses the woman would grab me and swat my blood stained hands. I was forced to eat flesh which had been prepared over the giant glowing ball; though in all honesty it often tasted better that way. Still, the vast majority of the bodies were simply discarded away from the camp.

The thin woman let me have Gleam Fang's pelt, which I slept with every night for a long time. One might ask why I never fled the camp; a valid question. Before I even knew what vengeance was I knew that I wanted it. I was consumed with killing these women, but fear inhibited my actions.

-----

The following spring we departed Ferossa. On the southern end of the island, in a forest grove was a covered skiff at the mouth of a long frozen river. It was the first time I had seen so much water in one place; the endless expanse of the ocean to the south was a frightful sight, I recall. I had never seen such strange sights on the island, having lived in my isolated territory.

I refused to board the boat, at first; terrified of the large, creaking wooden monster in the water, but Letta dragged me aboard. I hid in the cabin for the majority of the voyage, but once or twice while on deck I became startled by sudden jolts and leapt overboard. Never having been exposed to so much water I was naturally unfamiliar with the concept of buoyancy or swimming. Having nearly drowned and succumbing to hypothermia the second time I elected to remain within the confines of the ship.

We landed two or three days later on an environment I was overwhelmed by: a sandy beach with bluffs towering to the sky. Off in the distance, ascending the steep incline up the cliff faces, were deciduous trees. It was my first experience witnessing a land not perpetually coated in ice.

I remember hiding when I saw rain the first time on this new continent. In Ferossa it only ever warmed up above freezing at most two weeks out of the year. During this time we might see rain once or twice annually, and the sight was dreaded. Being wet at night, where the temperatures could still drop to sub-zero, was effectively a death sentence. Not only was the fear of hypothermia prevalent amongst the coyotes, but also trepidation of environmental change. If the rain came down heavy enough much of the snow and ice would melt, re-freezing over the course of the night. This could result in dangerous footing, sealed off burrows, inaccessible hunting grounds, and a menagerie of other potentially lethal issues.

It was a rough adaptation, becoming accustomed to the rain and warmer temperatures. I quite frequently attempted to strip myself of the garb my captors dressed me in, only to be scolded for indecency. I loathe the heat.

Nothing changed that much, though, as far as day-to-day life was concerned. We camped out in the forest overlooking the ocean, Letta hunted, and the thin woman crafted and spent a few hours a day trying to educate me. We accrued a massive stockpile of furs, pelts, bones and specific organs. I would not understand until much later that the two women were poachers who traveled the world in search of rare prospects.

My comprehension of the human language began to advance. I learned that the spindly woman was named Dagmar. I was able to follow certain words spoken between the two from time to time, though my ability to pronounce syllables was deplorable. Dagmar was genuinely impressed one day when I said "dog" In reference to Gleam Fang's pelt: my first word at the "young" age of perhaps twelve.

One day Letta left for about a week, toting behind her a cart filled to the brim with fur coats, moccasins, socks, tunics, belts and various other wares of Dagmar's. I contemplated killing Dagmar at that time, though I feared what would transpire should Letta return.

I sat outside the entire morning on the second day of Letta's departure, staring at one of Dagmar's strange curved carving knifes, visualizing myself planting it in her throat. She had confined herself to the tent for some reason. I picked up the steel tool – it felt queer in my hands – and entered the tent. She had needle and thread in hand and was stooped over Gleam Fang's pelt, working in limited light. I vocalized my rage and protest with a whine and a growl, but she raised her hands and shushed me, lifting the pelt up. I dropped the knife.

Dagmar stood up and walked over, smiling down at me, and brought the pelt, which looked as though it had been folded in half, up to my waist. I was aghast, stunned with anger; I could not force myself to act. She opened up the pelt and put one foot inside the single hole through the bottom and then removed it. She started talking, only a few of the words I could understand, "See? ... Clothes… for you… open… put on…" Her left index finger darted back and forth between me and Gleam Fang's coat.

Perplexed, I put my foot through the hole, it seemed she wanted me to do so at least, and she indicated my other. I followed suit and she raised the coyote skin kilt up to my waist and tightened a hidden thread at the top above my groin. The skirt tightened and she tied a knot off, and then stepped back. She tossed her arms to the side and said something, scrutinizing me with an inquisitive look.

I understood; she made the kilt for me, knowing my attachment to the pelt. I suppose it was her way of apology. In hindsight it was a very unorthodox apology, but, then, we were all rather unorthodox people. I rescinded my intent to kill her immediately. I was conflicted, for in spite of the fact that it was her and her partner who threw my life into chaos, the sentiment of that kilt nearly brought me to tears of gratitude.

-----

Time and again we shifted camp. Time and again Letta and Dagmar diminished the local populaces of animals, much to my disdain. We traveled the world together, but my seething hatred never lost its flame; especially for Letta. I insisted upon wearing the kilt day after day; the thought of my mother leaving me again was more than I could bear. This did not settle well with the gruff woman, who was vehemently affronted by my malicious odor, and we confronted one another often.

She was not without her uses, though. Occasionally I would go out on hunts with her. Before I was even speaking full sentences I learned how to use a spear and string a bow. I never delivered the killing blows, though. The human way of hunting was not something I condoned; in particular the mentality of waste which was so defining of the two's lifestyle. My mind drifted to the lives of the creatures they killed, to the families and bonds which had been severed, and I felt empathy. It did not feel right to take, so casually, the life of another without the intent of consumption or the necessity of survival.

Letta must have had some manner of military experience, I surmised much later in my life. Her raw, boorish nature alone could not explain the way she moved and handled weapons. I watched and tried to emulate her nightly form practice; she was quite fond of the quarterstaff as a close-quarters implement. Perhaps she was a former militiaman?

-----

Dagmar tried, I speculate, to treat me as her own child. Letta alone would have never tolerated my presence. The sole reason I was permitted to remain in their company was because of Dagmar's testament. When it became clear to Dagmar that I was beginning to understand the fundamentals of conversation she initiated daily readings. We rarely had cause to contact other people, and as such my socialization and comprehension of human society was limited in scope. Dagmar sought to elucidate me through stories.

With the money that Letta brought back with her Dagmar would purchase books from traveling merchants who would occasionally cross our path. Sometimes Letta brought books back with her, as well. The kind-hearted, spindly woman took my home schooling very seriously. I reciprocated this passion for knowledge. She diligently spent hours each day either reading to me or teaching me to read, and I studiously absorbed the information.

I was particularly fond of the old tales she read to me about knights. I would dream of one day rising up as a paladin, clad in shining white armor, and bringing the world to peace. Humans and animals and plants would all live in harmony under my gentle guidance. I would kill all the bad men and women and make the world safe and free of tragedy.

The naivety of youth…

-----

"Okay, now I have this many rocks," Dagmar shifted three of the five pebbles off to the side, "How many did I take away?" We were in another land which was new to me. Everywhere was sand and stone, and we weren't even near an ocean. The only water within sight was the small, crystal clear spring water pond which Dagmar called an oasis. We sat underneath a peculiar tree with broad, thick and sharp looking leaves. There were many strange plants surrounding the oasis.

The heat of the desert was both familiar and foreign to me. Here was no moisture in the air, unlike the humid jungle, and the air felt dry and empty much like Ferossa. However, very unlike Ferossa, the heat was lamentable. I remember hating that first forest because of the uncharacteristic torrid atmosphere, yet that desert was on another plateau entirely.

I refused to wear anything more than Gleam Fang and a pair of light sandals to prevent my feet from being eviscerated. My body had suffered from sunburn, yet another phenomenon I was ghastly frightened of. For the first few hours of our internment at the oasis I merely soaked in the water. It was not the great relief I had anticipated it to be, however; it was almost as warm as the air outside. Still, it was a minor comfort in this dead, unforgiving land.

"Th-ree." I responded slowly. My enunciation was abysmal, drawling and slurred; to this day I still lack a finely developed verbal pallet.

"Good! You're a fast learner, Zien!" She lied. For the longest time I was confused by that word, "Zien." For some reason, to my juvenile and feral mind, the concept of a name for others was sensible; yet I had never once considered that I myself was in need of identification. Perceiving the world through the eyes of a human that was not I was a difficult abstract to conceive, though after nearly a year it clicked.

Dagmar had named me after a character in a book she had read as a child. Evidently the man had been raised by apes, walked quadrupedal, and spoke to the animals. Looking back on it now I find the prospect amusing; I have since read many books with similar themes, and as fanciful as most of these fictions are, there is always a sliver of truth buried in each plot.

"Okay, now I put two back," She dropped two more stones next to the ones before me, "How many is that?"

I paused, squinting at the quartz pebbles, "Four." I said at last.

"Great!"

I sighed and licked my lips, "Water… thirsty."

She looked down at me and grunted with annoyance, "You know if you keep drinking you're going to get bloated and sick."

"Huh?" I did not understand.

She sighed and scratched her head, wiping some sweaty hair from her brow, "No water," She carefully pronounced, "You drank too much. Gosh, you used to hate the water. Though I guess this is a far cry from living naked in Ferossa…" She muttered to herself.

"Please?"I immediately questioned why I asked permission. The oasis was literally no more than a meter away from where I sat. If I was so inclined I could simply plunge myself into the water; yet there I was, indulging the didactics of a woman I thought I detested.

"Fine, go ahead," She ceded and gestured towards the water, "Don't tell Letta I let you drink without a cup or flask, she'd kill me," I crawled over to the water's edge and plunged my head into the water, "Now I'm going to have to brush your hair again…" I remember hearing Dagmar giggle.

Her laughter was discontinued when I heard a shrill cry pierce the sky. The sound was so loud, of such a high pitch, that I pulled my face out of the water and fell back on my haunches, clutching my ears so tightly that I broke skin with my nails. When the ringing in my ears stopped I opened my eyes, which I had instinctively closed. I turned around and looked at Dagmar, whose face was frozen and glaring up at the sky.

She gestured for me to come near to her, not saying a word. I followed her gaze into the sky, squinting at the excessive sunlight, and saw what looked like a bird circling about a kilometer above us. Dagmar tapped her hand on the sand gently to arrest my attention. I took my hands away from my ears and inquired, "What?"

She faced me with clenched teeth and wide eyes, but it was too late. Whether my last word summoned the beast or Dagmar's prior giggling I could not be certain, but the shadow in the sky started to dive. At first, for a few seconds, it appeared as though the creature was merely hovering in that dive, not coming any closer. Dagmar jumped up and scooped me into her arms, "Get inside the tent, now!"

She turned westward, toward the tent, and tossed me to the ground. I rolled and rose to my hands and feet, growling. I looked towards Dagmar, who had already turned again and started running north, away from the oasis.

I was confused, but any thought I may have had was disintegrated when another, much more violent shriek assaulted my audition. I fell on my back, rolled to either side, and clawed at my ears. I caught a glimpse of the thing in the sky; it was substantially more prominent than it was just a moment prior, and getting larger by the second. I looked off towards Dagmar, who was still sprinting away from me and the camp.

It dawned on me that she was attempting to draw the thing away from me. I was shocked; never before had I considered such an act of sacrifice possible, especially not from a human… The thing came down in a crash and a wave of sand and dust. The ground shook violently.

It was the first time I had ever seen a Wyvern. The beast was absolutely terrifying. There were two sub-species of Wyvern in my home world; the Crytean Mountain Wyvern, and the Sandhawk. This mighty beast was one of the latter. The Sandhawk is easily identified, even from a distance, by its deathly screech, which held the place as the highest pitch any reptile was capable of producing, with frequencies up to 17,300 Hz and an as of yet unstudied decibel range . Up close the beasts, both male and female, don large, light brown, thick scales everywhere save the underside of its long neck. Its talons and fangs vary in size from .3 to .5 meters in overall length, and its maw, frightfully broad, was lined with no less than 120 razor sharp teeth.

The Sandhawk has pristine auditory and visual senses, which explained why Dagmar conceded her fate when the beast initiated its dive. When the dust settled the beast glared down at her, towering above the tall woman at about 4 meters with an 8 meter wingspan. She was dwarfed. It roared at her, a much deeper, more tolerable tone, and she yelled back, "To hell with you!"

The Wyvern coiled its neck back, readying a strike, when out of nowhere, as if materializing out of the sand, a thick shafted razor arrow buried itself in the beast's eye. It let out another shrill cry, this time out of pain, and stepped back, kicking up sand in the process.

I had never seen actual conflict before, either. It was the sort of battle worthy of Dagmar's story books. Letta emerged from behind a sand dune and ran for the beast, notching and firing three more arrows in the time it took to cross ten meters. Dagmar, clearly familiar with the procedure, fell back from the fight. She had confidence in her partner, it seemed. By the time Letta had reached the relative proximity of the Wyvern, she was already at my side again. She tried to shoo me into the tent, but I was mesmerized.

All three arrows which Letta had fired while mobile landed, though two of them were deflected by the monster's hard scales. The one which stuck landed just under the Wyvern's chin, and sank into the beard. Blood trailed from the beast's eye as it stepped back twice more and cried one last time. It growled, infuriated, and coiled for a counter.

Letta was within striking range of the beast, but she obviously knew this. She discarded her bow and unholstered the short spear which protruded from her quiver. The beast made a swift step forward and an even quicker lunge for the hefty woman. I knew Letta was faster than she looked, but what she executed then was unearthly. It makes me wonder whether or not she was capable of using magic.

The dodge was flawless; a pirouette counterclockwise while she simultaneously twirled the spear in hand. When she finished the motion, a fraction of a second later, the stocky woman thrust the spear into the Wyvern's left eye, the one with the arrow infliction, with her right arm. Without a breath she clawed her fingers into the scales right above the eyes and let the monster take her as it recoiled.

The Wyvern cried out and stepped away; Letta grappling its head with one hand. Despite the fact that the Wyvern's own natural size and strength was enough to toss Letta about like a ragdoll as she maintained her grip on its head, the woman appeared to be the one in control of the beast. She straddled the reptile's neck when there was a temporary reprieve in the frantic flailing, her stocky legs unable to completely wrap around its cylindrical throat. When it started tossing about again she used the force of the flailing itself to spin herself abount the circumference of the Wyvern's neck.

At last she ended up upside-down, her crotch parallel to the beast's beard. Letta took her spear in both hands when the next lull occurred and drove the spear up through the monster's jaw all the way to the end of the hilt. It must have punctured the beat's brain, because in that instant it let out a pathetic squeal and went limp.

The Sandhawk fell forward, Letta falling with it, and went still in one last cloud of sand and dust. Before the creature had even hit the ground Dagmar relinquished her grip on me and rushed back to the scene of the battle. I moved forward after her, leaving the relative safety of the oasis's shroud. Dagmar was trying to lift the creature's head, but succeeded in merely raising its mouth a few inches. As I got closer I saw one of Letta's legs from the underside of the Sandhawk's beard.

"Help!" Dagmar implored, frantic.

I got on the other side of the long neck and aided in lifting. We managed to pull it off and toss it to the side of Letta, who was panting heavily with a stream of blood smeared to the side of her mouth. She opened one eye and stared straight into my face before exhaling, "Heh," she coughed between a toothy grin, "and that, boy, is how you hunt!"

For the first time I did not feel guilt or empathy for Letta's prey, and that bothered me. I came to the conclusion that night, dining on Wyvern meat – which, by the way, is a lot more appealing than it sounds – that the kill was justified. To kill for food or to kill in self defense are the same thing. The Sandhawk would have killed us for food, and yet Letta killed it in self defense… The passing of life is a natural part of it. The end result is the same: a creature died.

-----

"The evil warlock was defeated. The white knight Zien held aloft a gauntleted fist and proclaimed to the world, 'look upon me and know that I fight in the name of righteousness!' He cast down his sword and shield and walked away from the ne'er-do-well's corpse and into the night, never to be heard from again…" Dagmar finished the book. She folded it on her lap, an aloof lineament plastering her, "Huh, a little more depressing than I remembered it. Sorry, Zien."

"Why?" I asked.

"Well, it's your name, after all," She tapped her lip, "I remembered it being… well, a lot happier than that."

"But he went to live with the- the," I paused, searching my memory for the word, "monkeys again, right? If nobody hears him again it means its good, right?"

Dagmar smiled and sighed, her gentle face dancing in the flickering campfire's light, "Of course, how silly of me," She rose from the log round which she sat upon and added, "It's time for you to get some sleep, okay?"

I had never been able to adjust to the diurnal lifestyle, "I can't sleep in dark…"

"You have to try, hun."

"Dagmar?"

"Yes?"She raised her eyebrows.

"Is it okay to kill people?"

Her eye popped in surprise, "N-no, of course not!"

"Because killing people makes you the bad guy?"

"Exactly." She sounded relieved.

"But the knight is the good guy, isn't he?" I queried.

"Oh," She sat back down and leaned in towards me, "I see. Well the warlock was the bad guy, because he killed people, right?" I nodded, "When you kill a bad guy it… oh, how to say this? Well, I guess it doesn't count. Understand? Zien only killed the bad guy. He killed the warlock so that the bad guy couldn't do any more evil. When you do something to stop bad people from doing bad things it's actually a good thing, got it?"

I pursed my lips and looked askance, "But the warlock didn't think he was the bad guy… He thought he was helping people, didn't he?"

Dagmar sighed, "Well… helping people by killing them is, well… It's not right, it's evil."

"But he did it to save the animals, right?"

Dagmar fidgeted and cocked her head. She was nervously staring at my kilt, "Hmm, well, yes. Sometimes good and evil are hard things to see, Zien. I'm sure you'll understand some day, okay?" She stood again, "Okay, bed time is bed time and that is that. We're going to wake Letta up."

I nodded and followed her into the tent. I laid my head down but was unable to find rest. A single, life defining question was burning a hole in my mind: who was the good guy?

-----

Letta fell ill that day. She contracted giardia from one of the nearby streams where we drew water in the coniferous forest camp. Cramps and incontinence prevented her from hunting for the time being. We had a stockpile of goods and wares, but food was in short supply. Dagmar was a pathetic excuse of a hunter, and neither she nor Letta would permit me to hunt for them. The two conferred and decided to send Dagmar to a nearby town to stock up on supplies.

I was left behind to tend after Letta; that was what Dagmar told me, at least. I was of little help, though to be honest I had no such desire to aid the ailing woman, either. She slept the day away and I sat outside the tent with instructions to "keep an eye out for monsters."

No monsters came, but someone else did. A wayward wolf pup, of a species not unlike Canis Dirus, had wandered into the camp, allured by the scent of old meat and fat scrapings. She did not notice me, at first, and cautiously walked up towards the tanning rack, which held fawn hide at the time. I watched her for a moment as she lapped up some of the trimmings. I sniffed into the air, loudly as to announce my presence, and the pup spun around with her tail between her legs.

She faced me and growled; still an immature whelp, her voice was weak and the growl was less frightening and more adorable. I got to all fours and bowed at the pup; I brought my arms flat to the dirt and rested my chin upon the earth, looking at her up beneath my brow, cocking my legs to the side so as to raise my rear end higher. My spine was bent backwards a little, a gentle slope upwards towards my posterior. In the canine world this was a gesture of initiative for play. It shows minor submissive behavior and is not considered aggressive in the least.

The whelp, clearly confounded by my human-mangled canine body language, backed up and did not break eye contact. She bumped into the tanning rack and jumped, yelping. I made a deep yawn-like sound from the lowest part of my larynx, another canine "word" for play. The pup stopped growling and merely stared me down. She stopped retreating. Slowly I rose, very slowly, and rested on my haunches; my balled knuckles planted into the earth between my feet.

For a few minutes she and I maintained eye contact; I knew that, being a larger beast than she, I must wait for her to decide whether or not she would initiate communication if I had any hopes of interacting with her. Occasionally I would make gentle, inquisitive whines from deep in my throat. The first few times I made these noises the whelp was startled. She shifted her body to one side and lowered her torso down, ready to sprint the instant I made a move. I remained still, however, and after a time the curiosity of the pup got the better of her.

She faced me directly again, indicating less desire to flee. After perhaps fifteen minutes she sat down upon her haunches, as well. I shifted my weight slightly and made another whine…

I was positive that she would have, at the very least, warmed up enough to me to permit me to move without fleeing in a frenzy; I have always been very good with dogs. Alas, it was not to be.

After that last whine a whistle pierced the air and an arrow came flying from the mouth of the tent. Before the whelp even realized what happened the iron tipped shaft had punched clear through her head. The pup fell limp and collapsed, following the inertia of the blow to the side.

"I thought I told you to wake me up if something showed up!" Letta growled at me. I was dumbfounded, my mouth hung ajar as far as I could permit it. My nostrils flared and my chest palpitated with excessive force, "Damn it all, where there's one there's a hundred. Maybe we were lucky and this one was a straggler…"

"Monster!" I shouted at her, my already lame voice slurred even further by rage.

She stepped outside the threshold of the tent and notched another arrow, looking about, "Where?!"

I rose to my two feet, an act which I was proficient in now but still felt uncertain about, and cast a condemning finger at her face. My teeth were clenched as I spat, "She was good!"

She lowered her bow and sneered at me with squinted eyes, "The fuck did you just say, brat?"

"She was good! Monster!" I repeated, blood boiling in my face.

The chunky woman dropped the bow and arrow and stomped up to me in a confronting manner. She was perhaps only 10 centimeters taller than the young me, and yet she managed to reach around my head and lift me by my ponytail. I remember the excruciating pain of my hair follicles ripping; I clutched my eyes and attempted to struggle. I was utterly suspended, but managed to bring some of the force off of my hair my balancing on my toes.

"Who's a monster, you little fucking freak?" With her other hand she slapped me across the face so hard I thought she dislocated my jaw. I could not hold back lachrymal fluid any longer, "The only monster I see here is a contemptible little puke that seems to think he's a fucking dog."

"Bad guy! You're the bad guy!" I raised my hands and gripped her arm, pulling some of the weight off my scalp.

She tried to shake my hands, dragging me to and fro, and when that failed she cocked her free hand back and punched me in the gut - hard. I fell to the ground, doubled over and clenching my stomach, "I'm the bad guy? The bad guy is the one who ruins lives. The bad guy is the one who tears relationships apart. The bad guy is the one who mooches my food and steals my money! YOU are the bad guy, you little faggot!" I glared up into her face, which was so beat red it was a wonder her countenance did not melt and her eyes popped out.

I tried to rise, but the pain in my torso was too great. I gasped for breath and Letta continued her rant, "I regret not putting you down more and more every day, you little ingrate! Dagmar is too lenient on you, but I'll not have any more of it!" She stooped over me and grappled my long hair again, pulling me into a sitting position, "I'll put up with you for her sake, but I'm not taking your shit anymore, whelp. You're either going to start acting like the man you are or I'm going to cut you up right here and now and tell Dagmar that you ran off into the woods." She seethed.

She brought her face close to mine and I remember well the feeling of mortal fear I expressed. Coupled with the pain, I truly felt, for the first time in my life, that I was going to die as she continued, "Starting today you're going to walk upright, you're going to bathe daily, you're going to start addressing me and Dagmar as 'ma'am,' and you are never again going to reply 'no' to anything I ever ask of you, got it?" I coughed and tried to shy away. She let go of my hair and instead gripped my chin, forcing me to look at her, "You are also going to start LOOKING AT ME WHEN I SPEAK TO YOU!" She screamed in my face, hot spittle flying into my eyes.

I started sobbing, my anger so strong but my defiance diffused. She dug her fingers into my cheeks and reaffirmed her iron vice. I glowered into her dark, furious eyes. She looked down at my hands, which I had moved to Gleam Fang's pelt; the cutaneous sensation of her fur always had a sedating effect on me, it was very unique. She sneered and added, "And that damn thing has to go! It reeks! I don't know what was going through her head; she's too soft." Letta reached down into the stitching of my kilt and tore at it.

In a single rip she managed to rend the fabric and toss it off to the side, exposing me. My eyes widened in horror as I, for the second time, watched Letta defile my mother. I followed the fabric as it landed, face down, in the dirt next to the wolf pup.

Something stirred in me at that time. Roiled by the intensity of my emotions; hatred, odium, animosity, execration… every flavor and derivative of abhorrence defined my person. Yet that feeling of fear could not be shaken. No, it grew stronger. Fear became me. Fear of loss, Fear of Letta, Fear of death, Fear of life, Fear of myself.

Kill her…

A voice spoke within my head.

Kill her…

I'm afraid. I responded.

I can grant you reprieve from Fear.

How?

Kill her…

"…You listening to me, boy?!" Letta spat in my face again.

My head swiveled in her grip, my own force overcoming hers, and I glared into her dark eyes.

Okay.

-----

Dagmar returned that evening. I was waiting for her. From inside the tent I heard her shout, "Zien? Letta? What happened, did you go hunting? There's a lot of blood…"

My fingers wrung the wooden hilt of the tanning knife in the darkness.

"Are you two there?" Her footsteps and voice neared the tent. The twilight flooded into the interior, vaguely illuminating the scene, "Oh my god…" She dropped the rucksack she carried over her shoulder and fell to her knees, covering her mouth with both hands. I couldn't see her face from where I stood, at the side of the flap pressed up against the wall, hidden. I could only envision the swivet.

Her breath was a series of frantic, short and irregular inhalations and exhalations; she did not yet cry. What she witnessed was Letta's mutilated corpse set atop the fur padded bedroll. Her body was naked and disfigured; so much so that, if Dagmar had not been familiar with her build, she would not have been able to identify her - not even her sex.

I carved her eyes out, flayed her breasts open, chewed a hole in her neck, pulled out her entrails and tied them around her empty eye sockets like a blindfold, pulled various organs out of the chest cavity and impaled them on broken rib bones which I then stabbed into the meat around her sides. I ate most of her thigh meat, then cut off her toes and placed them in the holes left by my insatiable maw. Not a thumb of her raw skin was visible under the blood and viscera, nor was any of mine.

"It's okay to kill the bad guys, right?" I inquired.

Dagmar squalled and fell over, away from the sound of my voice. She turned towards me, leaning back on her arms, and I saw it: the mortal fear in her blue eyes, "Wh-what…? Why…? Zien, why?!" Her pathetic visage was only diminished in grandeur by her frail, broken voice. Her mind was incapable of forming logical thought.

"You won't ask me if I did this or not?" I answered her question with a raised eyebrow, "I knew you didn't trust me… You're a bad guy, too."

"W-w-what?" She stammered over and over, her entire body quivering. Did she even know what she felt, anymore?

"But it's okay," I reassured her, "'Bad' and 'good' are just words… human words. The knight wasn't a good guy, and the warlock wasn't a bad guy. They were just people. So are you… and so am I."

"Zien, what are you saying…? Why did you do this?" She regained a little composure.

"Because I hate you." I said, and lunged into her. The knife was only about 5 centimeters long and was incapable of dealing a lethal blow without precision and knowledge of human anatomy. However when I planted it into her chest, right below the heart, she fell over, static. She was not dead; she was weeping and petrified with fear and grief. As I had done many times before, and as I will have done many times since, I buried my fangs into her throat and tore.

Again.

Again.

Again.

Again and again; I fell forward, bit down, pulled back, taking flesh with me, swallowed and repeated. I don't think she died until the fourth or fifth sunder, yet she never once resisted. I looked into her lifeless eyes one last time; they were melancholy. Eyes lose their light when their owner dies; this light is what is responsible for conveying emotion. Somehow, though, even in death Dagmar managed to show expression in her eyes.

Was I looking at her dying soul, or did I merely fabricate the memory as an expression of my own regret?

-----

My favorite environment has to be the coniferous forests of the northern coastal lands. Far enough away from the equator to remain relatively cool during the hotter months, but not so far as to be rendered eternally glaciated like my homeland. The abundance and diversity of amiable environments make these thick, shadowy depths a paradise for all forms of life. Above all, however, in the deepest crevices of every coniferous forest is a dark, tranquil enclave where no human would ever tread.

I tore down the tent after consuming my fill, exposing the carnage to the open night sky. I vowed never to live a life like those women; I would never let a corpse go without complete immediate use. The animals would smell the bodies and pick at my leftovers, and failing that the bacteria would finish them. Every body which lie down as a result of my twisted hands will earn my acknowledgement and return to the natural world which spawned it. I would not take a life without weighing the gravity of these implications in my mind and I would honor my kills by utilizing everything I could.

I set my mother's skin over Dagmar's remains, something I associated with respect, and accepted the fact that my past was over. I retreated into the forest, hiding myself away from the cruel and depraved human world. I was perhaps fourteen at the time.

I thought my life in the civilized world was at an end, but Fate had other, grand machinations. My age of heroics began a few years later, when Johan and Agnes found me.