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Another is that even though Zyranth’s very presence terrifies me, and I cannot live comfortably around him, there’s something enticing about his power. I want to know more about him and discover the origins of such a strange beast.
And that truly terrifies me. Because my adrenaline has not stopped pulsing, and my body hasn’t quit trembling. I should be running far away from him and from this place.
So why am I not still climbing the rock wall, desperately seeking a way out?
8
ZYRANTH
My appetite still screams at me, longing to devour her entirely, but it is silenced for the moment as I tear into the flesh and tissue of my prey. I can feel her watching me as she speaks to me, and it unnerves me. I do not know why. This is an ordinary activity for me, ripping open and eating the creatures which cross my path.
But there is an emotional quality to our interaction that I cannot understand now. I wish that she would go away. Not by leaving the cavern entirely, where she is vulnerable to the dark elves outside and no longer a potential meal for later, just not watching me so intently with those deep emerald eyes.
I cannot remember the last conversation I had with a creature who did not immediately dismiss me as a monster. There has not been another being in existence that I’ve come across and haven’t immediately devoured.
Well… there has been one. But even as my mind returns to that point in my history, I feel a rage overtaking me entirely. I am furious at the memory of being bested by another creature.
“I still intend to consume you later,” I tell her. “Don’t think that I was protecting you. I just found a more fitting meal for the moment.”
Her expression shows me that she was not expecting more conversation, bewildered that I’ve looked up and spoken to her. It has been minutes since I last looked up and introduced myself, offering the name that those who feared me once graced me with. She was apparently lost in a trance, watching me rip into the organs and drink the blood of this large amentia.
“No matter what your reasoning, thank you,” she says. “For saving me from that horrifying aberration and from those elves.”
I grumble. I wish to be feared, not thanked – to dominate, not to coexist.
Even as I rip into this beast, its flesh dry, scaly, and repulsive, she looks like a much more appetizing treat. I am grateful that this cavern has provided this most generous quantity of meat, as amentia are bountiful in energy. But the fact that I cannot consume her here frustrates me immensely.
Looking at her, and truly beholding her, I can feel confusion overtaking me. Why am I protecting her, rather than devouring her? Even if that monstrosity had melded with her, why would it be so grave? Why is her existence so much more vital to me than any of the other humans I have pried apart and eaten?
And why, at the mention of dark elves, do I feel my curiosity piquing?
“Why are they chasing you?” I ask her suddenly, trying to seem indifferent through mouthfuls of this bland meat source.
“Well, I’m a human,” she explains with a confusion that seems patronizing. “Dark elves and humans don’t exactly get along.”
I growl, nodding in understanding, even though her explanation doesn’t make much sense.
My lingering curiosity still unnerves me. I want to force her to speak the entire truth. But I don’t understand why I need the information.
It doesn’t make it any easier to eat her, or anything else. It doesn’t unveil some secret, long-buried hunting technique that would make it easier to acquire prey.
“Why were you chasing them?” she asks me with a cavalier attitude that irritates me.
“Because they taste good, and they fill me up,” I say. “Would there be any other reason?”
“You weren’t chasing them because they were pursuing me?”
I slam my claws into the wall adjacent to me, standing up to my full height while leaving the few scraps remaining of this large creature below me. The force of the impact knocks her to the ground, and I see the fear I desire in her return, if only for a moment.
“I don’t think you understand how this works,” I roar. “You are food to me! It just happens that humans are particularly delightful and hard to acquire, so I thought maybe I’d save you for a special occasion!”
Her lips curl up into a half-smirk, and I catch myself, entranced.
What the hell is happening to me?
“It seems to me that you wanted to ‘devour’ me when you were flying in front of me at the river,” she replies. “But it looked like something stopped you.”
I fly over her, knocking her to the ground, and look into her eyes, my claws digging into her other shoulder. There is something about her nude form, laid bare before me, which entices my senses suddenly and unnaturally. I do not like to see her as anything other than a meal. I do not understand this urge coursing through my body.
