Chapter Six
Nakomii was getting used to his new life. The mammoth skull cave was perfect for him, and though he soon gained experience catching small rodents, birds and the occasional rabbit, the amount of un-cracked bone and uneaten marrow was what kept him alive. But even marrow wouldn’t supply the dragon with everything he needed to live. Even though he never went hungry, not for something to put in his stomach, his stomach slowly drew up towards his spine. His flights grew less and less, and his catches, already low to begin with, dwindled to nothing. If he had simply eaten grass, his situation couldn’t have been grimmer. As a meat eater, he had to eat meat, but he was unable to catch his prey. There were no rivers big enough to support fish the size that Nakomii needed to eat in order to stay healthy. And as winter encroached, the normal hunters of the plains left.
It was a chance encounter, then, that saved Nakomii’s life. He had been walking to his watering hole when he smelt it. Though the haze in his mind, he recognized it, barely. His tongue flicked out to taste the air, and as he did so he started to wake up.
Meat. Living meat, with fresh blood. What he needed if he was to live.
His body, already weak and tired, would have to be fed. If he went to the kill, he wouldn’t be able to return to his brain cave. But, Nakomii puzzled, there was no scent of hunter. He took a stumbling step towards the kill-scent.
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Dekani was… something. She opened her mouth, then shut it. Her ears pressed back against her head, as if awaiting something, but she couldn’t remember what. Something.
It had been hard to chase the other hunters away. They were all bigger then she was used too, standing taller then she did, even when she stood on her hind legs. It would have troubled her if she had thought about it, if it had occurred to her to worry about it, or think about it. Instead, she didn’t. A few well placed scratches with her nails, and a single bite to a large scavenger that tried to bite her uninjured shoulder, and the kill was hers.
The scavengers circled still, out away from her but close enough so she could still see them. She didn’t like them. And she didn’t like what was happening. Things were changing and that was bad. But there were trees nearby, and water, and that was good. And as far as Dekani understood things, so long as something was similar to what she was used to, she would be happy. Granted, the trees were stunted, twisted and short, and the water was barely a trickle before it became mud, but she didn’t think about that sort of thing. She couldn’t.
Ripping raw meat from the ribs, she looked around as she swallowed. The scavengers were running from something, which was good. She couldn’t see whatever it was, so she wasn’t aware of it. The wind was blowing the wrong way for her to be able to smell the approaching danger. So, she bent back down and took another bite.
She didn’t look far, just over towards the trees. To make sure they were there. They were, so she lowered her head again, to eat more.
Once she was full, she didn’t move, just settled down by the kill. It was big, and she didn’t want any scavengers to get it. It was hers, not theirs. So, she would stay nearby and chase them away. If it had been smaller, or if there had been less meat left, she would have left. There wouldn’t have been any worth in defending a pile of bone and fur. But there was still three quarters of the animal left, and it was big. So she stayed.
The sun was overhead, warming the young woman. Dekani might have dozed, it didn’t matter because the scavengers weren’t trying to get close. They were gone. So she wasn’t worried that the sun seemed to change position in the sky, she just relaxed. She had never done that before, always moving or hunting, eating or sleeping. If she was stuck in rain and took a place to rest, she took the time to sleep. She had never really had leisure time, and she felt a little odd, just dozing and laying next to the kill. She lifted her head to look around, but there were only the flies and other small insects moving to her kill. They weren’t big, so she ignored them. They crawled over her, and she shook her head now and then, but she ignored them.
So, it was to her great surprise when her kill moved.
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Nakomii was exhausted when he saw the large carcass. It wasn’t big like his mammoth cave, but it was big. Maybe a cub of a… whatever my cave is, he thought. He stumbled, and got back up. Blessedly, he didn’t stumble again as he moved slowly towards the carcass. He saw scavengers run from him, for whatever reason, but he was far away when they left.
By the time he stood next to the corpse, he was swaying slightly. He didn’t even bother to check if there was anything else in the area, and sank his fangs into the meat and pulled, dragging the prey remains over a scant inch. But it was enough to alert something on the other side. Nakomii didn’t bother looking up, but he could hear it move. His sense of smell and taste were overwhelmed by the blood and meat, but his hearing was still good. He could hear something scrambling around. He twitched his tail, wondering what to do once he could think straight, but he returned his attention to the meat eagerly.
A few blissful mouthfuls later, Nakomii sat back and breathed through his mouth. The side of the carcass he had eaten was almost gone, some rib bones having been ripped away from the holding ligaments and muscle still remaining and cracked open for the living marrow inside. It tasted better then the marrow at his bone cave.
As a dragon, Nakomii was able to pack away a lot of food in a short amount of time, and thus was full for the moment. So he looked over the now smaller mound of meat at the moving creature beyond, and froze.
Dirt. Dirt was moving.
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Dekani froze, barely breathing. She was being watched, and that was bad, but if she didn’t move she might not be noticed. Freezing sometimes kept her from being seen before, so she relied on it the moment she felt the scavenger’s eyes on her. Slowly, without moving her head, she lifted her gaze.
A sky hunter. Only partly paralyzing fear became frozen terror. She recognized it, from the depths of her memory. A sky hunter killed but did not eat. So what was one doing at her kill?
The slightly coherent thought didn’t distract Dekani, instead it broke through the terror that turned her limbs icy. Drawing her lips back from her teeth, she rasped a growl low in her throat.
It responded with a low, bone shattering snarl and lips pulled back enough to see the gums. Its tongue lolled out of the bloodstained muzzle, to taste the air around her, and Dekani wilted. Abandoning her kill, she turned and ran.
It might have been an awkward maneuver, starting on all fours and then, in mid turn, lifting onto her hind legs and then running as fast as possible, but Dekani made it look graceful. She had been doing such for much of her life, and the movements were ingrained upon every cell in her body. And, leaning forward, she ran. Her toes dug into the earth, while only the balls of her feet touched the ground. She ran towards the trees, towards the short, twisted plants and all they stood for in her mind.
Behind her, she heard the sky hunter start to move, running after her. She tried to run faster, hearing the noise of the sky hunter growing closer to her, but every ounce of speed was already being poured into her mad dash.
And, more surprising then frightening, the moment the two legged hunter reached the trees, she didn’t bother to run around or dodge under the branches. She climbed up the trunk to perch up near the top branches.
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Nakomii had to take a few seconds before he started running. Well, sort of running. He had his wings spread and beating the air, lifting his front off the earth, leaving his hind legs to pound and push against the ground. He hadn’t even bothered to think about it, just thinking about catching the running dirt clod. And when they reached the trees, he ran into them while the dirt clod ran up them.
One of the foremost trees took him down with a few branches. His nose slammed into the trunk, while his wings wrapped around the branches that bruised them. The tree, furthest from the water, didn’t have a good grasp on the soil with its roots, and when Nakomii fell, so did it.
Untangling himself from the tree, the dragon looked up at the dirt clod and growled. Dirt clods didn’t run, nor did they run up trees. So it couldn’t have been a dirt clod he chased, even though it looked and smelt like one.
And it was up in a tree. Not a big tree, he knew what real trees looked like, dwarfing his wingspan. Even had Nakomii tried, his wings wouldn’t have circled a real tree, not like the tall bushes he could pull down.
Then the dirt clod hissed at him, and he reared up on his hind legs. He rested his forelegs against the tree, as he did when he was pulling ribs down from his mammoth cave. Only the bones didn’t bend, and this tree did. The dirt clod shifted, and its scent spiked in anxiety. Nakomii growled.
“Get down from there, you worthless worm!”
The sound of his voice startled him, and for a moment he drew back and looked around. The strange, hollow spines that coated his neck from between his horns down to his shoulders bristled. When he finally realized he had spoken, he chuckled. The spines relaxed, and hung in a heavy mane along his neck. Leaning back towards the hissing dirt clod, he grinned, baring his teeth halfway in a non-threatening manner.
“Oh, come now. I’m not going to eat you!”
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The sky hunter was pushing the tree over, and all Dekani could do was sit there and bare her teeth. She was worried, as much as she could be, and she hissed. Even though her ears flattened, the noise a surprise and a bad one at that, she kept it up. Then the sky hunter made thunder come from its mouth, and she felt her muscles start to tremble. Her hissing faltered, then resumed. Digging her claws into the bark, Dekani fell silent as the sky hunter bared its teeth at her and made thunder come from its mouth again.
Eat me, she thought, big eat me! Her eyes darted around as the thoughts raced through her mind. The few words were outnumbered by images, scents and sounds, textures and memories. Looking back at the red tinted teeth, Dekani tried to shrink into herself, but she was already curled up small.
Thunder came from its mouth again, and she clenched her teeth. In a moment of extreme stupidity, she leaned forward and swatted the sky hunter on the head. Eyes widening, she leaned back and scrambled to get away. Her feet slipped, and instead of getting away, she fell towards the sky hunter.
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Nakomii felt like laughing again, but his mouth was full. The kill was draped across his back, between his wings, and a tiny little dirt clod dangled from his mouth. He wasn’t sure what he was going to do with it, but it was funny and made him laugh, so maybe he would keep it. If anything else, he would be able to eat it once the meat was gone. It kept thrashing, and it was small, so maybe it would only be a snack for later. When his stomach wasn’t empty, but wasn’t full. Yes, that was what he would do. He’d keep it until then. Then he’d eat it.
He had been so surprised when the little dirt clod had fallen toward him. He snorted, and the dirt clod froze as much as possible. If his mouth hadn’t been full, he would have laughed. It had moved forward to hit him, and then fell into his mouth. Not big enough to fit all the way, Nakomii had almost choked before spitting it out. Not wanting to chase it through the trees, he had grabbed its back and started to carry it. His front legs trembled, they almost always did, now, but he had managed to walk back to the kill and, holding the dirt clod down with one paw while he twisted his neck in several uncomfortable positions, pulled the carcass up onto his back. Then he’d grabbed the dirt clod and started walking again.
The pond was closer, so he went there. It was hardly clear water, but Nakomii was thirsty. That and the dirt clod tasted bad so he wanted to wash the taste out. Maybe he’d toss the thing in the water, make it squeal. That would be funny, too.
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Dekani finally relaxed. The sky hunter was supposed to kill but not eat, but it wasn’t doing anything right. It was eating but not killing. If Dekani tried, she could make her face move, the corners of her mouth turning down slightly. But it hurt, so she stopped pushing her face down. Didn’t stop her from taking a swipe with her claws at the jaw holding her up. She didn’t manage to hit it, so fell back to resting. She would run at the first chance she could, it was how she was.
Her ears twitched as they moved, while her nose and tongue were useless. The air was heavy with dragon and kill, but her ears worked. And her ears told her they were moving. Grass, dry, crunched under the dragon’s weight. A claw clinked against a rock. Dirt powdered beneath a foot. Dekani’s ears pressed back against her head. She didn’t like this. Looking around, she couldn’t see anything. But there was a dip in the ground. She could see that, but it wasn’t important.
The dragon paused, and suddenly his hold on her loosened. Dekani couldn’t help but make noise, a yelp. Pulling her limbs close to her body, she waited for the teeth to crunch through her body. Instead, a wet splash met her ears. Water surrounded her body, up to her chest. Opening her eyes, Dekani blinked. Water. She was in water. And it wasn’t deep. She could sit, and it didn’t go high.
She relaxed for but a minute, before looking around. The sky-hunter-that-wasn’t stared at her from the bank. It was drinking, but she could see its eyes on her. Her throat and mouth was dry. Placing her hands on the bottom of the pond as a brace, she started to lap water. She didn’t take her eyes off the dragon, in case he leapt at her. Her ears twitched, catching the sounds of the wind. But there wasn’t much else.
Thunder came from the dragon’s mouth again, and Dekani hissed. It was almost automatic, despite it being noise. Her ears flattened to her skull again, waiting, but nothing came. She hissed louder.
She could smell the irritation from the dragon. Though she didn’t know what it was, she knew something was wrong.
And when it stepped towards her, she just remained where she was. Now things would be right. It would kill her, and wouldn’t eat, and that was right.
When it simply picked her up in its mouth again, Dekani felt like… something. Doing something with noise. She was confused, and the sky hunter wasn’t doing right! Turning her shoulders and neck, she bit it on the lip.
The dragon yelped, and dropped her. A moment later, she was back in its mouth.
Why wasn’t it acting right?
Dekani growled, and did her best to glare. Even though she wasn’t sure why she was staring, muscles tense, at the ground.
