Kin of Jörmungandr

Life is bliss.

Never before have I experienced such divine flavour. Each gulped mouthful of warm meat slides down my throat with an ease beyond any other. It doesn't fight me like a living creature, nor does it taste horrid like most corpses. Somehow, they've made eating an experience in itself.

Dozens of platters had been brought before me. On each, was the flesh of a different beast, yet prepared in ways I might have thought completely unnecessary… if I hadn't tasted it for myself.

Each meal is firm. Unlike raw flesh, the meat served to me doesn't run with blood. I had thought the lack of such juice would make swallowing difficult and unappetising, but I am happy to be proven wrong. Unlike the beasts I've hunted on the Other Side, these meals feel like they fail to sate my hunger — not that I'm even slightly hungry after all the hunting and eating I've done recently.

What the food lacks in a fulfilment, they make up for in taste. Each platter presented holds a new, wondrous flavour that I could never find while hunting. Meat stopped being unique after my thousandth hunt. Yet somehow, these sapients even make flesh of the same prey taste entirely separate.

"What is this?" I ask as I swallow the ribs coated in a mucus-like substance. Unlike its goopy appearance, the mucus only amplifies the meat's taste.

"Talsuur sauce," Dallen says, eyeing the many empty trays piled on the table they'd set up at the fringes of his hive. "I asked the cook to prepare only carnivorous options, but we still use some vegetables in the recipes… so let us know if it doesn't suit you."

The first meal he brought out held vegetables. Types of plants that I hadn't been able to recognise due to the odd way they were prepared besides the meat. Well, I hadn't recognised them until I spat them out, almost regurgitating.

Since then, Dallen had been excessively worried about any meal containing plants.

Well, I appreciate the concern, but if it tastes bad, I'll just spit it out. No need for him to panic every time I swallow something with a hint of having originated in the ground. Apparently all these 'spices' that give prey such distinguished flavour originated as plants, and I've not had any horrible reaction to them.

Cooking. If nothing else, I will learn this before returning to my hunt. What sort of flavour could I create by combining these sapient's techniques to the filling flesh of a near Titanic beast?

The taste alone is enough to make this trip worth it. And immediately as I think so, another wave of guilt washes over me.

I know learning new paths is a way forward itself, but any time I think about it, it feels like I'm wasting time not improving myself. Not hunting to grow stronger. Not reaching for Scia as I should.

"How do you fit so much?"

I turn towards the man. The antlers growing from the back of his slender inner body curve around and cover his face, but his eyes remain focused on the piles of empty platters.

A hiss escapes my mouth as I tilt my head in question. The motion something Scia always did when she was confused.

Dallen snaps his head up, as if not realising he'd spoken. "Ah, sorry. I just mean that you've eaten more than ten times your size already…"

Despite the clear nervousness around the man, I let out a hiss of amusement. Not long ago, I had wondered the same thing. Unfortunately, my hiss only amplifies his nervousness, so I clarify my thoughts with words. "I have my own spatial fabric, separate from the rest of the world. Only recently have I discovered, but I believe anything I swallow shifts planes. Even in my largest form, I can eat many times my weight."

The khirig takes on an unsettled expression that doesn't disappear after the effects of my presence drain from his body. "I apologise that we cannot offer your fill. As a guest of honour, we wish to treat you properly, but it was already difficult enough to feed our mercs. And now… Well, I hope you can understand."

For some reason, the man bows his head within his cage of antlers in deference, while his body grows tense.

I still find the concept of hoarding food strange, but it's not like these sapients are the only ones to do so. Considering the unique circumstances they are in, it is understandable. No matter how many creatures I've hunted in the past, I never ran out of things to eat. Sure, there were often a lack of stronger beings to fight, but there was always a wealth of smaller critters in my territory I could feast upon.

But these sapients exist in such quantities that there are far fewer lesser creatures around than anywhere but the most inhospitable caverns. Hunting on the surface must be more a challenge of finding something than actually taking it down.

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Well, the food was flavourful, so I don't regret it. But I may have gorged myself too much while waiting for Ceph to finish up with whatever she needed to do. It's not like I actually needed all of this, but they kept placing more in front of me, so what could I do but to eat it?

Still, if they've gone through what they need to survive for my benefit — ignoring how foolish such generosity was — then it is only right that I return the favour.

Casting my gaze back through the chain of distortions leading to the Other Side, I find something not terribly large, but better than the meats they gave me.

They should enjoy something properly filling.

"I will return soon."

❖❖❖

Dallen was panicking.

All he'd needed to do was keep the monster occupied for a couple of hours until Ceph got her shit together and either convinced her team to rejoin her, or take responsibility for the serpent herself. A few hours. That was it. Yet it was the most stressful few hours he'd felt in recent history.

As a Beith, he'd faced all sorts of creature and battles in his life. He'd reached strength few could compare… yet just standing in the proximity of that serpent had his nerves on edge. He didn't need to have seen its hundred metres of length when it rose from Kalma's Pit to know the being was dangerous.

He was supposed to keep it distracted. Gone so far as to use the last of their meat reserves. And yet, it had only taken an instant for the creature to disappear.

A momentary sound of intense rumbling had shaken the air as the snake slid through one of those holes in air. A spatial distortion. Like what had been at the border between the lower and middle elevations of the Titan Alps… before it fell. One moment the snake was here, enjoying the meat that should have gone to the men and women under Dallen's temporary command. The next, it had disappeared somewhere that sounded like it was experiencing an earthquake.

The ground was still, so Dallen couldn't imagine it was anywhere nearby.

He paced besides the mess of platters. Orm had said they would be back, so Dallen didn't want to leave the table unattended. Nor did he feel like admitting to Ceph his failure to keep the serpent around after she and her team managed to convince the beast to follow them.

Dallen wasn't a fool, and was quick to pick up on the dohrni's intent on keeping word of the war away from Orm. The beast was not yet on their side. Ceph had done much to convince the beast that she wanted to show it the surface and was clearly hoping to incite sympathy. It was a dangerous game she was playing. One he was glad he didn't have the task of juggling.

"Where is Orm?"

Dallen glanced at the approaching dohrni. The purple membrane of her six boneless limbs and head were cleaner than before. She'd obviously taken the time to cool her head by taking a shower. He'd take issue with her leaving him alone with the immensely enhanced snake if not for how bad she and her team stunk after being down below the earth for months.

"It disappeared." He narrowed his eyes, daring Ceph to blame him.

Of course, she wasn't dissuaded.

"What did you do?" her eyes spun beneath the transparent skin to the mess piled up on the table. "Don't you know how much was riding on Orm's help?"

There was no way he couldn't know. Dallen may be one of the few Beiths not fighting on the front line, but he heard enough talk of the war to know it wasn't going well. Support from the apparently Inner Circle equivalent áed had stopped their defence crumbling entirely, but with a front that spanned an entire continent, the elite alone couldn't hold back the advance.

"I gave the beast enough meat that we'll be rationing for months. Nothing I did should have made it leave, so don't come and blame me for what I couldn't control."

Ceph grunted in frustration. "Did Orm at least give you any indication of where they went?"

"No. The snake only said it would be—"

Dallen was interrupted by the roaring sound of earth crashing against earth. A portal opened up before him, and in moments, something massive crashed upon the table, shattering and burying it whole beneath the mass.

Both Ceph and Dallen could only stare at the dead mountain of charred feathers as Orm slid the rest of its body through the hole and the sound of grinding rock disappeared. A bird, at least fifty metres long, now bled out before them. It had clearly been crushed to death. Its body was deformed, and bones poked through its wings, and empty eyesockets where they'd likely popped from the pressure.

The khirig glanced up at the serpent. Orm was in the process of shrinking again, revealing just how the avian had found its end.

It shouldn't be a surprise that a massive snake was fond of constriction, but to see it having crushed such a large being into a sausage thin enough to be dragged through one of those portals was astounding. And also horrifying. The fire bound bird was larger than many of the creatures that had called the Titan Alps their home. Beings not even the Inner Circle would dare take on.

Where did Orm find a beast this large underground? How was there enough space for its wings to even be useful?

Both Ceph and Dallen gaped as the snake curled into a hover before them. Neither could speak. Was this a threat? A show of power to make sure they knew none of their kind could ever hope to compare? The blood flowing off the bird was already forming a crimson lake, and the heat billowing off its feathers made him sweat despite his resistance.

"In return for the food."

Even without the serpent's presence flowing through its hiss, Dallen was sure he'd be frozen beneath those eyes alone. Thankfully, it wasn't waiting for a response. Orm turned to Ceph.

"Shall we begin?"

Blankly, she nodded. Without a word, she and Orm left for the horizon, leaving Dallen to stare as the serpent shifted to an even smaller size — unnervingly small, considering just how much strength it had. Slowly, he turned back to the dead mountain before him.

A gift? Or a promise?

Was Orm paying them back for the feast, or was it giving them a warning of what would happen should they cease their offerings to it. Did it matter? The beast was strong enough to wipe out their entire nation if it so chose… and with those portals, it could do so quickly.

Orm was a Titan.

It may not hold the sheer presence or size of Cipactlteteo, but the serpent was actively moving through their lands. That in itself made the intelligent beast more dangerous than any Titan in their records.

Dallen just hoped Ceph wasn't making a mistake. If she angered it, then forget the Henosis Empire; Orm would be a worse enemy, by far. At the hands of the Henosis, the people of the pact nations would be conquered and subjugated. A monster would leave no one alive.

Was the gamble worth it?