Mammoth

I am at a loss for words really, Innusha was to be mine, we were supposed to have such lovely children together. I was brought to this Lair for her. And then he arrived, obsidian on obsidian and glittering in blue gems and stole her from me. He is everything I am not, lithe and agile as he dances, flashing his gems at her.

I hate him.


I was angry.

Wrathful even.

I hated my size.

I hated him.

I started to hate her even.

I bristle and snarled, I would not stay and would go. If this was a Clan of monsters, then I would be one too.




And then I met her.

She eyed me and was amused by my wrath, her muzzle rough and scarred. Her shoulders rippled in muscle and stripes, and for all my anger I was no fool. She had a hunter's gleam in her eye and where I thought I could cause a rip or two with my too-long forearms, her claws were sheathed and her stride well-practiced.

She asked me if my silence could be as thorough as my bluster.

I snarled at her and did not answer. It was true, for all my glares and ruffled feathers, I has been careful not to go too far.

She still looked amused as she stood and stretched and pulled rank and ordered me on a hunt. I hissed… and despite myself… I was curious. I had never seen a hunt, much less participated.

The stalking, the running down of prey, my long legs carrying me over brush and bramble. They carried me gracefully, I wove around the strikes of onyx cobras and stamped on their heads as elegantly as he danced for Innusha.

I flashed a jade-flecked wing to turn the sparrows into her waiting claws.

My bulk crushing down the grasses that hid scrapers and flushed deer.

Everything that I'd hated about myself, everything that made me not a Skydancer made me a mirror in dancer's skin.

And I had her to thank for seeing what I was.