I slept like a log after everything. When I woke up, the sun was high and she was already awake. She had sat on the floor, licking her scales to clean them of the dry, crystallized liquid that covered them. She watched me with her calm eyes as I sat up, feeling every muscle sore but in a strangely good way.
Hunger roared in my stomach. I dragged myself to the refrigerator, took out a piece of already cooked venison from previous days —I had stewed it with Red Horn Herb and garlic powder— and put it to heat in a pan on my small camping stove. The aroma of spiced meat quickly filled the cabin.
She lifted her head immediately, her nostrils flaring. Her eyes fixed on the pan with absolute intensity. It was the first time she had smelled cooked food.
When the portion was hot, I sat on the floor and began to eat. It was delicious, comforting. Suddenly, a sharp squeak, almost like a bird's, but coming from her throat, made me look at her. She was sitting very upright, watching every bite I brought to my mouth, and then looking at me directly in the eyes. Her tail began to thump against the wooden floor with a quick, happy rhythm. Tap, tap, tap, tap.
It was such a clear plea, so childish and full of longing, that I couldn't help but smile. The arrogance of the huntress had disappeared, replaced by the pure curiosity of a hungry cub.
I cut a generous piece of the hot meat, blew on it to cool it a bit, and offered it to her.
She approached cautiously, sniffed the piece, and then, with a quick and delicate movement, took it from my hand. She chewed it once, twice… and then stopped. Her eyes opened wide, as if she had experienced a divine revelation. A new squeak, even sharper and full of ecstasy, burst from her. She swallowed the bite and lunged towards me, rubbing her head against my arm with a deafening purr, her tail hitting the floor like an ecstatic drum.
Her bright eyes fixed on me again, begging shamelessly. "More!"
And I gave it to her. And then a little more. And watching her enjoy something I had created, a simple act of sharing cooked food, was… incredibly rewarding. It was a new bond, different from mating. It was a beginning. She sat beside me, eating from my hand, and for the first time since I arrived on this planet, I didn't feel alone. I had someone to share my hearth, my cabin, my world with. I didn't know her name, nor if we could ever speak, but at that moment, under the violet sunlight coming through the window, with the sound of her tail happily thumping the floor, it was more than enough. The future, suddenly, seemed a little less desolate.
*****
One week later
Mornings no longer began in silence. Nala's soft purr, or the sound of her claws scraping the wooden floor as she stretched, became my alarm clock. Her voracious appetite for cooked food was a constant motivation to improve my culinary skills. I experimented with different combinations of the three herbs, discovering that Butterfly Tongue, when slightly caramelized, created a glorious sauce for bird meat, and that a tiny pinch of crushed Angel Herb in melted fat enhanced the flavor of venison without overwhelming it with spiciness.
But it wasn't all about food. Nala had her own idiosyncrasies. Her tail, long and expressive, was a danger to any unsecured object. Several clay cups and one lamp succumbed to her unconscious movements. I learned to place things on high shelves or inside trunks. She, in turn, learned—slowly—to be more aware of her appendage, especially after her tail, in a moment of enthusiasm for a particularly juicy piece of meat, swept the entire table, leaving us both covered in stew and surrounded by ceramic fragments. The look of guilt in her yellow eyes was so human that I couldn't get angry. I just sighed and started carving wooden bowls, much more resistant.
Also began the slow, painfully slow, process of communication. I decided to teach her. Not just for utility, but from a deep longing to be able to share something more than gestures and guttural sounds.
—Nala —I would say, pointing at her. I repeated the name over and over.
She would tilt her head, her eyes fixed on my lips. One day, after countless attempts, her throat emitted a sound. —Nna-la —she growled, rough but recognizable.
It was a moment of pure, uncontrollable triumph. I hugged her tightly, and she, surprised at first, responded by rubbing her head against my chest, purring loudly. From there, "Adonai" was easier, although her version sounded more like "Ado-nai," with a growl between the syllables.
She learned "water," "fire," "meat." But her favorite word, the one she pronounced with a devotion bordering on religious, was "stew." Every time I started preparing food, she would sit beside me like a sentinel, repeating "stew, stew" with an anticipation that made it impossible to disappoint her.
However, not all her behavior was easy to decipher. A subtle but constant change began to manifest. She spent long periods lying down, not just sleeping, but awake, with one of her paws resting on her belly under the leather loincloth I had made for her. It was no longer the curious gesture from before, but something more… contemplative. More possessive. Sometimes, I would see her gently massaging that area, her eyes lost in the distance.
The idea, which was once an abstract possibility, began to take concrete weight in my mind. Could she be…? My heart would race every time I thought about it. Pregnant? After only one time? I didn't know the cycles of her species. I watched her with a mix of fear and cautious hope. If it was true, everything would change. I would have to change.
This thought mixed with a more immediate anxiety: her protective behavior. On our hunting outings, or just exploring the surroundings, she had become hypervigilant. It wasn't the attitude of a hunter, but that of a guardian. If an insect buzzed too close to my ear, a quick snort and a swat of her tail would send it away. If one of the six-winged birds landed on a low branch, she would growl, baring her fangs, until the bird, intimidated, took flight.
At first, I found it strange, even a little annoying. I felt it questioned my abilities. But soon, I began to see it in a new light. In moments of stillness, by the fire, watching how her golden eyes followed me with unusual intensity, a deeper understanding began to dawn on me. It wasn't a challenge. It was… worry? Care? In the rawness of this world, where every day was a struggle, that fierce instinct to protect one's partner, one's potential offspring, the center of one's world… it was a form of love. A primal, rough, bestial love, but undeniably real. And in the solitude of my new life, it was a treasure I dared not disdain.
*****
A neutral observer would have seen a scene of alien domesticity. The crude wooden cabin, with its leaf-thatched roof and canvas window, emitted a faint LED glow at night. Inside, two reptiloid creatures of seemingly different lineages had established a remarkable symbiosis.
The female, named Nala, was clearly the more attuned to the natural world. Her senses, always alert, filtered every sound and scent, cataloging threats and opportunities. Her devotion to the male, Adonai, manifested in small actions: the way she always positioned herself between him and any potential danger, the manner in which her tail coiled around his leg when they sat together, the deep purr she emitted when he stroked the scales on her back.
For her, Adonai was a source of inexplicable wonders. He could create fire at will, not just for warmth, but to transform food into something that transcended mere nutrition to become pure sensory pleasure. His "stews" were the cornerstone of her happiness.
He also created objects from "dead" wood and handled shiny metal tools that defied her understanding. He emitted complex sounds that, over time, began to have meaning. "Nala." "Stew." "Water." She tried to imitate them, her rough voice struggling to tame the sounds, driven by a visceral desire to connect, to belong to this new and strange world that revolved around him.
And then there was the change in her own body. A new heaviness, a feeling of internal fullness that wasn't unpleasant, but profoundly significant. Her instincts, much older and wiser than her consciousness, whispered of possible consequences stemming from all this.
That's why her vigilance redoubled. That's why her need for physical proximity intensified. He was the provider, the protector, the source of warmth and that "magic." Anything that endangered that pillar of her existence had to be eliminated. Her love wasn't an abstract feeling; it was a physical bulwark, a fortress of muscle, instinct, and determination built around Adonai.
*****
The morning air was fresh and clean, laden with the scent of damp earth and the promise of a clear day. The violet sun filtered through the forest canopy, creating shifting patterns of light and shadow on the ground covered in metallic leaves. I walked with a confidence that, looking back, was dangerously close to arrogance. Beside me, Nala moved with her usual feline grace, but her attitude was different, more alert, more protective than ever. Her hypervigilance, which I had interpreted as a sign of affection, was actually a constant alarm that my deaf pride refused to hear.
We had decided to venture further than usual into the eastern territory, beyond the boundaries I had meticulously marked. Curiosity, that last vestige of my inquisitive humanity, drove me. I wanted to map a new area, an open plain I had glimpsed from a hill. Hunting was a secondary excuse.
It was on the border between the forest and the plain that we saw it.
The creature was colossal. It resembled a white rhinoceros from my home world, but amplified, distorted by the nightmare of this planet. Its skin wasn't white, but a stony, thick gray, furrowed with deep wrinkles that looked like ancient tree bark. Two massive horns, one in front of the other, rose from its snout, not of keratin, but of a black, shiny substance like obsidian.
But the most disconcerting thing was its legs. Not four, but six. Two powerful front legs, two central ones slightly shorter but equally robust, and two rear ones, all ending in broad, split hooves that sank into the soft earth. To complete the picture of an evolutionary nightmare, from its wide, thick mouth protruded two pairs of tusks, one upper and one lower, long, curved, and sharp, suggesting a diet that could range from the tough vegetation of the plain to meat, if the opportunity arose. At that moment, it was grazing peacefully, tearing out tufts of the bluish grass with a sound of roots being ripped apart.
I held my breath. It was a magnificent beast. Dangerous, without a doubt, but also an immense source of resources. Meat for weeks, tough hide, bones for tools... My practical mind, heir to a world of scarcity, began to calculate. I didn't see the instant tension that ran through Nala's body at my side.
She froze completely. It wasn't the stillness of a hunter stalking, but that of an animal recognizing a superior predator. Her whole body bristled; the scales on her back rose like a hedgehog's spines, and the luminescent veins in her purple skin pulsed with anxious, rapid light. A hiss so low it was nearly inaudible escaped her lips, a warning directed at Adonai, an instinctive plea to retreat, to move away. Her eyes, fixed on the six-legged beast, were dilated, showing a ring of pure yellow around the vertical pupils. She knew that smell. She knew the danger represented by that apparent placidity. She began to back away slowly, one step, then another, gently tugging at Adonai's arm with her tail, trying to communicate the danger with the urgency of mute panic.
But I wasn't looking at her. My sight was fixed on the animal's flank, at a point just behind the front leg, where the gray skin looked thinner. A perfect target. The excitement of the hunt, the confidence in my enhanced abilities and the strength of my new body, clouded my perception. I interpreted Nala's tension as hunting excitement, not terror.
—Stay here —I murmured, more to myself than to her, an echo of old hunting commands.
And then, I lunged.
It was an explosive movement, a torrent of muscle and overwhelming speed, superior to anything humanly possible under normal circumstances.
I crossed the open distance in the blink of an eye, silent as a shadow. My mind focused on the target, on the technique I had perfected. With one hand, I formed a deadly "spear," aligning my fingers and tensing my muscles until my black claws seemed to merge into a single, lethal point. All my weight, all my driving force, concentrated on that single point.
The impact was dry and satisfying.
My fingers, like five daggers of living steel, sank deep into the beast's neck, right where I had aimed. I felt the resistance of the thick hide give way, then the flesh, and finally a hot stream of blood that covered my arm up to the elbow. A smile of triumph, bestial and fleeting, formed on my face. Another successful hunt.
But the triumph lasted less than a heartbeat.
A visceral sensation, a primal alarm that came not from my senses but from the deepest part of my instinct, hit me with the force of a hammer. My breath stopped dead in my lungs.
My heart, which had been beating with the fury of battle, seemed to accelerate into a frenetic and terrifying drumroll. The world around me didn't slow down, but became sharply clear, every detail etched with painful clarity: the smell of blood and earth, the sound of my own blood screaming in my ears, the rough texture of the beast's skin under my still-embedded hand.
And then, I heard it. Not a growl, not a snort. A roar. A heart-wrenching, guttural scream, charged with such absolute fear and fury that it chilled my blood despite the beast's heat. It was Nala.
I twisted my neck, forcing my muscles, my gaze desperately searching for her. And what I saw left me paralyzed.
The beast hadn't collapsed. It had reared up, seeming larger, more monstrous than I remembered. And on its flank, around the wound I had inflicted, the skin was… opening. They weren't tears caused by my claws. They were circular, perfect openings, like pores dilating to an unnatural size. From them, blood didn't flow. It shot out. A dark, thick geyser that came out with an ominous hiss, an impossible hydraulic pressure.
Before my brain could process the horror, a hand—Nala's—clamped onto my shoulder like a vise. Her claws, though not enough to break my scales, dug in with desperate force. A new roar, this time directed at me, a sound that was both a warning and a command, exploded next to my ear. And then, a titanic force, the full strength of Nala's body propelled by panic, tore me from the beast and hurled me backward.
I flew through the air for an instant that felt eternal, the world spinning around me. I landed heavily on my back, the impact shaking me to my bones. A flash of pain ran down my spine. I closed my eyes, stunned by the fall and the confusion. But survival instinct was stronger. I forced myself to roll over, to get up in a fluid motion, ignoring the pain. Losing sight of the enemy was death.
What I saw then took away what little breath I had left.
The blood shooting under pressure from the beast's flanks wasn't just a one-time jet.
It was a weapon in every sense of the word. A dark, smoking stream passed through the trunk of a young tree as if it were butter, piercing it cleanly. A metallic, sweetish smell, mixed with the whitish vapor rising from the jets, filled the air. That blood was boiling. Literally boiling.
My gaze jumped to Nala. She was now on all fours, planted between me and the beast, a statue of fury and terror. Her whole body was tense, every muscle ready. She growled with a continuous, deep sound that seemed to vibrate the ground. Her eyes, fixed on the creature, shone with a cold hatred and an ancestral knowledge of this danger.
The six-legged rhinoceros, or whatever it was, seemed to have completely forgotten my existence. Its only visible eye (the other was closed from blood) was fixed on Nala. It recognized in her the true threat. I had only been an irritant, and Nala was a rival to it.
With a bellow that was more a sound resembling the roar of crashing rocks than an animal sound, the beast charged.
It was incredibly fast for its size, its six legs moving in terrifying coordination. But Nala flowed like the wind and with a movement that was pure anticipation, she sidestepped, not only dodging the charge, but using the beast's momentum to deliver a lateral swipe. Her claws, sharp as blades, found their mark on the animal's left side, opening a deep gash from which more blood flowed, this time from a conventional wound.
The beast's roar of pain was deafening. It spun around, its gaze filled with insane fury. I saw how the pores on its injured flank reoriented, pointing directly at Nala. I shouted a warning, but it was unnecessary. Nala was already moving on her own.
She dodged the first jet of boiling blood with an impossible pirouette. She avoided the second by leaping backward. But I, with my tactical mind reactivating, saw the pattern. The beast wasn't firing randomly. It was cornering her, directing its jets to limit her movements, to drive her towards a wall of rocks and dense trees. In a few seconds, she would have nowhere to escape.
Panic flooded me, pure white panic for Nala. Without thinking, I acted. I lunged forward, not towards the body, but towards the head. The beast, focused on Nala, didn't see me approach. With a cry of effort, I drove my fingers, still stained with hot blood, directly into the animal's good eye.
The sound that came from the beast was indescribable. A sharp shriek of pure agony that cut the air like a knife. It shook violently, its horns blindly seeking its attacker. I leaped back, narrowly avoiding a thrust that would have split a rock.
The beast turned, its remaining eye now a bloody mass, and "looked" at me. Or rather, it sensed my presence. The fury emanating from it was palpable, a psychic heat rivaling that of its blood. It took a deep breath, its chest expanding like a bellows, and I knew what was coming. It wasn't a charge. It was the blood.
I dodged to the right, anticipating the jet that would come from the pores on its left side. But the beast was intelligent. It grinned, a horrible grimace on its fang-filled mouth, and instead of firing from the side, a thin, precise jet shot from the very wound Nala had made, the one still bleeding profusely.
I didn't see it coming. The dark, smoking liquid hit my shoulder and chest. It didn't pierce my skin; my scales held. But the pain was instantaneous and unbearable. It wasn't the pain of a cut, but that of a burn. A third-degree burn, deep, as if I'd been splashed with molten metal. I screamed, a short, choked cry of surprise and agony, falling to my knees.
Then, I heard a scream in response.
Nala's scream answering mine wasn't a warning, nor of fury. It was of absolute terror. A heart-rending howl that came from the deepest part of her being. And then, something in her seemed to break. Or rather, it was unleashed.
An anger I had never seen, not even in her most brutal encounters with the crimson lizards, possessed her. Her veins, always luminescent, swelled and shone with a blinding intensity, pulsing like beacons of pure fury. Her roar was no longer that of a beast; it was that of a demon, a sound that promised absolute annihilation to anyone who dared harm all that she loves.
She charged. Not towards the flanks, not cautiously. Directly towards the beast's back, which was still trying to locate me by sound. She leaped with a power that defied gravity, her hind legs propelling her like a spring. She skillfully avoided a strange, pulsating lump that had emerged on the animal's back, a gland or venom sac that now seemed inactive. She clung to the thick hide of its neck with one hand, and with the other, imitating the deadly move I had made, she formed her own spear of fingers and claws.
With a cry that was both my name—"ADO-NAI!"—a word distorted by rage and pain, she drove her hand into the base of the beast's skull.
There was a wet, final crack. The body of the six-legged rhinoceros convulsed one last time and then collapsed like a crumbling mountain, shaking the ground beneath my feet. The lump on its back deflated immediately, like a pricked balloon.
But Nala didn't stop. The demon of fury still possessed her. She remained perched on the corpse, stabbing the now unrecognizable head again and again, growling, spitting, her blows turning the skull into a bloody pulp. The blood, now cold and harmless, splattered her body, her face, blinding her.
—Nala! Nala, stop! —I shouted, approaching limping, the pain from my burn throbbing. I grabbed her by the shoulders, trying to stop her, pull her away from the corpse.
She turned to me, and for one terrifying moment, she didn't recognize me. Her eyes were pits of pure homicidal madness. Then, the fog slowly lifted. I saw her blink, pant, her body trembling uncontrollably. The fury vanished, leaving behind emptiness and fear.
Her eyes fell on me, on my shoulder and chest where the boiling blood had left black, smoking marks on my scales, blistering the skin around them. A whimper, this time of pure anguish, escaped her. I relaxed, thinking the episode was over, that she was coming back to herself.
It was then that her tail, thick and powerful, moved. It wasn't a deliberate movement. It was a pure lash of adrenaline and pent-up emotion, a reflex action of the frustration, fear, and twisted love that consumed her. The tail struck directly into my stomach, just below the ribcage.
It wasn't just any hit; it literally generated its own sonic boom.
The air compressed and burst with a muffled thunderclap. The breath was knocked out of my lungs as if they'd been emptied with a vacuum pump. I fell to my knees, gasping for air, unable to breathe, my vision blurring.
A wave of nausea and blinding pain washed over me.
When I managed to lift my head, with tears of agony in my eyes, I saw Nala standing before me. Her own eyes were full of tears, carving clean tracks through the blood covering her face. Her chest rose and fell convulsively. Her tail, the instrument of the blow, was paralyzed in the air, rigid as a steel bar, showing the intensity of her inner torment. Her veins, still swollen, pulsed irregularly.
She looked at me, panting, sobbing, and then, without a word, without another sound, she turned and ran. She vanished among the trees with the speed of the wind, heading towards the cabin.
I was left alone, kneeling on the ground, gasping to catch my breath, the pain from the burn and the blow competing within my body. The paralysis wasn't physical, it was emotional. The realization of what had happened, of the mistake I had made in underestimating the beast, in ignoring her warnings, and of Nala's cataclysmic reaction, left me petrified. She, my Nala, had hit me. Not to hurt me, I knew it in the deepest part of my being, but from the abysmal frustration of seeing me injured, from the terror of almost losing me.
When I could finally breathe with some normalcy, a cold, bitter anger took hold of me. I got up, staggering, and my gaze fell upon the mutilated corpse of the rhinoceros. For a moment, a senseless rage drove me to want to vent my frustration on the remains. But it was an animal. An animal that had only defended itself. The fault wasn't its.
The fault was mine.
With a growl that was pure contained rage, I turned and lunged at the nearest tree. My fists, reinforced by fury and the reptilian strength I possess, struck the trunk again and again. The wood creaked, splintered, tilted, but didn't fall. I moved to the next, and the next. Each blow was a reproach to my own stupidity, my arrogance. "Expert survivor," I thought bitterly. Ignorant. A child playing with things he doesn't understand, wouldn't even be able to survive in the wilderness of my own planet, I don't know what made me think it would be better here.
Finally, I reached a particularly large, old tree, its bark thick and gnarled. With a cry that was a gut-wrenching roar, a sound that sprang from all my frustrations, my fears, and my pain, I unleashed all my strength in a single blow.
The crack was deafening. A fissure snaked from the point of impact to the top. The tree swayed, creaked, and with a pitiful sigh of broken wood, collapsed, crashing to the ground with an impact that echoed throughout the clearing.
I stood there, panting, my hands bloody and bruised, dry tears marking my dusty face. The sound of the falling tree seemed to carry away the last wave of my rage. Only a cold void remained, and the painful realization of my own ineptitude. Nala wasn't just my companion. She was my teacher. She, with her instincts sharpened by a life in this hell, knew more than I did. I had been lucky. Monumentally lucky to have survived until today.
With a sigh that came from the depths of my soul, I dragged the heavy carcass of the rhinoceros back to the cabin. It was an exhausting task, each step a reminder of my mistake. I put it in the cave I used as a cold storage, the ambient temperature being low enough to preserve it. Then, with a heavy heart, I headed to the cabin.
Opening the door, the first thing I noticed was the silence. And the order. The lamps were in their place. The bowls and utensils, tidy. The furs, though rumpled, hadn't knocked anything over. It was unsettling. Nala's presence always brought an adorable chaos, a trail of life. This stillness was a monument to her pain.
I found her huddled in the bed of furs, in the darkest corner of the room. She wasn't sleeping. Her body trembled with silent sobs. The smell of dried blood and salt filled the air.
—Nala… —I murmured, approaching cautiously.
She didn't move. When I was close enough, I tried to reach out a hand to touch her. At that moment, her tail, previously paralyzed, came to life. It moved with a residual speed from her earlier fury and struck me on the side of the head with enough force to make me stagger. It wasn't a blow meant to hurt me, but to push me away. A clear and painful "stay away."
The message was unmistakable. I stared at her for a moment, the impact site burning not so much from physical pain as from emotional pain. There was nothing to say. Words were useless here.
Sighing, deeply tired, I gathered some furs from the floor and lay down in the opposite corner of the cabin, as far from her as possible. The wooden floor was hard and cold. I closed my eyes, but sleep didn't come. My mind replayed the day's events over and over: the beast, the boiling blood, Nala's scream, the blow…
She was right. I was a novice. A lucky idiot. And that luck, today, almost cost us both our lives. The lesson had been brutal, but necessary. As I lay in the darkness, listening to Nala's muffled sobs eventually turn into exhausted silence, I made a promise to myself. A silent and solemn promise. I would never again underestimate this world. And never, ever, would I ignore the instinctive wisdom of the creature who, in her own clumsy way, had tried to save my life. The path ahead would be one of humility and learning. I know little of the consequences of what is to come.
*****
I sat up with the slowness of one dragging invisible chains. The lizard skin I used as a loincloth hung loosely, as if my body itself had shrunk a little during the night. I dressed with the automated movements of someone repeating an empty ritual. Each gesture —adjusting the strap, running a claw over the rough edge— reminded me of other mornings, mornings with the soft thumping of a tail against the wooden floor, with the guttural purr that vibrated in the air like a shared heartbeat.
I went out to the main room and the order hit me like a reproach. Everything was in its place: the clay bowls lined up, the tools hung up, the fire out and the circle of stones intact. There was no trace of the joyful chaos Nala brought with her, of that tail that swept through the space with the carefree force of a gale, toppling whatever crossed its path. Her absence was a silence too eloquent. She, who expressed herself with her whole body, was now shouting at me through this unnatural neatness. Her mood, always so transparent, was clear: a sadness so deep she didn't even have the energy left to be herself. And that, more than any angry squeak, broke me in half.
A sigh escaped me, laden with a weariness that seeped to the bone. I went to the kitchen, to the area where I kept the human treasures. There they were: the steel pan, the knives with their perfect edge, the gleaming spoons. Objects that once represented triumph, control, a piece of my recovered humanity. Now, under the grayish light filtering through the canvas window, they only reflected my own inner filth. I felt sullied. Not by the earth, nor by the blood of the hunt, but by something deeper, a guilt that had lodged itself in my core. I knew, rationally, that the mistake —risking my life so stupidly—, though serious, didn't deserve this level of self-flagellation. But logic is a weak weapon against feeling. And the feeling, human or not, screamed at me that I had failed.
That I had hurt the only real connection I had in this absurd world. This contradiction, this conflict between what I know and what I feel, is the last and most persistent vestige of my humanity. Inside, I am as fragile and contradictory as anyone else; on the outside, a monster of scales and horns.
I left the cabin. The fresh morning air did nothing to clear the weight from my chest. I scanned the clearing: nothing. She wasn't lying by the ashes of the campfire, nor drinking from the nearest barrel, nor curiously watching the slow progress of some gold-shelled insect. For a second, I imagined that she herself could have lit the fire. I taught her, during those short happy days. She never did it in front of me, but something in her attentive gaze, in the way she absorbed every movement, gave me the certainty that she could.
She could, but she didn't want to. Not today.
The temptation to run into the forest, to roar her name until the echo returned an answer, was a fierce impulse. To look for her, to explain myself (with what words?), to beg. But another part, more cautious, more exhausted, whispered to let her be. That she needed this space, this distance to digest her anger and fear. It's the sensible thing, the prudent thing. But then I remember: it's Nala. And leaving her alone, in such a state… wouldn't that be the biggest mistake? Women have that emotional complexity; it seems to be a universal that transcends even species. The problem is I have no idea where she is. And even if I searched, this world is vast. But I know, with a certainty that anchors me, that this clearing, this cabin, is me… is her point of reference. She'll return. She's smarter than me.
I dropped heavily to the ground, in front of the cabin entrance. The sky, that eternal sheet of violet and turquoise, suddenly seemed immense and hostile. Remorse, which at first was a dull pang, began to grow, to tangle in my guts, to become a slab threatening to crush me. I felt weak, vulnerable, as if the armor of my scales had turned to glass. Is this what it feels like? This tearing in the center of my chest, this helplessness? Is this the price of having been loved in such a total, primal way? She loves me with the intensity with which she hunts, with which she protects her territory: unconditionally, without half-measures. And I, in my reckless stupidity, almost turned that love into mourning. I don't know how to handle a gift like that. I don't know how to be worthy of it.
And then, the most venomous doubt slithered into my mind: did I treat her as an equal, or only as convenient company? As a being to share warmth with at night and the most basic sexual instincts? The sadness that flooded me then was different, darker. If so, then I have lost myself in this body more than I thought.
But staying here, wallowing in this spiral of dark thoughts, fixes nothing. It's the anteroom to paralysis, to surrender. I know. I've been on that edge before. And no, not today.
With a growl that was more for myself than for the outside world, I stood up. My muscles protested, but the decision was iron. Hesitating was to continue feeding this void. Uncertainty was preferable to this paralysis.
I will go look for her. Without hesitation. Without looking back.
The forest awaits, and somewhere among its shadows and whispers, she is there. And whatever I find, it will be better than this silence that only hurts me. I won't be one of those cowards who wait for everything to fix itself; I'll do what I have to do, however I can do it, and without hesitation.
For her.
Author's Note: This chapter is a bit weak and short. Also, I didn't narrate it in the same way I usually do, so I hope you'll forgive me for that. The next chapter will be better narrated.
I wrote this chapter while I was sick, so partly the blame for how bad it is has to do with that. For those who can donate to me, I thank you from the bottom of my heart.