Venom-dipped Memories

I still remember that day: as crystal clear as the first time I saw it happen. 

I was a lad of but fourteen, slowly growing into manhood. I lived alone in a cabin with my father on the edge of the wilds. He taught me all I knew: how to live in the wilds, cook for myself, forage for food, what berries were toxic and which were not. 

He also taught me to read, how to shoot, and how to throw a hatchet... Useful skills. Many times he would disappear for months on end, leaving me in the care of a trusted friend till he decided I was old enough to look after myself. But he’d always return with goods from the cities. It took me years before I asked him what it was he did. 

A broad grin slowly appeared on his grizzled face. “I hunt monsters, son.”

I was amazed. Stunned. 

“What? W-wow...”

He nodded gravely, his smile disappearing as he knelt down and put his huge hand on my shoulder. “Dangerous work too, but someone has to keep those monsters from spreading. They’re all dangerous and won’t think twice about killing a human.” 

From that day, I idolized him even more than I already did. A monster hunter, I wanted to be like him. But for the time being I merely hunted for our food. I was on one such trek with a plump bounty of pheasants when that fateful day happened. 

Snow covered the ground. My limbs were numb. I was looking forward to warming myself by the hearth and enjoying the birds I had bagged for us, but as I drew closer I could see something was very wrong. The door to the cabin was hanging off its hinges and no smoke curled from the chimney. I dropped the pheasants and ran to the cabin drawing my hunting knife. 

A horrible thought came to me. Bandits? Please let it only be bandits...

Going through the door I found our cabin in chaos. Furniture smashed. Objects scattered across the floor... and when I turned the corner into the kitchen my heart stopped. 

My father’s crumpled body lying on the floor.

I ran to him, feverishly looking over his once-proud body, looking for any sign. I heaved and rolled his body toward me, my tears clouding my vision. I couldn’t find a mark on him, but he was dead. If I had to guess I’d say he was somehow suffocated, his eyes were wide and bloodshot. 

I held his limp form and sobbed for hours. I couldn’t think straight. I tried to focus on anything else but I just couldn’t. Whenever I thought I was through crying, fresh tears would begin to flow. The sun had set by the time I finally began to think somewhat rationally. Wiping my tears, I lit a lantern and ventured outside. 

Tracks in the snow. In my stupor upon seeing the door blasted off its hinges, I must have missed them.

They weren’t feet, hooves, or paws: merely wavy lines: preserved by the snowpack and the mild weather. I began to collect my thoughts, circling the strange markings as my mind began to see clearly again. A serpent of some sort? I realized it had to be moving slowly in the cold. Maybe I could still catch it? I could avenge my father!

I sighed. First I had to do something. 

I gathered up my supplies including my father’s rifle which I found leaning against the wall by his bed. My little squirrel gun just wouldn’t do. His gun was once a muzzleloader, now converted into a breechloader. A true weapon. 

I then grabbed the hatchet and fastened it to my belt with the hunting knife before pulling on my longest, warmest coat. I turned my attention to the cabin and my father’s crumpled form one final time before commencing the hunt. 

I didn’t have time for a proper burial and I could lose whatever killed him while scratching out a shallow grave and finding a suitable, temporary headstone... But I couldn’t just leave him for the crows. 

I gritted my teeth as fresh tears began to flow. I threw my lantern onto the floor. I set my childhood ablaze, and with it the shell of my father. It almost seemed symbolic.

Like it or not, I was now a man.

 I turned away from the blazing cabin and set out into the woods in pursuit of the creature that killed my father. 

The night gave way into day, and another night. Then the days stretched on into weeks, and then months, and finally years. 

I had lost the trail.

I did what I could to survive. I knew how to shoot and how to fight, I made my living hunting animals, monsters, and even the odd criminal. As I grew older, people still called me ‘boy’ . Five years had passed since I lost everything. I still had yet to find my original quarry. However, through the hardships, I had only grown more experienced. 

The goblins of Farmouth, the boars of the Northern Woods, the deathworms of Muguhl, the Red Hand Gang: Terrors that had all ended by my gun or blade. Through my travels I would sometimes pick up the trail of something similar to what I had surmised had killed my father, but every time I thought I got close it would evade me once again, or I’d find myself facing a different beast entirely.    

...But this time I was sure I’d found my quarry. 

Arid lands and hills among the ruins of a long dead civilization. It was warm, perfect for a serpent. I still had my father’s rifle. If that wasn’t enough I had a large axe on my belt and a long dagger. One day, a messenger from the Rajah of this kingdom had offered a substantial bounty to anyone who killed this creature for him: It had killed many of his soldiers already. 

Vengeance and a reward: What more could I ask for? Perhaps this would be the last hunt? I could settle down in this strange land. A foreigner like myself was often viewed as exotic and intriguing. I liked the look of the ladies of this land, and their manner of dressing. But would I really know how to settle down? Hunting was all I knew. What would I do with the rest of my life? Would I keep wandering like a nomad? 

I shook my head: I was getting ahead of myself. I could just be marching to my death right now. I pulled the hammer back on the rifle and examined the tracks. Just like I remembered them outside my cabin. Yes. 

This had to be it. 

“This one’s for you father,” I declared as I found the entrance to the lair. 

An archway made of crumbling sandstone among the fallen walls and towers of the old palace. Keeping my rifle shouldered I made my way through the lighting dim with the sun streaming in from the archway. 

I blinked my eyes rapidly as they adjusted, there were other bits of illumination too. Small crystals set on the walls casting an ambient glow. I slowly crept into the lair as I looked around for my quarry, the lair went in deeper down a hall. I picked my way around rubble and found myself in what appeared to be an aquifer of some sort. 

Statues lined the floor, some broken, some in perfect condition. The only sound was my own breathing, and the drip of water. This must have been a bathouse or something when these weren’t ruins. It was impressive it still had water.

As I looked around I paused at a pair of statues. They were of women with serpent bodies, but human torsos. Their details were intricate, one of the statues even had paint upon it still. I was gawking at the serpentine eye of one of the statues when it blinked. 

Dammit. 

I went for the trigger but I soon found my feet jerked out from under me and I dropped the rifle. The weapon discharged and the bullet ricocheted off a wall. I growled as I freed my knife and axe as the creature leered at me. 

I raised my weapons but her coils slipped over my arms. 

I strained against her as I fell to my knees desperately trying to break free of her grip, but the pressure on my arms persisted and I found my weapons falling as my arms were forced down and pinned to my side as she coiled around me. I strained uselessly against her grip. A twitch of her muscles and I was gasping for breath. 

Was this how it was to end? Killed by the same beast that killed my father? 

She lowered her human face towards  mine, a delicate hand cupping my chin. 

“Go on!” I wheezed. “Finish it!”

“Hmm,” she spoke in a surprisingly pleasant voice. “Your scent and face are familiar, but different at once. Curious.” 

I stared at her. I hated to admit it but her human half was enchantingly beautiful. I buried the observation under rage.

“You killed my father!” 

Her eyes blinked and she tilted her head. 

“Ahh, I see it now.” I strained against her uselessly. “Have you been chasing me all this time?” she asked. 

“Every day since the day I became a man,” I replied hatefully. 

“I see. It’s true I did kill your father. But he killed my mother.” 

I paused and she continued.

“The same rage you feel, I felt.” 

I shook my head, “It’s different. He hunted monsters - you’re all threats to us!” 

She squeezed me again and I felt as if my ribs would crack. 

“You are the ones that hunt us. My mother and I tried to stay hidden, but one cow dead and all the hunters and warriors come after us. My mother was just trying to provide for me, and then defend me from those that sought to harm us. Your father was no different. He killed her, and I watched. But I swore vengeance.”

I looked away words sounded too truthful.

“How about you killing the Rajah’s soldiers?” 

“They would attack me on sight, I don’t have the luxury of going into town and buying food. I have to survive. You humans are always attacking that which is different. Don’t you, monster hunter?” 

Her words dripped venom. 

I met her gaze and I could see myself within it, and I began to feel the guilt of what I had done. 

Was she much different than I? Had I not spent years chasing her down out of hurt and anger as she had my father? Were all those monsters I fought really evil, or were some of them just forced to drastic means. 

No! This had to be an enchantment or something! 

I shook my head, “I can’t believe it.” 

“Then let me show you,” she said as she leaned closer. 

I tried to look away but I couldn’t avoid staring into her bright eyes. I found myself lost in the colors, transfixed. My head grew foggy and I felt as if I were falling off a cliff. 

When the sensation stopped I was in a cave of some sort, staring up at another Naga woman, much like the one I had been coiled up by but older. I felt a strange sensation as I stared at her: warmth, love, kindness.  

“See what I made mother?” My voice spoke of its own accord and it was higher pitched, a girl’s voice. 

“Oh, nectar, it’s lovely,” the older serpent woman whispered as she took a pendant made from leather and a single gem. 

I looked down - I had become a Naga girl myself! I looked back up at ‘mother’ her head turned towards the mouth of the cave.

“What’s wrong mother?” my new voice asked.

“Quiet.” she hissed as she suddenly picked me up and shoved me under a crevice.

“Don’t come out, no matter what happens. Okay?” 

“Okay,” I replied fear hammering in my chest. 

The cave echoed with the sound of a gunshot. I saw the Naga woman jerk as red blossomed from her shoulder and I felt myself stifle a scream as tears began to leak from my eyes. 

Mother wasn’t defeated yet, though: she still had fight in her as she rounded on the human entering the cave. I knew him well: My father. As he tried to reload the serpent charged him attempting to get him in her coils. My father avoided the attempt and raised his gun only for it to be swatted from his hands by mother’s claws.

The axe came free as the Naga tackled him, I saw the head fall and catch her in the scales. Again I felt myself stifle screams. I was terrified. Distressed. In tears. I had to stay still. 

The fight continued but father got the upperhand, the axe falling again and again until Mother lay still her blood seeping across the cave floor. I shut my eyes as he took a trophy to prove his kill. I stayed coiled under the shelf well after he left. Until daring to venture out and weep over mother’s body. 

The familiar hate filled me and I set out, catching the man’s scent. I would avenge mother. I would crush that human in my coils. 

I sputtered back to reality as the Naga still had me in her coils, she was wiping away a tear and I felt tears in my eyes too.  

“I should kill you like the others,” she said. The creature had an accent that I couldn’t quite place. “...But I see something in your eyes. I’m tempted to spare you, but that would be foolish. Do you wish to try and persuade me?”  

I shook my head, as much as I was able to in her grip. “I’m not going to beg. I can’t even think of a reason for you to spare me. You’re right, I have killed many monsters. I’ll only ask that you kill me quickly.” 

She looked at me long and hard before she uncoiled from around me. I checked my wrists and tested my legs, then blinked at her in surprise.

“I’m ending the cycle,” she said abruptly. “Go. Take some trinket, there’s plenty here. Just remember a monster spared your life. I shall have to find yet another dwelling.” 

I knelt in the water in shame and humility as she began to slither away. “Wait… what’s your name?”

She paused and tilted her head. “Skye.”

“Nathan.” 

We stared at each other for a time before I spoke again. “Maybe… maybe we can help one another. The cycle has to end, you said it yourself.”

Skye hissed. “You’re trying to resort to some trick!”

“No wait,” I replied, holding my hands up. “Hear me out.”

“You have but a few seconds to convince me human,” she said, regarding me coolly but with interest.