Chapter Text
The intensely verdant foliage shifted before me, fat leaves jostling with every ground-shaking step of a titanic beast. The sheer weight ensured even the meter thick branch between my claws was subject to the faint tremors. Despite the heavy greenery that surrounded my position it was trivial to track the creature that made the sounds. Unlike myself, it didn't care to make itself hidden.
No.
That thing wanted to be found and challenged. It had clawed its way to the pinnacle of this entire jungle and at this point was inviting all comers to try to take the figurative crown. To be honest I had to admire the sheer chutzpah that came from such a tactic. It'd spell the death of myself if I so much as dared to emulate such a methodology, but that didn't mean I couldn't appreciate the effort.
I tucked by quadrupedal form lower on the branch, mottled brown and tan hide blending in with the bark. Dull onyx claws held fast without digging in, not belying a hint of my existence to the world outside of the natural sphere of camouflage. Already I could hear the snapping sound of something as almost large as the proverbial king rising to the call.
Times like this the jungle fell silent. Uncountable predators vanishing underground, into bushes, amidst the trees. Such was the danger of such a clash that it wasn't unheard of for those who had been only moments from their own lethal skirmishes to hunker down and wait side by side lest they both die as collateral.
Of course my own hunt was theoretically paused by this exchange but more than likely it would have had to wait until later tonight.
The fin-like ears to either side of my head shifted and adjusted, cupping the air in order to track the sounds of both the soon to be joined battle and more critically the swish of air currents above. It would be a long wait yet, but one I was more than equipped for.
My mind turned inwards as I settled into place, even as my myriad senses settled into a hairspring trigger for if either my hiding spot was breached necessitating a desperate escape.
It has been… a long time, I think, since that day. Hundreds of days, perhaps a thousand. More than one winter season, at least.
I don't remember my birth, nor can I truly recall the swirling mismash of tooth and claw that came after in any particular detail. My brain wasn't structured for such endeavors beyond the markings of territory or what not to do. Instead the start of my memory, the start of what could be argued to be me, all stemmed from a single moment.
That day likely started like most. I ventured out of the hyper-dense foliage of the canopy and into the jungle proper for one reason - the gnawing hunger for meat, lifeblood, and Essence driving me to hunt for prey. The need for fuel, the pushing drive to adapt.
I wasn't sure what creature it was that I had been in pursuit of. I suppose it hadn't mattered anyways. I faintly recall it had been faster than me in a straight line but was worse in acceleration and turning. There was a break in the dense trees, one of numerous clearings that dotted this place. It had managed to breach into and was tearing across the ground leaving me the rough choice to belt after it and hope that this didn't turn into a brawl in the open.
Yet I never reached my chosen prey.
The air itself had shattered and in a flash of not-colour some creature stood on the grass. Looking back I believe I recall the scent being female.
Alien in totality. Bipedal - a rare trait that rarely lasted long. She lacked any visible tooth and claw, was bereft of scale or hide. She was wrapped in some eye-catching thing of vibrant blues and reds. Some sort of foreign energy sparked about her but for the strange display she didn't seem wary or even cautious of appearing on the ground. If anything she looked exhausted and gave off the air of being triumphant.
I had been two body lengths into the clearing and the distance between us was short enough that it would have taken longer to skid to a stop and haul myself back into the foliage compared to simply going through her. So I opted to just change my choice in prey. I turned my all out sprint into a leap that brought me in line with her upper torso as she turned to see what had made noise.
There was the briefest instant of an expression on her face. To this day I still don't understand what it was. Her eyes had widened, pupils contracted, mouth opening wide. Arms had only just started to rise, but I had learned well enough by then to not let even the most meek seeming prey try something or you would die in an instant.
Fangs sharp enough to rend muscle and shatter bone tore into her neck. A death-gurgle came only moments later as one of my foreclaws found a purchase in her chest.
There was no time to linger, not with the foolish creature's flashy appearance, so I quickly made my meal before heading into the underbrush. At the time I recall disappointment. Her Essence was barely existent and what was there held not a trace of what enabled that light show of an appearance. Yet as I took in her delicate strain it had a profound effect.
My mind changed.
It was slow. Not the adaptation. That had happened before I had even reached the trees. The ramifications took longer.
Hour by hour what had been simple instinct and a brutal, primal cunning expanded. I started to comprehend. Instead of hiding I had taken the following day to examine and consider from my spot in the trees. I realized days later on my next hunt that I could reminisce on the prey I had forsaken. To this day I'm unsure if my existence is something to celebrate or decry. I had shed blissful ignorance. In its place I could now fathom time and meaning, and with such allowance of thoughts did I come to a single conclusion.
I would die in this jungle.
Even the strongest beings here eventually fell to a cunning trick, and the most conniving trickster lost in the end to sheer brutality.
I vaguely noted the deathcry of the titan in the distance. A final punctuation to such a thought.
So I had come to the decision that by some way I had to leave this place. Not just the jungle, but beyond the sheer drop that marked its borders or the endless sea beyond the sandy beach that marked the true end of this land. I needed some way to escape this unending primal paradise in totality.
Zerus would not be my grave.
My earfins flicked once and my attention was fully pulled to the outer world. The battle was concluded and I could hear the telltale sounds of a feasting victor. It would not do to dwell too much on the past. So I did my best to quiet that whisper of history as I settled for a long wait.
The sun above had vanished over the horizon and the moon now dominated the sky above. The sweltering heat had diminished. The cool air was heavy with moisture and would likely soon drown the jungle in torrential rain. In the many days since my 'awakening' from that hunt I had witnessed many such downpours. Usually only a dozen days separated each one for much of the year. Such regular, heavy rain was the reason that few rolled the proverbial dice on wings. Navigating a storm was likely dangerous, almost as much as trying to navigate the underbrush with them.
Locally there was only one who did. What's more is that they had adapted their form to nigh unparalleled efficiency. They touched soil only once in three dozen days, and only just long enough to snatch up several jawfuls of water before taking to the sky once more. Even on a hunt the prey only had moments before spear like talons would skewer and then it was back to flying high and feasting.
To my count it had been just over thirty days since it had last come down.
So here I was, waiting in silence.
I strained my ears to track the moisture rich air, long and slow breaths taken so I didn't even disturb the nearby leaves or even give rise to my existence. Even my stomach, empty and aching for sustenance, seemed quiescent in the face of the approaching hunt's end.
Then I heard it. The subtle whisper of displaced air from downy-soft wings.
'Right on time.' I noted, with a small measure of satisfaction.
I tracked my prey, fins slowly angling to keep my body lined up right. Hindlegs shifted to a better position, bunched and ready to launch me forward. Forelegs went wider and braced to steer my leap, claws oh so carefully digging centimeters into the bark as much as I could dare without risking a whisper of cracking wood.
A small stream curled through the underbrush barely three meters from the tree that hid me. It was why I had set up here, and why I had kept hidden for the better part of over a dozen days. It was just the right spot for a quick drink without risking placid waters of dangerous lakes.
Sight was useless here. The foliage blocked thermal vision. Scent would be viable if my prey weren't airborne. It was only by sound that I could trust, and I knew I had only one chance. If I missed, if I failed to take it down, it would vanish from this jungle forever.
It dipped low and then I heard it. Just what I was waiting for.
The near-silent crush of grass under claws.
My legs launched me downwards and forwards, so much power was put into the leap that I heard the branch crack. Leaves exploded outwards in verdant shrapnel obscuring my true shape for the briefest instant.
Under the light of the full moon I had barely enough time to register the creature already in motion. Water cascaded from its jaws as it spun, a single long-clawed foot already lancing through the air towards my general position. A half-dozen eyes tracked my position in the air but even from here I could see the irises flexing as they fought to observe something so quick and so close.
My right foreleg was already pushing down in a desperate slash, directing those deadly talons away. The left was angled towards its jaws, dull claws tilted just enough that they could drive through the comparatively weak hide without arresting my own momentum. If it had managed more of a turn I wouldn't have been able to stop the other set of talons. As it was I could already feel a sharp pain tearing along my right hindleg as I failed to fully deflect its counter strike.
Yet even that burning lance along my muscles couldn't deter me. I was already committed.
My teeth went between spread paws, trained on its neck. I punched through with so much ease it may as well have been made of the leaves that were already falling around us. The muscle did little to nothing to stop the lethal snap as my maw sunk downwards. Crimson splattered both of us as my fangs met bone and the bone lost.
In an instant the creature died and my body crashed into it at high enough speed that I felt more than a couple ligaments snap.
That didn't matter.
What mattered was the second bite. Then the third. Fourth. A dozen more. In between every near-desperate snap of jaws I felt my body healing from the damage taken.
Gore covered grass shone under moonlight as my clenching stomach was finally granted sustenance. Beyond the delicious meat and thirst-slaking lifeblood, there was the impossible delicacy of Essence. Every bite more was harvested and my body adapted in kind. Muscle and flesh woven together and bound tighter. My form compacted as it took in the extreme efficiency and applied it without sacrificing even an iota of power. I likely outweighed myself as I was yesterday by a notable percentage but I felt lighter all the same.
That was a secondary, if welcome, benefit. The eyes I ignored, they were too specialized in long-distance viewing and would hinder movement through the trees and underbrush. The hide was too weak and bones too brittle. Its sense of hearing was laughable, its smell was non-existent.
But the wings. Oh the wings.
I took them eagerly. The feathers, likewise, were subsumed. Even as they grew rapidly across my form in concealing greens, my internal focus was on my back. Long, sleek wings unraveling into the cool, humid air. Primary flight pinions unfolding with reverence. Yet for their size on me they were still smaller in proportion to my body than that of my meal's.
I wouldn't be able to manage the impressive flight times. I doubted I could manage a dozen days.
That was fine. Flight was enough for the first leg alone, and absolutely crucial for the third.
I took a quick dive into the small stream to allow the viscera and ichor to be washed away. This was also a perfect time for several gulps of cold water.
A quick shake as I left the stream had me dry enough that I could vacate immediately. I was far from the only creature that was awake, much less nearby, and the short tussle was enough that scavengers would be here in minutes. The trees seemed larger now. Passing beyond the one that had sheltered me for a week I guessed that my frame had shrunk downwards by perhaps a third, even if it was denser.
Not even a backwards glance was given towards my once-prey.
The night was young and I had much to do.
This jungle was massive.
Large in a way that I lacked the proper internal verbiage for. A zerg could run in a straight line from one end to the other and need several days even at impressive speeds. Of course being such a sprawling thing stuffed to nearly overflowing with hostile, ever-adapting predators wasn't enough.
No, this entire thing existed on a gigantic raised monolith of stone. One large enough that you could sometimes see clouds twisting against the sheer face. If you somehow managed to scale down the side, and more importantly not get snatched by the myriad zerg that tunneled through the middle, you then had to contend with a long stretch of barren wasteland. It was like some cruel creature had scooped up all the greenery and water from below and placed it on the largest pedestal imaginable.
Only once you got past that desiccated land did you reach the shore. From there it was just open ocean. Sparkling azure waters that no doubt hit terrible horrors beneath.
Recently I had started to wonder if this elevated jungle was unique to Zerus - a name that was somehow ingrained in my own thoughts along with the name Zerg - and that it had been separated from the rest. Or if this place was a haven compared to worse dangers. I suppose it didn't really matter. There was nothing that would come from living here that didn't end in something's stomach.
Ka-THUD!
Case in point.
Dirt exploded to my right as a spine of bone longer than my foreleg smashed into the earth.
I still wasn't sure what it was that had decided I was it's next meal but it was damn persistent. I couldn't even be sure what it was because I hadn't even seen it yet! I hadn't come across something that used projectiles yet, at least nothing larger than a claw length dart, and yet this zerg was pumping out lances every twenty seconds to a minute and hadn't stopped its hunt for two straight days.
If I hadn't taken that flyer I don't think I would be alive right now. I was burning energy. A staggering amount. Only by grace of that nearly unparalleled efficiency was I able to keep my legs pumping hard and fast. I didn't have the raw experience to fly up and away and even if I had I still wouldn't.
I jerked to the right to avoid the next projectile.
This damn zerg had too much power and too much range to risk it. What's worse is that a day ago he could barely hit three meters from me. Now I had to actually dodge.
The only reason I wasn't a ball of panic was that I had an out. One I hadn't planned to use yet but seeing as it was the only potential way to avoid death? It was now or never, and I choose now.
Trees raced by to my left and right, marked only by their numbers growing fewer. Claws scrambled on rocky dirt as I hastily threw myself to the side to avoid not one but two of those skewers. The cliff edge was maybe a hundred meters and I knew that I couldn't hesitate when I reached it. There just wasn't time.
At the speed I was moving it was almost instant. From a hyper dense jungle with a canopy that blocked most of the sky to being open to the great blue above.
The ground was now almost pure stone and there was maybe a ten meters from the last tree to a sheer drop.
Go go go go GO!
I leapt. Early enough to let me plunge beyond the edge with so little space between vertical stone and myself. Yet I wasn't fast enough, or perhaps I should have dove at an angle instead of going straight out. A single lance of lethal bone slammed through one of my wing bases.
The burning agony of the impact was tame in comparison to the horror of watching one of the two limbs I needed to survive falling on a different trajectory.
Even if I caught up to it my body was already sealing the stump. If I tried to use my other wing at best I would swerve and crash into unyielding stone and at worst fall into an uncontrolled tumble. My eyes flicked in desperation to try and find a way to live.
Seconds stretched as I watched the heat blasted land below climb slowly to meet my careening descent.
I will not die here, not when I was a half second from freedom.
I refuse.
In that moment something changed. A flicker of something so ephemeral I had missed it my entire life caught my desperate declaration and ignited into a blazing star.
The air shattered.
Sky, stone, and distant sea dissolved into a twisting, ever-shifting madness. I couldn't feel any limb. I couldn't even tell if I had a physical form. It was just this vast non-reality of contradictory sensations riddled with stars. Not-space rushed by as I plunged through the cluttered void towards the distant all-consuming spec. I wanted to scream in defiance but my lungs didn't exist.
Then I hit the point and it bloomed into a horizon spanning star. The veil that marked where it ended and this formless chaos began broke on impact. Yet even as I passed the horizon I could tell it was already sealed back in place as if my transit never was.
There was the briefest moment where my vision was overcome with white, gold, and pink. A microscopic fragment of time stretched thin.
Reality crashed back into being around me and my body crumbled against the dirt.
The impact was too soft. Like I had fallen merely a meter and not the hundreds I just had. My lungs ached for air, my severed wing only just now starting to regrow. I wasn't sure where I even was now. The air was different. It was still humid, the faintest tang of saltwater that the jungle held, and it was still warm.
But it was undeniably different. I couldn't put tongue or claw to what it was, but I just knew I was somewhere else. Even beyond the fact that the bottom of the cliffs was little more than an arid wasteland. My mind swam as my body started to succumb to the exhaustion of two days of chase.
Grass crunched as something stepped nearby.
'Shit.'
I dragged my sight up to what zerg had found me. I didn't have the energy to move, but I at least needed to know what it was. What it looked like.
…
'What?'
I couldn't comprehend what was before me. A bright red, rounded body that resembled a fruit. Five different green, serpentine heads extended out from the top, with elongated, yellow eyes blinking down at me. For all the lack of intelligence behind those eyes, some sense beyond mortal had locked up in the face of something powerful. When the five heads came down I was certain that I was about to be devoured. I could barely twitch my legs to start moving when a sudden blast of pollen surrounded me.
I could only stare dumbfounded as the sensation of rapid recovery rolled through my form.
My last thoughts spun in circles trying to understand what it was that just happened as the exhaustion claimed my mind and my body slumped into unconsciousness.
'What is that thing?'