After eating our dinner we fell asleep under the shelter. The next day I was in no rush to go hunting since there were more important jobs to be done. I needed to process the rabbit hides I had carefully freed from the meat. Taking a rock I started scrapping any last pieces of meat that were left before they started to smell and placed the clean hides on a rock to dry. I knew I needed to stretch them in order to make them usable but I didn’t had such luxuries, maybe in the future.
The reason I wasn’t concerned with hunting today was because while eating the tasteless rabbit legs last night I remembered something, goblins are omnivores. And as a result I, a creature hailing from goblins was also an omnivore. All this time we went by eating only meat because farming was too dangerous and foraging too inefficient but that changes now. Since I am on my own it’s okay if I went and picked some wild fruits and berries along the way. Today’s job was finding such fruit bearing trees and bushes and enrich my diet with them. Could you imagine a creature such as me with proper nutrition? I’d be invincible.
Still Sorbet needed his nutrition so I send him alone to the river to hunt to his heart content as I set out on my journey, promising to met back at base at sundown. Armed with my bone spear on one hand and a knife in another I scoured the wildness aiming to exploit it for my benefit. I managed to identify some chestnut trees but they were in blood, it wouldn’t be until later in the year that I would be able to harvest them, still I marked them for the future. After all I may have to get through an entire winter on them.
There, hiding in the foliage, I found them, some berries, blackberries, or a berry that looked like them. I debated if I should eat them or not, since they could be poisonous then ate them anyways because I thought of something. Just because it may be poisonous by human standards it doesn’t mean it’s poisonous for goblins, after all goblins have iron stomachs. I ate them and nothing bad happened immediately, so now only time would tell if I would die or live. I marked some other trees that I saw in bloom but outside of some more berry bushes I didn’t found anything that bare fruit during this time. After all it was still early spring, the colds of winter still hadn’t disappeared.
That night Sorbet returned back to base carrying a rabbit in his mouth, I told him he didn’t had to that but my sweet boy did it regardless. Lighting a fire I quickly processed the prey and whilst the legs were cooking I treated the hide and left it to dry with the rest. After eating we called it a night. The next day I woke feeling fine, in perfect health in fact, that meant that the berries weren’t poisonous, which in turn meant that I could go and harvest as many as I wanted.
After saying goodbye to Sorbet once more I went on my way towards the berry bushes. They made for a good snack but you needed like a million of them to fill your stomach and I was reluctant to pick the bushes clean since there were other animals that relied on them for sustenance. I didn’t wanted to be the one to break the balance of nature, I wanted to become a part of this nature as much as possible. I wanted maybe to plant some of those bushes to my home so that I wouldn’t need to travel so far for them but at the same time I didn’t knew anything about gardening to make it work, I feared killing the plants.
While I was walking back home I heard the flattering of a tongue piercing through the noises of the forest and birds. Even thought it was my first encounter with one I knew from movies and shows that this was the telltale warning given by a snake. Scouting my immediate surroundings I found it coiled and ready to jump me a couple of meters away from my position. It was two shades of brown, one light making the most of its body and a darker pattern on the top, going like waves.
I didn’t knew what to do, it this situation. I knew that they were skittish animals and that you drove away a snake by making noise but this one was prone on attacking at any moment. I was afraid that making unnecessary noise would force its hand to attack me. I slowly readied my spear, pointing it towards the snake, it warned me once again with its tongue. I was never a fan of snakes but still I wanted to avoid having to kill this creature since I wasn’t going to eat it afterwards.
Even if it was a matter of life and death and could be considered self defense I still viewed it as needless death, if only there was a way to end this peacefully. It was strange caring about the life of a snake so much after celebrating the death of a rabbit by my own hands, still in the rabbit’s case it was a matter of survival both mine and my companion’s I couldn’t let it live at our expense. Still this snake was threatening my life and yet I was hesitating.
Support the creativity of authors by visiting Royal Road for this novel and more.
Taking a deep breath I focused on the snake, leaving all needless thoughts aside. Matter of fact it was life or death and an idle mind made me lean towards death. Come out of it a survivor and then ponder the morality of your actions. I brandished my spear towards the snake hoping to scare it away, it coiled even further as a result. Finally jumping towards me I panicked, I felt like the entire world went into slow motion but I saw neither lives of mine flash before my eyes. As I saw it fly towards me I put aside my spear, surprisingly my movements were at normal speed, and grabbed the snake, mid flight, by the head.
I had no idea how it happened, only that I was now holding a snake in my hand by the head as the rest of its body coiled around me. Time went back to its standard speed, everything returned to normal and I was holding a snake. “Maybe I should throw it away.” I let my thoughts escape my mouth, the snake hissed at me in protest. “But then what to do so that you don’t bite me?” It hissed again. “What do you mean let you down you won’t bite? As if I can believe that!”
Wait a second, just a moment ago I couldn’t understand this snake but now I was holding a full on conversation with it, what happened? “Okay, I’ll let you down but I don’t want to see any sudden moves.” it hissed again agreeing with my terms. I lowered my hand to the ground releasing it, my eyes squinting. It held its end of the deal as it didn’t turned around immediately to bite me but instead of slithering away it stayed in place, coiled up looking at me. There was something weird about the snake and I believe I was the reason behind its strange behavior.
Starting with the wolves, over the years of taking care of them I noticed behaviors and actions that didn’t align with the wild spirit of those creatures and betrayed a higher intelligence than even the smartest breeds of modern earth dogs. I dismissed most of those as simply those being hyper fantasy wolves or something but the two cases that stood out to me were their response against the orcs and… and the sin we carried. In both of those cases they acted less like wild animals in a pack and more like my minions, seeking out my benefit and safety.
And now with this snake standing before me, no aggression or murder intent showing in the least I had to finally admit it, there was something more to it, a factor that turned all those animals into my minions, a power that I wasn’t aware I had that instilled loyalty in them, bestowed intelligence and established communication between species. It was weird and strange to admit something like that, as if saying that I was something special instead of an abominable creature that was destined to be alone. But with this power maybe I could make some friends, maybe I wouldn’t have to spend my entire life alone, maybe it was some compensation for my circumstances.
I extended my hand towards the snake, which excitedly slithered up it, ending up coiling around my neck like a scarf, I had made a new friend and I was sure that Sorbet would be just as excited as we were. “But before we go back, you need a name!” I thought long and hard as the snake looked at me expectantly. “…Oh! How about Madeleine! Do you like that?” The snaked hissed happily. “Glad you like it, it’s the name of a dessert from my old world.” The two of us returned back to base first, a new friend and a satchel full of berries richer. I couldn’t wait to see Sorbet’s reaction.
Yeah, Sorbet did not take it well, he was growling at Madeleine nonstop, even after I introduced our new comrade and pleaded with him to get along with it he didn’t listened to me and kept being standoffish with the snake. Even when I tried to throw some of the innards of the prey that Sorbet caught Madeleine’s way he jumped forward and wolfed them down before the snake could react. “Sorbet what is wrong with you?” I finally shouted, he whined back at me. “Oh so because you caught it you get to decide who eat and who doesn’t? Very well then, if you don’t feel like sharing then you can have it all for yourself.” I throw the entire animal in front of him instead of preparing it. He looked at it like a sad puppy before walking away.
Maybe I shouldn’t have done that. I let anger get the better of me. A few minutes later when it dissipated all I was left with was this empty feeling. “Madeleine can you give us some space please.” The snake slithered away as I drew closer to my boy Sorbet. “I’m sorry for throwing away the food you went to so much trouble catching, I’ll make sure it never happens again.” He let out a low growl, he still hadn’t forgiven me, not that I blamed him. “Come on my boy, you know I love you and that won’t change if we add on more member to our family.” He growled again, this time a little softer.
“What do you mean? Even when I was with everyone I made sure to show you the same amount of love I do now, nothing will change. So try to accept Madeleine, please do it for me.” He let out a soft whimper as he finally turned to look at me. If anything this event showed me that my power didn’t made the animals blindly follow my will and command, it just befriended them and how this relationship developed after that depended on both parties. Does that mean that back then, they reached that decision on their own?
I called Madeleine and the three of us salvaged the dropped meat. This time I asked Sorbet before I gave anything to Madeleine which he agreed to feed them. After eating under the starlit sky all three of us called it a day and we prepared to see what they next day had in store for us.
