Born a Monster

394 294 – Wolves and Bears

said one.

another reminded him.

the first said.

their alpha said.

To me, he said,

Glutton sent an image and taste of dark purple berries.

I sent, but the other two had picked up the flavor and were echoing it.

The alpha chuckled.

Fearful echoed briefly, before returning to berries.

.....

I spoke with the alpha long enough to get a vague map of smells to follow to get to the cave.

In the end, we didn’t head up the hill toward the cave; between the four of us, we ate everything that I could find.

sent Fearful, curled up inside the backpack.

I agreed, but the scant wood available was too wet to ignite at that point. Honestly, the three of them were snuggled up in my padding. Their own body heat...

I asked them. Only confusion and despair returned to me.

I thrust my thumb knuckles into my eyelids. Of COURSE they were cold.

It took a great deal of searching, but I was able to find some shrews burrowed in among the roots of a nearby nettle. Biter was able to grapple and throttle her own, but I had to restrain the ones for the other two to eat.

This couldn’t go on. Too many animals, and one of them was going to be sentient. Also, the newborn needed to start developing their own traits, their own ability to forage for food. They needed to experience more of the world than my arm and backpack, and that meant gaining...

How did any parent resolve this vicious cycle?

Admittedly, the children I was watching over had an advantage on the average child. I had already checked my System, there were all kinds of abilities I couldn’t afford or didn’t meet the prerequisites for that would allow me to feed them my own flesh and kick start their development.

And THOSE abilities were locked behind level limits, or behind other equally obnoxious requirements. For example, eating a fellow Titanspawn of equal or greater SPV (System Points Value).

I’d never understood Vashathan’s aggression toward me, but what if he was just trying to unlock his Titan heritage? I mean... they were nice abilities, akin to second level stuff. [Inherent Tentacle Multi-Strike] and the like.

Except... From the tentacle bundles growing out of his shoulders, Vashathan already had those.

So... what else was there? What was I missing, now?

More importantly, how did I keep my siblings from eating each other if they found out about this? I mean, it was nice that they were almost always in a group together. And they’d certainly had opportunity if they wanted to.

And UGH. Fifty plus seventy five plus seventy five. Two HUNDRED biomass, just to become warm blooded. Two hundred servings of raw food between the three of them. A little less if I cooked, which I had been. That and... I didn’t even remember how many days it took to evolve the first time.

For the night, I threw up a tarp to keep the water off, opened the backpack, and snuggled a side up to the top. It took a while of picture instructions, but they lifted scales to wedge freezing cold limbs up to my warm skin.

Dang it, I was a shape shifter. Why couldn’t I do any of the cool things that they did, like just swap out the scales for warm fluffy fur? Maybe a badger transformation?

I chased the options around in my head, but as my siblings fell asleep, tucked between myself and the layers of padding, I found that fatigue caught up with me also.

I awoke in pain, and not the usual pain of sunlight. A pain in my side. Scratching and rubbing revealed a raw and bleeding spot, or rather three of them so close they were effectively one. Those little parasites! They had pulled out my scales, lapped up the blood, and literally smooshed themselves against my raw flesh.

Fearful said, pressing his armored self against me.

The other two made similar protests, so I remained there until Fearful bit me. he sent.

There are many tales of a loving relative, nourishing their young ones on their body, on their very life’s blood. I do not measure up to those loving heroes.

I roughly wrapped each one up in their own section of padding, and then set about finding food. And, I noticed, there were far fewer scales in the backpack than what I had lost.

Worms and bugs for protein. Nuts and berries and a young cauliflower that I normally would have left to grow, and eaten later.

And, when the sun came up, I counted. One, two, three siblings. All with the same number of limbs as last night. Okay, so they weren’t... culling.

My side ached and itched. It was raw and sensitive, and at one point in the morning, bleeding.

Bears, when they wake in spring, are ravenous. They should be, the poor things haven’t eaten in several months. But they have enough sentience left to ask...

I sent back.

He slobbered, snapped his jaws.

He sniffed at the air.

Mother?

Mother Bear?

I sent an image of Mother Bear from the faywood.

he asked.

I said.

I sent an image of what I was thinking of.

He took another sniff of the air.

Neither Mother Bear nor Brownie were enthusiastic about the cart.

Brownie said.

Mother asked.

he said.

I asked.

Mother Bear looked off to the east.

Mother put her nose to the ground, suddenly sounding very tired.