No se que poner haha

Not the entire part, but the first part! Part 2 will be in black and white to save time =w=;;

Made some art for u/shreksy_ of us as the prey vs. our very large predators 👀

They're both 8 feet and 12 feet tall respectively so we don't really stand a chance, it's been nice knowing y'all

The fiery heart

Part 8

The horse snorted again, still upset with the excess weight it was forced to pull. Smack of the reins cut the protest short, at least for the next few minutes.

Truth be told, the wagon wasn’t even that encumbered, with basic supplies, a tent, and some equipment that would have looked exotic, were it not contrasted by the absurd amounts of esoteric stuff he had seen in Ceirys’s hoard.

Fulvio cleared his throat, readying for another guess. “…You’re a cartographer then?”

“Bingo!” Conrad’s teeth flashed under his hood as he pointed at him with both hands. “Really though it’d be obvious with the sextant in the open.” His thumb aimed at the peculiar contraption of bronze, wood, and glass lying on a pile of fibers.

Fulvio, of course, had not the slightest idea what the thing’s purpose was, or even how it worked, but decided to spare himself further embarrassment by nodding along. “So it would seem…” His gaze returned to the man. “I’ve never seen a cartographer before.”

Conrad laughed. “And that’s precisely why I’m here – this place…” He made a wide, sweeping motion. “Is an absolute goldmine when it come to my work. I think I’ve never seen a single map of the region, meaning I will be credited as the creator of the first one!”

“Easy, easy,” the coachman muttered, both to Conrad and the horse. “I’m sure that locals have at least a rough sketch of the area.”

“Sketches matter not.” Conrad waved at him dismissively. “Only a proper map could undermine my efforts now. And only one person could have such a thing.”

“Ohhh.” Fulvio nodded. “So that’s why you’re heading for Lord Gonzaga’s estate.”

“Precisely.” Conrad grinned again. “For a peek into his records, or the library, if he has one.”

Enlightenment came at a cost of realising just how poorly bothering Gonzaga about maps could end – from what he’d heard, the man was mighty impatient at the best of days, and usually more concerned with entertaining guests and hunting in the endless forest than about his serfs and subjects. That being said, Fulvio himself was also heading there – if stars aligned, the nobility could potentially get rid off Ceirys… if they had enough men and resources to spare that is. In hindsight, beelining for one of the great cities and spreading word about a dragon might have been a safer bet. There were always loitering sociopaths ready to try their luck…

The usually quiet part of his brain rebelled, insisting that it was just cruel, and… honestly, betrayal. Ceirys would never do, or even wish any harm upon him, yet here he was plotting her… No.

He wiped his face with both hands. There was no way in all the hells that he’d feel any kind of remorse after all she’d done. There were boundaries… and limits. To everything.

“Something’s wrong, laddie?” Conrad asked, a flash of tiny glasses blinding Fulvio for a split second.

“I’m fine,” Fulvio muttered.

“No no, I know that look.” Conrad waved his finger. “Look of someone haunted by something chronic…” He squinted. “And going by your age, it’s not rheumatism.”

“And what would that be, then?” Fulvio scoffed, hoping that a tinge of hostility would make the man back down.

“If I had to guess, it’s one of three thing – money, parental disapproval, or a woman.”

Fulvio’s head turned to the side on instinct before he could even attempt faking restraint. Conrad let out an unsettling, gurgling laughter, the pale skin around his mouth stretching as if it wanted to snap. “A woman, then.”

“None of your business,” Fulvio barked.

“Quite the opposite – we’re giving you a ride, so the least you can do is entertain us with a story.”

Fulvio growled, infuriated that everything always led back to her one way or another. At the same time… laying out his frustrations onto someone didn’t sound half bad…

“So, there’s this… girl…” he mulled the nearly abstract term. “And it’s… Imagine that… The thing is that…”

“That you like her?” the coachman huffed, already annoyed.

“I don’t…” Fulvio paused, unable to tell either way, then deciding to pivot. “Take the most possessive, obsessively clingy woman you can fathom, and multiply it by a thousand. Imagine not being able to take five steps without getting caught and…” he hesitated, trying to spin it into something more mundane. “No going out alone. No doing anything alone. Not being able to sleep properly, because this fucking… thing is wrapped all around you all the time!” complaints transformed into yelling. “How can I live like this?! How am I supposed to function with no privacy?! With no agency, and no choices to make?! Soon, she’ll start reading my damned mind or something, and then what?!”

“Easy…” the coachman once again calmed both him and the horse. “Crazy lass…”

“I know! And I can’t get away from her!”

Rapid, heavy breathing replaced his screams. Why wouldn’t she let him go? What was so special about him specifically?

It lasted until Conrad smacked his lips and coughed. “Well… I don’t know, lad, but that sounds super fun.”

Fulvio’s eyes met Conrad’s. Was this a joke? Was this a farce at his expense? Did he hire them just to mock him, or…

“I’m serious,” Conrad doubled down under the murder-stare. “A woman obsessing over you is… flattering.” His eyes turned dreamy. “I wish my wife was like this…”

“Don’t tell him that!” the coachman raised his voice for the first time. “The first rule of being a man – don’t put your dick in crazy! It just emboldens them to go further!”

Chills and dread came over Fulvio. His heart sank. He imagined himself, Ceirys, the implications… his bones having the consistency of a watered-down pudding afterwards… Pudding was tasty at least, or that’s what that annoying brain part claimed all of a sudden.

“Speaking from autopsy, Will?” Conrad mocked.

“Yes, I do. I merely had the mercy of learning this with a kobold.”

“A kobold?” Conrad chuckled. “I’m learning new lore about you every day. Do tell, you’ve piqued my interest.”

William scoffed and grumbled, not appreciating the sudden shift of attention. “Baldur’s Gate. Purple kobold begged for food. Gave her some old bread I was about to throw away. Suddenly the thing starts following me everywhere. I find it in my luggage, in my house, in my everything. One day, I wake up and it’s in my bed. I look at her, she looks at me… And I’m like ‘don’t mind if I do’…” Heavy sigh escaped his lungs. “Things get worse. She starts calling me husband. Runs around me in the open. Hisses at people. Scratches clients. Bites women who get too close…” A pause, pregnant with some undefined emotion. “I put up with it for two months, but… everything has its limits. Threw her in the river. Never heard from her again.”

Steady clops of hooves exploding in the silence that befell them. An angry neigh born out of the blissful ignorance and inability to comprehend language. But the two men digested the words, and their implications.

“That’s fucked up,” Fulvio’s words finally surfaced.

“Get off me, kobolds aren’t people by city laws, so it wasn’t even a crime,” the coachman replied with a tinge of forced indifference.

“That’s even more fucked up,” Fulvio muttered below the level of audibility, not willing to continue the conversation.

They rode a few more miles, passing the still un-burned fields of golden wheat – a sight bordering on a miracle closer to the mountains. A sign of civilisation being within reach.

Conrad cleared his throat louder than usual in an attempt to dispel the awkwardness. “How are you here though, if your lass is as you say she is?” His eyes narrowed. “Ahhh, you’ve ran away?”

“I wish…” Fulvio shook his head. “She let me go for a tenday.”

“Well, that’s a nice contradiction. Maybe she’s not so bad, if she let you…”

“No.” Fulvio silenced him with a raised hand. “She’ll burn the country down to find me, if I won’t return on time… literally.”

“Well, I hope you’re punctual then. Libraries don’t exactly like fire.” Conrad glanced at his work tools, ending the subject.

Fulvio sighed, turning away towards the estate looming on the horizon, and prayed for someone to deal with the dragon before he was forced to find out.

***

Carole stared at the mountain with intensity, waiting for movement, or any sign of life. It never came – the hidden cave entrance remained still, disturbed only by the rustle of pine. The trees – split if they wanted to become mountain dwarfs or not – settled on a compromise that satisfied no one… and certainly annoyed her specifically, with branches at the perfect height to constantly bother her.

“Looks like a dragon cave to me,” she commented, noting the footprints in the slightly wet grass. Typical dragon paws… but also, a few rows of human boots. “Someone even came here before us.”

Another group of adventurers, or maybe an overzealous hunting party unfortunate enough to find their target. A tale as old as… maybe not time, but certainly adventuring.

Nicolas however, remained silent. The dwarf’s eyes jumped between seemingly random spots, as if piecing together something invisible to the rest of them.

“It… does seem so,” Karnak agreed, staring at the pawprint in front of him. “And it’s a big one. Maybe even an ancient.”

Carole massaged her eyes, taking in the implications. Ancient red dragon would be a… difficult fight. Downright suicidal, if even half of the things she’d heard were true. They needed a plan, and most likely some backup, if…

“No,” Nicolas spoke at last. “That there… is bait.”

“What do you mean ‘bait’?” Karnak asked, confused for once. “Those are clearly dragon footsteps.”

“Ohhh, you’d think so, yes.” Nicolas traced the imprint before him. “Extremely good imitations, indistinguishable from the real deal – even veins and grooves are in place.”

“I-imitations?” Gustave mumbled, unable to take his eyes off the cave’s entrance. “You m-mean someone carved t-them out?”

Karnak scoffed. “Ridiculous – they’d have disappeared under rain and moisture. Someone’d has to keep re-carving them all the time.”

Nicolas nodded. “Or have a spell doing it… or just made giant stamp and makes new ones every few days or so. Point remains…” His eyes fell on the lizard. “Those are fake.”

Carole’s hand performed several strange gestures, her brain failing to draw a coherent picture. “I’m sorry… how can you tell, if they’re – by your own words – indistinguishable from the real ones?”

The dwarf’s eyes met hers, radiating immense satisfaction with himself and his abilities. “Nothing is wrong with them. There’s something wrong with everything but them.”

Carole tensed, expecting the illusion to fall any second and reveal a trap or ambush they’ve already walked into. Every shadow became suspicious, ever sound treacherous, her mind coming up with a thousand conspiracies for each. And yet, Nicolas performed a calming gesture.

“No no, nothing like that. Look at the other prints.”

She focused on them again, struggling to see any hidden meaning. Nothing unusual about them – just normal, leather boots of some at least vaguely humanoid people, going in and out of the cave… in every direction, if she saw correctly. So were there multiple groups that came to hunt the dragon, or…

Something drilled at the edge of the conscious mind. Not fear or anxiety, she couldn’t place her finger on it – a feeling of wrongness and… trickery. Or rather, of being tricked.

In the end, Nicolas stepped in to explain. “The footprints are coming OUT of the cave too. Do any of you think that surviving an encounter with a dragon like this is plausible?” He pointed at the pawprint again. “Un-bloody-likely. What’s really happening here is…”

“Someone’s using the dragon’s presence as a deterrent,” Karnak interrupted. “There’s no dragon here – a group of…” He tasted the air. “Humans I guess, has a camp inside. A big one, most likely.”

“Do you have to do this every time?!” Nicolas growled. “Undercutting MY findings by stealing them?!”

Karnak raised his hands. “Apologies. I meant no offense; I merely assumed that your conclusions were…”

“Well, don’t assume shit in the future!” the dwarf yelled, turning to hide his wounded pride. It took about two seconds for his composure to return. “But yes, that’s the gist of it. The cave’s a bandit hideout or something. We should leave, before they pile on us.”

And just like that, the decision to save the dwarf was vindicated yet again – she’d have never picked up on any of that, and got her party mauled in the best-case scenario. Still, it technically counted as failure on their part, since the dragon’s lair must have been somewhere else…

“Are you sure?” Gustave asked, his voice untainted by his usual fear. Still staring at the cave’s entrance.

“Pretty sure.” Nicolas nodded.

“It sure looks like a strange coincidence if that’s the case, don’t you think?” The pale man glanced at Nicolas. “Almost too convenient in some regards. We should check it regardless.”

Nicolas laughed. “Yeah nah, not going near that place. I value… not having arrows in my skull, you see.”

“It’s foolish not to check,” Gustave insisted.

“Less so than checking.”

Gustave’s… brows, or at least skin where brows would normally be, furrowed. “Isn’t it the adventurers’ job to go and…”

“If you’re so adamant about this,” Karnak interrupted. “You can go, and check by yourself.” He cocked his head. “Nobody’s stopping you, right?”

The two men stared at each other for a few seconds, as if trying to read each other’s minds… which could have been the case – they both knew magic, just of different kinds.

“Will someone help me with my heating lotion?” Edgar exclaimed from behind. “A group hug would also do, but…”

“No!” everyone’s voices rang in unison, silencing him.

His interruption did serve to break the staring contest though.

“I suggest we go back to town and regroup. We’re low on supplies either way.” Karnak gave a small nod.

“Plus, they might have a contract for… whoever is here,” Nicola added. “And contract means more information.”

“But you won’t know if it’s a contract for that, if you don’t know who it is,” Gustave countered, fishing out his compass on instinct. “That’s why someone should check what…” He paused, staring at the device. The needle wasn’t spinning anymore, pointing north-west instead – straight at the path… and at the town itself. He noticed her staring, snapped the compass shut, and cleared his throat. “Maybe that is a good idea. Lead the way.”

***

Wine flooded her mouth with spice and careful, refined sweetness that left sour tangs after she swallowed. Extraordinary vintage, but hard to find – exactly what she needed to hide the pain of losing something equally rare. Temporarily of course.

Ceirys clicked her tongue with amusement, observing the five adorably mis-matched figures trodding along the barely visible path. “That was certainly A conclusion,” she chuckled to herself, taking another sip of wine.

Adjusting her wing against the pile of coins, she tapped the mirror, swapping through her many eyes until the view changed to show something much closer to her heart. The wagon carrying the one being that made her rusty soul flutter. Sweetling travelled in a choice company of two men he already made friends with – or at least, that’s what she gathered from his gesturing. The zoom and angle of the outer circle left something to be desired…

The wagon left the field of view, putting him in truly uncharted territory.

Another few flicks showed the reformed undead caravan led westward by the desiccated mummy. It undid everything so fast… Ceirys almost felt bad for the poor dummies who fought so hard to destroy it. A glass of wine in their name would have to do for condolences.

Now then, she had to keep an eye on the neighbourhood annoyance.

“Nori!~” she called, her voice relaxed, yet commanding.

Huffs. Scoffs. Sounds of stretching skin, flesh squeezing between unyielding rocks. Half a minute later, a green kobold popped out through the cracks in the wall. The tiny being prostrated itself before her, its voice trembling with reverence and anticipation. “Yes, master?”

“Good morning to you too~” she chirped playfully, crossing her legs. “I have a mission for you.”

“Mision for me? What do you desire, master?”

“Be a dear, and keep an eye on a bunch of boney boys for me, hm?” She handed him one of the smaller mirrors.

“Everything you want!” The kobold attempted to get even lower, despite the outstretched arms holding the mirror up in the air as if his life depended on it.

“Be quick, and keep me informed…” she hesitated, calculating just how devoted to the job he’d become, and decided to clarify. “About important things. Capiche?” She booped his nose.

Nori frantically nodded. “Yes, I capiche! I’m a very good capiche!” he exclaimed, stuffing himself back into the cracks.

And that’s when Ceirys remembered something. “Wait, hold up!”

“Yes, master?” the kobold asked, half-submerged in stone.

She fished two gemstones out of her hoard. “What did your boy want for hatchday again? Topaz or sapphire?”

“I… What Zes wanted was the blue shiny, master.”

Right… like that lovely gal he had his eyes on. Even better, Ceirys didn’t exactly like sapphires – they reminded him of her ex. She flicked Nori the gemstone, and picked up the book again. “For him, with regards.” She sipped more wine. “Oh, and kiss the kids from me.”

“Yes master, will do lotta kisses!” He screeched, disappearing in the rock completely.

Left alone, and with matters taken care of, Ceirys returned to the fascinating digressions about the nature of soul and consciousness extrapolated from the existence of autonomous esoteric constructs…

***

I love the concept of hunting/predation as sacred, holy or spiritually important. The cycle of life appears in a lot of fictional and real-world religions which is kind of adjacent to this idea but I know two examples of predation specifically being sacred.

Feast by StardustLegend - The primary story of this song follows a wild fowl who willingly offers himself as a sacrifice to a wolf who protects the forest. The eating of the fowl is portrayed as a blessing.

Day of Ascension by Adrian Tchaikovsky - The Genestealer Cultists in this novel have some understanding that the Tyranids will eat them all when they arrive on their home planet. Despite this they worship them none the less, seeing this coming end as a blessing.

Any other examples you all can think of?

https://x.com/goarstudios/status/2111492945237217394?s=46

Lexy isn't a big fan of her new competition, she's the only one who is allowed to have this much aura

She's just a devil woman

With evil on her mind

Beware the devil woman

She's gonna get You

Oh no, avi is melting~ Help~

soooo melty and vulnerable~

Art by me

Find me elsewhere: https://linktr.ee/SixSs

Still scrappy as FUUUUHCK, I'm still adding to it but I'm proud of it

It's been a while since I stopped by this art sub, and I'd like to see some artists' work.