—Orion—

  I felt frustrated in many aspects. I was aggravated that the second encounter with the beast ended with failure—again. Unsuccessful in killing it because I was too slow, mostly because I was out of practice with using arrows the typical way. I'll need to practice more if I'm going to be pretending to not have the Path going forwards.

  Another thing that was irritating me was the strangeness of the beast. It was larger, again.

  If I had not seen its first size in [The Hunter's Anathema], I would've assumed that it was another member of its pack. But now it's obvious that it was the same creature, it just grew at an unnatural rate. When I saw it in the arrow's crystal, it was about the size of a small child, but in—what was most likely—minutes later when I saw it in person, it was as tall as an adult. Albeit a thin and gangly one, like a pile of twigs tied together so that resembled a stick-figure.

  And now, the very next day, it was slightly taller than I was.

  Yet again I worried whether I could truly handle this situation. It was escalating, the danger and risk rising with the extreme growth of the monster. It had earned that name, its traits and behaviour more akin to the unnatural things at the bottom of the [Mountain Dungeon] than anything borne of nature.

  I tried to put aside the issues as I opened the door to our temporary residence. Sally jumped off my head at the first opportunity, running over to the table enthusiastically. Without stopping, he attempted to leap onto the table, but misjudged the distance by a few centimetres.

  It wasn't much, but the mistake was just enough to miss the landing with his hind legs, the two talons scraping the side of the table as his body slammed down onto the wood. He began to slide backwards, his wings flailing and slapping against the surface uselessly as he started to fall. I panicked and instinctively reacted when I saw it, moving without thinking.

  I quickly rushed over and caught him, wrapping a hand underneath his belly as the other caught his legs. We both froze when I realised that I’d accidentally grabbed one of the areas Sally had always been fiercely protective of, even more than his head. As I struggled to comprehend what I'd done, Sally's head slowly turned towards me, a snarl forming on his lips as the fingers holding his underbelly began to become clammy.

  "LEh-T Go." He demanded, and I jerked into action. I lifted him up and placing him on the table as speedily as possible. I retracted my hands like they'd been burnt—I was ashamed of what I'd done, and scared of what Sally might say in response.

  "Sti-Cks." Sally then demanded, and I quickly supplied them. The dragon methodically went through the sticks and placed them at a frosty pace, taking control of the situation with what I could feel was a barely-leashed temper.

  'Never touch me without permission again.' He explicitly ruled, and I nodded without a word of complaint.

  "If it is an emergency, may I still pick you up temporarily? Only in areas you don't mind, like your feet or back." I quickly asked, wondering if he was that disgusted by my actions. It felt very likely.

  'If it's a life or death situation. Otherwise, no.' He decided. My muscles unclenched, a cooling sensation rushing through me, as I knew that it could've ended much worse. Touching him there might've resulted in him deciding to leave.

  'You don't need to read the words aloud anymore. I've know enough to learn by myself now.' I read, Sally's next message already written by the time I next looked. I lost some of my energy at the command, knowing that he now needed me for one less thing.

  I then decided to start taking notes on what Sally liked and disliked, hoping to improve his opinion of me by simply being more enjoyable for him to be around. A consistent effort should eventually improve his opinion of me. I think.

  'But I need you to ask some better questions.' Sally continued, his wings shifting against his body—an agitated habit as far as my observations could tell.

  "About what? I don't think that there is anything else they could've told us." I asked.

  'Really? Surely someone knows more than that.' Sally replied, his wings settling down and neatly tucked against his side again.

  "The townspeople weren't familiar with the creature I'd described to them, and I've already gotten as much information as I could about the ecosystem." I answered the best I could. Sally's had question left me feeling lost, and I could not pinpoint what he wanted from me.

  'What about the Chief? He seems like a NPC who'd have a bunch of lore to share.' Sally wrote, making the great suggestion to ask the Chief for more information, I had forgotten about him. But he had written a word that I'd never seen before.

  "What's an NPC?" I asked. Sally then squinted at me like I’d said something strange.

  'NPCs are things that aren't-' 'they aren't human-' 'they aren't from earth-'

  'Nevermind, means a person who doesn't have the system I guess.' Sally eventually finished, rewriting the message half-a-dozen times before giving up and settling on that. The words I’d managed to glimpse before he moved the sticks alarming enough to warrant some concern. I left it at that though, Sally's need for the conversation to move on from the topic feelable through [Animal Companionship].

  I mentally added 'Asking Sally to explain strange words' to the dislike column, and decided to avoid continuing a conversation topic if Sally said 'nevermind'.

  "What kind of… 'lore' should I ask the Chief about?" I tried to ask, feeling very lost about Sally's specific word choice.

  'Do you even know what that means?' Sally eventually wrote, somehow figuring out that the word had confused me. I thought I’d hidden it well.

  The author's narrative has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

  "It means 'history'?" I half-guessed, vaguely remembering some details about the word.

  'It's an item's/person's backstory. When was the last time you played a game on a PC?' He asked, a slitted pupil locking onto my face.

  "It's been… a while." I eventually answered, hoping that the vague answer was enough to satisfy his curiosity.

  'Do you know what an RPG is?' He then wrote. I shook my head in silent denial, confused by another acronym I’d never heard of before.

  'Okay, so an RPG is a game where…'

  As Sally began to enthusiastically write out an explanation to what an RPG is, I added an addendum to my first note of Sally's likes and dislikes. He does not like being asked to explain concepts, but does enjoy doing it when unprompted and of his own free will.

  A small difference, but an important one. I decided to find a piece of paper and a pencil to note these specific details down at a later date.

  In the meanwhile, I happily watched Sally begin to explain a game called 'DnD'. I did not interrupt her—him to ask what the acronym meant this time.

  ***

  It was the afternoon by the time we left the house, with the goal of patrolling the neighbourhood—just in case the monster was still hanging around. Maybe ask some more questions if the opportunity presents itself.

  Sally was walking by my side this time, still angry with me. Enough to exhaust himself by travelling on his own legs instead of letting me help. It hurt, but at least I had the minor balm of knowing his reasoning. Understanding why made it stressful overall.

  But it still put me on edge, the overthinking and unsolvable issues mixing to become a slow-acting and toxic mental contaminant. Wearing me down day by day with constant second-guessing. Was I talking right? Did I say the wrong thing? Should I attempt to smile more? Or refrain from risking it and just maintain my current expression?

  It was almost as exhausting as training with my Father.

  We wandered through the town's near-deserted streets for over half-an-hour, and spent most of that time trying to find any further traces of the beast. But I had to stop the fruitless endeavour when I heard a loud commotion from the centre of the town. However, the distraction was welcome, because I was beginning to struggle to come up with new ways to track a humanoid figure in an urban environment. I wanted to appear capable to Sally, so once I ran out of the strategies I already knew, I faked them until the convenient distraction caught both of our attention.

  "Should we go check?" I asked, and kept my gratitude internal as Sally nodded and ran towards the sounds of arguing. I jogged behind him, easily keeping up with his frantic pace. He was faster than he was before, both stronger and more agile, his evolution having banished most of the shakiness his four limbs had been suffering from. It wasn't enough to compete with me—or any human adult—but it wasn't a race, so, I was happy to slow my pace.

  Sally's every movement was more controlled, the wings spreading when his tail swung to counterbalance his body on every corner. It was a small change that made a big difference, the same I’d seen when a trembling kitten grew into a mostly-capable juvenile. Though I am not going to share that comparison with her—him. It is probably a part of the 'dislike' column, if previous conversations were an indication.

  But as we arrived at the centre of the village and the source of the shouting, Sally suddenly stopped and I had to awkwardly hop to the side to avoid stepping on his tail. I took in my surroundings, and immediately saw what had stopped Sally.

  There were slightly less people here than when I had butchered the deer, but this time the folks were arguing amongst themselves, with the old chief standing on the front porch of his home.

  The old man was barely able to stand, and had to hold onto a wooden pole just to stay upright. His back never bending that last forty-five degrees to achieving a straight spine as he tried to get the attention of the crowd, weakly shouting for their focus.

  "I, I know everyone's panicked. But the situation isn't, is not that bad." He attempted to reassure them, but his comments and finger wagging only caused the crowd to become more aggressive.

  I glanced down at Sally, and saw him trying to get a view of the chief, but he see couldn't through the sea of bustling legs. He also seemed apprehensive to get any closer to the crowd, which I couldn't blame him for. At his size he would be easily trampled.

  I knelt by him, feeling hesitant and unsure with my idea, especially with the accident earlier. But I was hoping that he wanted to see what was happening more than be angry with me.

  "Would you like a lift?" I asked quietly, confident that no-one would notice me speaking to him.

  He gave me a glare, eyeing the extended arm that led to my head. He didn't move for a few seconds, he was most likely deliberating what to do, but he thankfully still took my offer. I hoped this meant he'd forgiven my mistake earlier.

  Once he was perched on my scalp, I stood back up and did my best to ignore the sharper-than-usual scrapes of his claws. As I straightened upright, I found that the situation had changed since I last looked.

  The chief had gained some control over the crowd, one hand still tightly gripping the support beam as he sat back down in his chair. He then cleared his throat, waving a dark, wizened pointer finger at the crowd, reminding me of an elderly story-teller I'd seen at a campfire a long time ago.

  "Don't'cha lose your heads. The family that's missing wasn't eaten!" The Chief declared, spittle flying from his mostly-toothless mouth as he waggled his finger and projected his voice.

  "They went into the forest, to go to, to the next town." He explained, his words striking me as strange. Didn't people disappear doing that?

  The crowd certainly did. The townsfolk burst into a roar of confused whispers and shouted demands for clarification. I took a half-step back, wincing from the noise and dodging the sudden bloating of the mass of bodies. Sally was much more tolerable to touch than the sudden grabbing and sweaty slickness of humans.

  "Chester saw them go. Didn't see anything nab them either." The Chief explained. Though I'm unsure what he meant to achieve by saying that. It was giving the panicked people a perceived way out, but that escape route was full of carnivorous animals. It simply wouldn't end well.

  I observed the crowd to see their reaction, and while there fortunately seemed to be some people who warned against running, many were tempted. Murmuring to each other about the possibility of escape. Many simply wanted a way out of the slow death they'd been forced to endure, and even an unknown was good enough for many of them.

  "Do you think it could be that stranger's fault?" I heard the person closest to me whisper.

  "It must've been, him and that pet of his probably led the monster right to us." the other replied. I almost turned to leave, but I was curious. Enough to stay still and listen to what they thought about me, what I’d hear would probably be honest and unfiltered. They didn't seem to have realised I was behind them, so I was curious to hear what strangers thought of me. A third-party, free from my own biases.

  "Yeah, he's a scary looking hunter. Probably kills people if they annoy him."

  I looked down at myself, wondering what about me came off as threatening.

  "Maybe he was the reason the barrier broke!" The same one who called me threatening suggested.

  "And I told you to stop believing Gran's fairy tales. If there was some sort of magical protection on the village, it would've done something when the people disappeared, or it faded a long time ago, like the rest of the magic." The woman's friend scowled, shouting down her enthusiasm in an effective manner.

  I unfortunately didn't get a chance to listen further, the opportunity to learn more about how others perceived me ended when a few of the townspeople noticed me standing behind them. Some of them turning and whispering of my existence to the people closest to them, their eyes holding an emotion I'm beginning to learn is fear.

  I turned to leave before the whole crowd began to stare at me—it was the only thing that could've made me feel even more abnormal than I already did.