Well, I decided not to wonder too much. Best to keep chewing. Dwelling on it wouldn’t help; I’d just choke. Not that it went down easy. The sounds of battle echoing from the woods were a gut-wrenching reminder of the screams that had torn through the clearing not long ago.
'It's just a lettuce, it's just a lettuce,' I tried to convince myself, my ears pawed against my head.
At least the lettuce moss didn’t taste awful. It wasn’t steak, sure, and you had to eat a pile of it to feel full, but it did the trick. Oddly enough, it had an unexpected kick. Probably tied to my mana coming back. Every bite of this green wonder was rich in it - or maybe it just coaxed my body to replenish the mana, just like Esu did with my regeneration. Whatever the case, by the end of my unusual dinner, both my stomach and mana pool were completely filled.
And that wasn’t all. My poison glands were topped off, too.
For once, I was smart about it and truly prepared.
Since the creation of my poison took a fair amount of mana, I nudged Sage into making it while I was eating. That way, I should have a free shot with the poison cloud. Cheating? Maybe. But I needed an edge - something beyond just being quick and light on my feet. Besides, I had no doubt the young mossbear was scheming, too.
The way it watched me the whole time it ate - it couldn't wait to get back into the fight and show me what it had come up with.
?Ready... cubs?? Esu's growl shook my bones, and I growled back, low and a bit unsteady, just like the young mossbear. For a heartbeat I wondered what he would do if I said no - if I wasn't ready. I certainly didn't feel like I was.
Not the answer he got from me, though.
?Yes, ready.?
?Roar!?
?Good. Then... fight and... learn.?
Having some pointers would have been nice. Esu, however, seemed to swear by the toss-the-cub-in-the-river-and-hope-it-floats approach. For someone who has been full beasts for just a few hours all together, it certainly was a steep learning curve. Thank the tits, a lot of things came to me naturally because of the beast blood coursing through my veins.
Like the prowling for the right moment to pounce. Sure, there weren’t any shadows to slip into here in the clearing, but the way I moved was far from anything I had learned as a human. I stayed low, eyes locked on my opponent, circling it slow and steady.
The young mossbear wasn’t in any hurry to attack either. It stared at me while I stared back, each of us waiting. Now and then, it sent out mossy shoots, trying to snare my feet, but they were no hindrance compared to those of mother mossbears and Esu. I knew it, the young mossbear knew it. Its real aim was clear - to get me to let a wing touch the ground, something I was careful not to do. You could say that we both truly learned our lessons.
Nevertheless, I was the first one to pounce. It was just a quick lunge, a swipe of the claws, and quickly away - no poison. My opponent seemed ready for that.
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?Roar!?
?Rawr!?
We snarled at each other, pacing in a tense circle. This round was different. Neither of us rushed in now. We both knew we could hurt each other. I could bring it down. I just had to be smart about it.
Easier said than done, though.
How does one get a massive beast to inhale a poison when the beast knows it will harm it? After a few more quick pounces, doubts about the usability of my tail began to creep into my heart. The poison cloud had its moment, sure, but without a way to hold the beast in place, it might as well have been a puff of smoke.
'Hold on! Couldn't it go the other way round?' As much as I hated to think about it, back then, at that slaughterhouse when I first turned into a full beast, I was able to command the poison cloud. Well, the beast was able to.
‘It knew how to heal me. So, it should know how to do it, right?’
While that question was meant more for me, the next one was directed at the beast-me.
'D-Do you?'
What I got back wasn’t words, but a fierce urge to pounce again, an eagerness to show off. And when the chance arose, I pounced, clawing the sides of my opponent, but also releasing the poison just a hair's breadth from its snout. This time, though, my instincts stopped me from jumping around, trying to surround the mossbear with every ounce of the poison I had. Instead, I stayed close enough not to lose contact with the cloud - or rather, so Sage wouldn’t.
The young mossbear, naturally, shot out from the cloud, knowing full well that breathing in too much of it meant defeat. This time, though, when I followed, Sage didn't wave behind me, but was turned sideways as if reaching out to a cloud of apple-scented poison. And much to my awe and joy, the cloud moved right along with us.
Annoyingly, though, the farther we went, the thinner the cloud grew - just a trail of orange mist left behind. Even with my beast-self instinctively knowing what to do, it still wasn't enough to keep my opponent in a poison cloud for more than a few breaths.
When the cloud thinned to the point that I lost control of it, I pounced. The mossbear, sneezing and rubbing its nose, gave me the perfect chance. Though, it didn’t amount to much. No matter how many times I pounced, how many times I dug my claws into its hide, those injuries were nothing, but scratches considering the size of it.
- 3rd glyph carved on Pounce (?)
Of course, I tried aiming for some of the weak spots - like armpits or ears, but other than eliciting a pained grunt from the mossbear, it didn't bring me any closer to beating it.
'Is there really nothing I can do - besides using my poison?'
Not that there was anything wrong with that. It was an attack, like any other. The mossbear used the moss to his advantage, after all. The poison was part of what I was now - it just... there was this part of me that wanted to win this fight more... fairly. Felt like I was torn between two beasts, both of 'em pulling at me.
It was so odd. I had always thought of my inner beast as one, but no... ‘could there be more?' A thought that made my blood run cold.
The whole thing left me scratching my head - the poison, the rift in how to fight. I had always feared the beast's urges deep inside me, the wildness that, if I give in, would turn me into its slave. Yet, the beast had listened. It healed me when I asked it, controlled the poison when I told it to.
'What if all this time, I’d been the problem and not the beast?'
What if - and I hated to even think it - I was treating myself like a slave, even though I hated being one? Sure, the urges swayed me, quite often more than I would have liked, but I wasn't a slave to them. Maybe I just chose to be.
'Maybe I took the easier way - blaming the beast when I was the one failing.'
The thought rattled me deeply. So much so, in fact, that when I had to dodge the mossbear’s strike, I was too slow.