Chapter 14. First Crisis (2)
Pain throbbed all across my body.
Half-conscious and trapped in a drowsy haze, I mumbled broken words into the cold dark air, caught somewhere between sleep and wakefulness.
"Mei Mei… Xiao Mei… I want to go home."
A cold chill wrapped around me, sharp and biting.
"It's so cold here. I hate this place. I miss my warm bed, my cozy room, the food I used to eat every day. I miss the ordinary days where nothing dangerous ever happened. Why did I have to end up stuck in this strange world?"
I rambled on weakly, my thoughts drifting back to every small comfort I had left behind.
The familiar routines, the people I loved, the quiet peace of my old life, all of it felt a million miles away.
"What are you complaining about? This mighty beast is pampering you."
A soft, cold voice whispered right beside my ear.
Though it was summer up on the mountain peak, the air surrounding me felt far colder than my air conditioner back home on an autumn night.
Something chilly and slimy brushed gently across my cheek, and I stirred restlessly.
"Stop it… I don't want to do this right now," I mumbled, lifting a hand to push a strange face away from mine.
"Strange. Other than the lingering scent of male beastfolk, you carry no smell that belongs to any creature I have ever known."
Confusion swirled in my foggy mind.
This voice was nothing like Tigris's deep, warm tone.
And everything around me felt unnaturally frigid. Tigris always radiated comforting heat, but this presence held no warmth at all.
An enormous cold palm brushed lightly over my chest.
The touch sent a shiver down my spine, yet faint strands of strange warmth seeped into my skin in its wake.
"Ugh… who are you?" I struggled to force my eyes open.
The crater was shrouded in near total darkness, and I could barely make out any shapes around me.
Another cold, damp flicker brushed across my face. The ground beneath me shifted and pulsed in slow, steady thuds.
"Female… are you my bride?" The deep voice rumbled again. "What tribe do you come from?"
I strained harder to pry my heavy eyes open.
A pair of narrow, yellow slitted eyes stared back at me from the shadows.
They were not quite as massive or menacing as the pair I had seen moments after landing last night, yet the voice remained cold and grave.
"Where am I? Who are you?" I blurted out.
A silly thought crossed my mind. Now would be the perfect time to lose my memory. Amnesia!
Too bad my mind is still sharp enough to remember every terrible thing that happened.
I touched the back of my skull gently, still bewildered. How had I survived that terrifying fall from the crater's edge?
"This is my temporary lair. Any being that stumbles down here becomes either my food… or my bride. Which will you be?"
"I don't understand. I am no offering or sacrifice!" I gasped, pushing myself upward. "The wolf, you can eat the wolf! He and his mate kidnapped me and threw me down into this crater!" A sharp twinge of discomfort flared through my body as I moved.
Two shocking realizations hit me the second I stood upright. First, all the brutal bruises and fractured ribs from earlier were gone.
I could not spot a single wound on my body, and the endless pain had vanished completely. Second, a colossal scaled body coiled all around me.
A snake.
A gigantic serpent.
Panic seized my chest. Its long, cold, thick body wrapped fully around my frame, holding me securely in place.
I was grateful the darkness hid its full size from my sight.
"I have already eaten him. That wolf was far too weak and small to satisfy my hunger."
The serpent shifted its hold suddenly. I felt gravity tilt, and soon I was dangling mid air, suspended directly in front of those yellow slitted eyes.
Its gaze locked firmly onto mine.
He can definitely see how terrified I am, I thought. Beastfolk and giant serpents alike could see perfectly in the dark, likely sensing body heat as much as visible light.
"This is how it has always been. No female has ever chosen to stay by my side. Every year, they send someone down here to me. Each one perishes before I even get a chance to speak with them."
"So you stay down here all alone?" I asked, trying to keep my voice steady.
"If you help me climb out of this crater, I could introduce you to my friends. Maybe you would find someone then."
"Now that you mention it… how long has it been since I last woke?" The voice rumbled thoughtfully. "Decades, perhaps even longer."
I knew real snakes hibernated for long stretches of time, but a creature of this unimaginable size could easily slumber for thousands of years without noticing the passage of time.
"How can you sleep for so long? If I slept that many years, I would end up like a living vegetable."
"Are you herbivore? I could stay awake endlessly if I wished. But the world outside grows dull. Living creatures die far too easily. A single breath from me could kill a fragile female like you."
"I'am omnivore! But I am completely fine right now. I can feel your breath against my skin."
A strong gust rushed toward me. He actually send gallons of carbon dioxide to washed over my face, thick and stale.
"There. How are you still standing after that?"
"I do not think your breath is poisonous," I replied, wrinkling my nose at the stench. "I can smell the rotten meat from the wolf you devoured earlier, though."
"Are you truly meant to be my bride?" The serpent's tone turned curious.
"I healed every injury on your body. Not only that, you left a noticeable bruise on my scales when you landed." I could not see its form clearly, but I was certain it was gesturing toward its own chest.
"I landed on you?" I stammered.
"I am so sorry. I never meant to hurt you. A cruel female pushed me into this crater. I fully believed I would die that time."
"You should become my bride. No one in this world would ever dare to harm you again."
"I already have a husband," I told him firmly. "He was out hunting when those people kidnapped me."
"You only have one husband?" It sounded confused. "How old are you? No, wait, the order is wrong. Let me introduce myself first. My name is Jormugand. Now tell me the name of my soon to be bride."
"My name is Lily. And I already said, I have a husband. I do not need another."
"Foolish wishful thinking." The voice held a hint of mockery.
"You clung to that belief, and look where it landed you. Is your tribe a peaceful one? You would not have ended up trapped down here if that were true. It seems I have slept for far too long."
My body began to rise steadily.
I felt the serpent carrying me upward, and faint sunlight grew brighter and brighter ahead.
We were climbing toward the crater's summit.
"Beautiful Lily. Now I can gaze upon your face, lovely as a blooming flower. Will you accept this for me?"
My eyes stung fiercely from the sudden brightness after spending so long in darkness.
I blinked repeatedly, letting my vision adjust.
When I finally saw clearly, I froze. Before me stood a being half man, half snake.
Its massive serpentine tail stretched deep down into the crater below.
It seemed smaller than the towering beast I had seen at first, yet it still dwarfed me entirely.
Like other beastfolk in this tribe, it possessed the ability to shift its form, shrinking its true colossal size into a more humanoid shape.
My gaze drifted away from its figure the moment I spotted something else.
A massive piece, no, a chunk of diamond, far larger than the palm of my hand, rested in one scaled hand.
"It's enormous," I whispered to myself, eyes widening. "How much would this sell for? If I could take this back with me, I would never need to work for the rest of my life."
A scaled hand reached up toward my face.
A sinister smile spread across Jormugand's lips, and his forked snake tongue flicked out, brushing wet and slimy against my cheek.
I twisted away as much as I could, but his tail still held me tight.
"Wait… I need time to think. We barely know each other. We are strangers."
"Lily, my beautiful oasis." His tone softened, layered with ancient longing.
"I have lived for countless ages, waiting for my destined partner. I held hope each time a new soul arrived, only to fall into despair again and again. You are the one. It can only be you."
He leaned forward, his towering form casting a shadow over me. I pressed both hands against his chest to push him back.
His reptilian body was packed with dense muscle, yet it held no warmth whatsoever.
Worse still, I could barely detect a heartbeat beneath the scales. A wild thought popped into my head. Is he some kind of living corpse?
"Let me down first. We can talk properly."
He relaxed his coiled tail and set me gently onto the dry rocky ground of the mountain peak.
I stood there, staring out at the unfamiliar landscape, unsure how to find my way back to the tribe.
I definitely needed a strong ally by my side, and so far, Jormugand had not acted openly hostile.
Could I really trust this giant serpent?
"You go by Jormugand. That name is too long. May I call you Jor?"
"You may call me hubby if you prefer, my wife." He lifted the giant diamond chunk once more.
Greed flickered inside me for a split second, but my conscience pulled me back. I belonged to Tigris.
Still, as I thought about the harsh, lawless rules of this beast world, I began to understand why so many females here took multiple partners.
Survival was never easy.
"We have to head back to my cave first. I need to get my first mate's approval before anything else."
A low rumbling chuckle escaped Jormugand. "Are you trying to trick me, Lily? I have only just woken up… and I am still very hungry."
I think, the crisis has not over yet, Mei Mei, save me! T.T
.
.
.
.
hsssssssss
chapter notes:
Jörmungandr Pronounced as YOR-mun-gahn-dr. so lily here call him Yor, but i will keep the spelling Jor. but keep in your mind when you read his name, its Yor, like anya's mother, Yor <3 :V