GRANDORA: Chapter 2: It Matters Not (Patreon)

Author’s note: Hi guys.

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I've said more than enough with the first chapter :D

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Enjoy the chapter!

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Chapter 2: It Matters Not - Link: https://www.patreon.com/posts/96032330

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Chapter 2: It Matters Not

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Frozen to the core and in fear, I stared at the two amber gems. There was no light coming out of them, yet they seemed to glow in the pitch-black darkness that resided at the bottom of this abyss. The eyes of a Gread Beast, no doubt. But which one?

Coilspire, Grand Serpent Nagorath, while possessing similar reptilian eyes, lived on the surface, not this deep underground. And if, for some reason, she decided to bury herself after hundreds of years of carving a trail in the landscape, people would surely know about it. Even up in the mines. News of the Grand Beast was one of the few to reach us slaves. Those bastards, our oh-so-beloved masters, the foremen and those above them, loved to rub the death of Foxkin's Grand Beast in our faces, as if we were going to forget it if they didn't.

Their annoying spitefulness aside, my inability to match those eyes to any behemoth I knew only reinforced my first assumption. What I was looking at was a new Grand Beast.

The behemoth moved, and the ground all around shook. Only I remained frozen, like a piece of motionless ice, unable nor daring to move, barely braving to even breathe. Facing the Grand Beast so close was like courting death; few survived. The chosen ones, the most devoted, the fucking Frost and Flame Priests of Frostflame! Seriously, how could people who could withstand the pressure of the behemoth let him die? The Frost and Flame Priests served and guarded him day and night. Was it another Grand Beast, then? It has happened - rarely. Throughout history, there have been recorded clashes between them. But if so, how did the movement of the other escape the attention of humans, let alone priests?

The truth was, it didn't matter now. Frostflame lay dead, his body rotting somewhere in the snowy woods of my homeland. Foxkin became the dregs of society; many died, more became slaves.

The Grand Beast moved again, its eyes growing larger. The sudden desire to reach out into the darkness, coupled with the fear that if I did, I might actually touch the behemoth, only made me more aware of whose presence I was in and the disrespect I had shown so far. A quick way to die. Most of the Grand Beasts were not kind to people who were not touched by their pressure. Some say, a terrible way to die in the teeth of one. The devotees, on the other hand, considered it an honor. For me, it would be a surefire way to . . . well, get away from all of it.

Yet my stupid desire to survive kicked in, and I rolled over on my knees with the last of my strength, my head pressed against the sharp rocks beneath me. Despite the pain, I didn't make a sound and waited. The Grand Beast moved even closer, its warm breath wafting down my back. But even this close, the pressure I expected to reduce my bones to dust didn't come. Was it just bullshit? Scary children's stories? Lies of the priests?

Not that it mattered. Even after all the suffering, falling, almost drowning, my life was still not in my own hands. Once more, whether I lived or not rested on the benevolence of others. The bitterness that it left in my mouth was unbearable.

Actually, I'd had enough.

"H-Have mercy . . . and grant me . . . a painless d-d-death, oh Grand Beast," I begged in an anguished whisper, wishing to finally free myself from this dreadful life.

"AND why would I do that?" The power in the behemoth's voice rattled my bones, and the meaning of the Ancient tongue took my breath away. My fear was fulfilled, and all vestiges of hope were extinguished. Just as up in the mine, down here I found no mercy.

"Th-Then do w-w-what you must, Grand Beast," I whispered with a trembling voice, wishing so desperately that I could say I was ready.

"AND what is that, child of Vetrifyr?"

The whole place hummed with the question, and I realized what a mistake I had made. I had the audacity to tell the Grand Beast what to do. Then again, what did it matter? I couldn't have made my fate any worse. The cold was quickly eating away at my body, making it so damn hard to think, leaving me with only a few breaths to draw. Only the fear pulsing through my veins kept me from the inevitable.

"D-d-death . . . to me, oh Grand Beast," I stammered out through chattering teeth.

"Interesting."

My ear perked up. Was my miserable death so intriguing to the behemoth? Good. At least someone found some worth in it.

"YOU speak of death, yet reek of the will to live, child of Vetrifyr."

That's because I wanted to. I wanted to live so badly, and yet . . . it would be so much better if I didn't. Even if I survived and somehow miraculously made it out into the daylight, I would face nothing but more suffering at the hands of other races. There was no more place for Foxkin to live on Grandora.

"Please. J-just . . . " The words froze in my throat. Talking to the behemoth - no matter how honorable and humbling - was torture in itself; it only delayed the inevitable.

"I see no reason not to grant your wish. BUT . . . consider this, child of Vetrifyr. Become a child of mine and live."

What? My cold-weary brain had trouble processing what I had just heard. Benevolence. Even a hint of mercy. But most of all . . .

"I . . . t-t-that . . . " was all I could manage to stammer out. Me, the child of a new behemoth? Never before had I heard such a thing possible. Once the pressure of a Grand Beast won the battle over the others and seeped into your bones, you had no choice but to accept it and learn to live with it, to fight it until it consumed you whole. Few have escaped the fate of becoming a beast in the image of your behemoth. With age, the will to fight the pressure simply waned.

A new Grand Beast, though?

Frostflame was long dead. And yet, for five years, my beastification, as well as that of other Foxkin, remained the same. No pressure from another beast has settled in our bodies. We were marked for life by the Grand Fox for life. Or so we believed.

"I-I-Is it p-possible?" A hint of hope, spoken through chattering teeth, sounded so false even to my own ear. And yet I couldn't help hoping. "You w-would . . . ?

"Why wouldn't it be, and WHY wouldn't I? Your will to live impresses me."

That was it? The stupid thing responsible for my suffering was now to be the source of my hope?

So be it.

I swallowed the bitterness and nodded almost unconsciously, once again driven by the will to live. The hum of the behemoth echoed through the ink-black darkness, an amused chuckle if I had to put it into words.

"Then prepare yourself, child of Vetrifir, and PROVE to me that I was not blind," the Grand Beast spoke, and before I had a chance to ask how, the beastly pressure slammed down on my body. A painful howl, far louder than I thought myself capable of, escaped my throat and my body arched up in spasms, the sharp stones of the cave floor cutting deeper into my skin. The cold that penetrated my body just as deeply might have dulled my senses, giving me some relief until now, but the pressure of the beast made them unbearably sharp. I could feel every aching muscle, every frozen bone, the pressure of the beast itself - for the first time, I realized.

And to my surprise, the pain aside, it wasn't as terrifying as I had imagined. On the contrary, I found it strangely comforting. Nothing like a mother's embrace, yet . . . after a long, long time . . . I . . . felt . . . SAFE.

***

The morning in the mine dawned colder than usual. The storm was probably coming. Or rather, one had already passed. My clothes, if you could call the tattered piece of fabric that covered my body, were soaked - and so was my hair. In any case, the cold was likely the reason I had a good night's sleep, with no nightmares to haunt my dreams. Mornings like this reminded me of many at home when the fire in the hearth went out too soon. I used to love that. That moment when you didn't want to get out of bed just to crawl deeper into the covers.

No blankets for me here, though.

Just the open sky of the mine, rocks for bedding, and the darkness of the tunnels for . . . the darkness!

That fucking foreman!

The dark chasm!

The lake!

The freezing cold!

The Grand Beast!

Instead of letting out a yawn and stretching like a cat, I sprang to a sit as the events of yesterday came rushing back to me. I wiped the sleep from my eyes and blinked into the . . . not so inky black darkness? Don't get me wrong. The vast cavern was still dark. Just not so dark that I couldn't see the tip of my own nose. Strange, even eerie. The vast underground spaces seemed hazy with the morning mist, lit by the sun that had not yet risen above the horizon. But no matter how hard I looked, I couldn't find any light source.

Nor, for that matter, any source of heat.

The water, the surface of the lake that covered most of the cavern I had fallen into yesterday, shimmered in the strange gloom as a reminder of the biting cold. Cold, I should not have survived without a source of warmth and dry clothing. Yet I wasn't as cold as I should have been. I survive when I shouldn't have. How? The Grand Beast?

My eyes moved from the shimmering water to the shore I was standing on, my heart gripped with fear of what I'd find there. Seeing the eyes of the Grand Beast was one thing; seeing it in its full glory was quite another. But much to my surprise, relief, and confusion, the shore was empty. The grand beast that had undoubtedly saved my life yesterday was gone.

Or was it?

"H . . . " The word stuck in my parched throat and I coughed. No wonder. It had been hours since I'd taken those three sips of water from Luna'ame.

My heart clenched at the thought of her. She was one of the few I liked - and cared for - in the mine. I had no doubt that it wouldn't be long before she forgot about me - just another slave who didn't return from the mines - but I couldn't help but wonder how long it would take her to erase me from her mind.

Pushing the painful thought aside, I walked carefully over the sharp rocks to the shore, bent down, and scooped up a handful of water from the lake. It was so cold it stung my hands, but with no other choice, I took a careful sip. And then another, until my thirst was quenched.

"Hello!" I tried to call again. As weak as my voice was, it echoed through the massive cavern with incredible volume. And yet, no one answered.

That was really dumb, Erlis. I cursed myself.

Behemoths were not the ones to come when called like dogs. It was the humans who came when Grand Beasts wished for it. And if not, they would show those who dared to ignore them the cost of doing so.

With that in mind, I gave up any further attempt to call the Grand Beast again. It showed me mercy yesterday. That didn't mean it had to be the same today. In fact, it didn't mean that I would ever see the behemoth again. Most of the Grand Beasts were ever moving, never nesting. For all I knew, the one who saved my life could be who knows where by now.

They had their territories, though, like Frostflame and the snowy woodlands of my home. This one seemed to live underground.

Shit! You really, really are dumb, Eirlys. I berated myself once again. This could have been how all the Grand Beast woke up - in the core of Grandora. But did I fall that deep yesterday? Was it actually just yesterday? How long have I been asleep? I haven't slept this well in a long, long time. And what about the behemoth? Did it really just wake up yesterday? Seeing it now more clearly, figuratively and literally as well, it seemed like too much of a coincidence.

But be that as it may, perhaps just a twist of fate, the Grand Beast may have already set out to find its territory on the surface.

If so, there had to be a way up somewhere.

That glimmer of hope in my heart was quickly quenched by the dread of thought of what awaited me up there. No matter where Foxkins were looked down upon and treated worse than cattle. The closest I could get to a normal life was hiding away somewhere in the cities' alleys or the wilderness. Fox-gal, like me, simply couldn't . . . F-Foxkin!

Shit!

My hands shot up to my head and down to my ass in dread. But to my relief - and confusion - they were still there, both my fox ear and even the stump of my tail. Nothing has changed or . . . I gently touched the right side of my face and froze. The burn that disgusted everyone and was the source of many of my sleepless nights lost its tenderness. There was no better way to describe it. What my fingers touched were lumps and dents as hard as a stone. They were . . .

Before jumping to conclusions, I knelt back down to the lake, trying to catch my reflection on its surface. A difficult thing to do, given the pervasive gloom. Yet, squinting my eyes, I managed to make out my oval face on the black surface of the still water. More squinting, I caught a glimpse of my ear emerging from the jaw-long white hair covering my left side. I even discerned a burn on my right side. If my eyes didn't deceive me - and they were a thing in themselves, one feline, the other reptilian glowing in the dark like two amber gems; like those of the Grand Beast - what covered the area around my left eye and at least half of my burn, was scales.

Yes, scales . . . like those of Nagakin. Except the behemoth I met was definitely not Coilspire. Actually, it was kind of sad and didn't sit well with me, but despite the Grand Beast saving my life, I had absolutely no idea what its name was. Its beastly pressure undoubtedly bit into my body and made its claim on it, and I didn't know who to blame for the changes. The threat of turning into a fox beast sooner or later that with the death of the Grand Fox went away was back, and yet I had no clue whose image I might one day turn into.

Terrifying in one way; comforting in another. The threat loomed over me again. But once again, I had my Grand Beast.

As the whiff of dread settled in my heart and tears of joy welled in my eyes, the surface of the lake caught my attention. Ripples. For as massive as the cave was, there was no breeze to chase the waves across the surface. Yet they rippled across it. Either something had fallen into the lake, a stone - perhaps another slave - or something lived there. Something massive and likely dangerous. I stood on guard, taking a few steps back from the shore, but never taking my eyes off the lake's surface.

With each beat of my racing heart, the waves grew larger. Whatever it was, it was getting closer.

There! I gasped as the massive beast broke the lake's surface. If it weren't for the familiar ember eyes staring back at me from the broad, angular head - reminiscent of an anvil - I would have let out a scream. Instead, despite the sharp stones cutting into my feet, I fell to my knees and bowed to the ground, paying my respects as I had been taught and as any Grand Beast, no matter how young, deserved. My eyes, however; I simply couldn't take them away from the Grand Beast and its shimmering metallic scales. Unlike the ones around my eye, those on its back were thick and overlapping like the plates of a knight's armor, ranging in color even in the gloom of the cavern from silvery steel to dark iron, with occasional hints of copper and bronze.

»Child of mine, YOU are awake at last.«

Ancient tongue, or Grand Language, brushed against my mind once more. A language spoken only by behemoths, but understood by all, from humans to beasts to animals. It sounded so familiar, yet so out of reach. As I tried to remember the word I had just heard, it simply slipped my mind.

"Y-yes, I a-am, Grand Beast," I stammered out, my mind racing with what to say. "Th-thanks to you, for . . . for w-which I am eternally grateful, oh Great Beast."

»It is only your will to LIVE that you can thank, child of mine.«

Impossible. That couldn't be it. I was on the verge of death, freezing, and no matter how strong-willed you were, with no help, that was a sure end. However, I didn't dare to argue with the Grand Beast.

»I merely showed YOU the path,« the behemoth said as it made its way out of the water. »You were the ONE who clung to it so desperately.«

There was more; I could feel it; I knew it. The Ancient tongue wasn't as simple as my brain made it out to be. Yet, no matter how hard I tried, I couldn't find more in the Grand Beast's words.

"I s-see, Grand Beast."

»No, you don't, child of mine. BUT it matters not,« the behemoth grumbled and lay down on the ground, its six massive legs, two in front, two pairs in the back, folding beneath it, an equally massive and rather long tail curling around its body. I watched the behemoth speechlessly, waiting to hear what it had to say, while wondering how its might could affect my body. Four legs instead of two fox-like ones, scales instead of fine fur, a stout tail instead of the one I had lost. Not what mattered, though.

"What matters is that I am alive," I whispered to bolster my courage, only to realize how foolish that was.

»Indeed, child OF mine. Indeed.«

As my bones shook with the behemoth's voice echoing through the cavern, I breathed a sigh of relief, a daring question on my mind. Who the fuck are you? Not a wording I would ever venture to let escape my lips. Instead, my mind raced to find the right words.

"F-forgive my ignorance, Grand Beast. But . . . w-would you grace me with the k-knowledge of whose child I am?"

Behemoth hummed, amused, even pleased. »You stand IN the presence of Ferracore, child of mine.«

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Author’s note: As you may have noticed compared to the first chapter, I changed the style of the quotation marks when the Grand Beast speaks - it's in a different language, although Eirlys understands it. This will be corrected in the first chapter.

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Thank you for reading :)

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