The hydra’s trail led me out of the great forest, further away from the settlement and the range of our psychics. Soon the great trees cleared and became a stony hillside leading up into the mists.

  Unlike almost all of the hillsides leading up toward the edge of the treetop layer, this rocky slope wasn’t so steep that it couldn’t be traversed except by climbing. Instead it was a gradual ascent into the highlands, one covered in thick, glowing vines and bushes but very few trees.

  I found the hydra’s nest shortly after I emerged from the higher mist layer. It lay in the shadow of a huge formation of stone, two slate-shaped protrusions that extended more than a hundred meters into the air and leaned together to form a massive, dark cave.

  Lying before the mouth of this cave was a divot in the earth, a very shallow crater where they hydra had dug, then stomped the ground flat again.

  I didn’t need to reach into the earth to see that it had laid its eggs there. A furrow had been torn in the stony earth, with one of the eggs lying at the bottom. It was already cracked open, the thick shards of its bony shell lying in the earth around it. Whatever had killed the hydra had come back here and eaten one of its eggs.

  I cast my gaze around me for more than a minute, trying to sense any animals with my [Wild Bond], or any elementals by the impression they left in the air. Sensing nothing threatening, I spent some time examining the eaten egg.

  I could sense seven more of them lying beneath the earth, but they hadn’t been dug up, yet—whatever had dug up this one hadn’t even eaten the whole thing. A smaller creature, then?

  Almost no creatures laid eggs and then provided them with essence over the course of an entire year, and the weather was growing colder, not warmer. I supposed it made sense that something hungry for eggs would hunt for the eggs of a hydra, now, but the thought was also disconcerting.

  Whether it had killed the behemoth for a meal, or for essence, this creature was unusual and dangerous.

  Whatever it was, I hoped I’d be meeting it soon.

  I spent some time exploring the hydra’s stomping grounds, then sequestered myself in a small crevice in the upper reaches of the rock formation. It was a tight squeeze, but it was the only place I could find where I had a good view of the nest below me and was also shielded from sight overhead.

  Then I waited.

  I didn’t need to see the clouds gathering somewhere over the second and third layers of mist to know that it was going to rain. I could feel it gathering in the air around me, taste the change as the temperature and humidity shifted.

  Soon a light smattering of droplets began to fall, and soon after that my ears were filled with the patter of a moderate rainfall. I grinned and drank in the experience: the varied sounds of the water on leaves, soil, and stone was music to me.

  It was perfect. I sat and closed my eyes, extending my senses and simply listening: both to the world around me and to the inner turmoil of thought, memory, and emotion that lurked beneath the surface of my every waking thought.

  I hadn’t made much time for meditation since we’d come to the now world: a half hour in the morning if I could spare it, enough to keep me aligned to the mind-state that enabled my [Primeval Resonance].

  But now I was blessed with hours to spend embracing each sensation, marrying the outside world and the inside into nothing but a field of perception that was, essentially, me in my totality, at least moment to moment.

  It was still raining when, hours later, I sensed the returning hunter.

  It flew down through toward the nest through the air above me, darting to and fro like a leaf in the wind. It was so fast that I barely had time to sense its shape with my [Wild Bond], and it came into view beneath me even as my eyes were widening with shock at what I sensed.

  It was an eight-legged aerial serpent, feathers covering its body in brilliant, multi-hued plumage. Long streamers of glittering wet hair trailed from it as it moved, floating in its windsleeve like a half-dozen fistfuls of a unicorn’s mane.

  Its body was somewhat flat, flaring out to the sides to form a ribbed series of fins. It had eight clawed legs, the front two of which were longer than the rest and tipped with sharp, black talons. It had a thin face with thick-furred eyebrows, and a snout that ended in a long, sharp beak.

  It was beautiful, but the sight of it shook me to my core. I held back a sharp intake of breath as I saw the creature wind its way down into the crater-like nest. I couldn’t believe my eyes.

  It wasn’t that I’d never seen a creature of its like before.

  It was that I had, but only in myth.

  There were carvings of this creature on Teriax, one of the wildest worlds in all the realms—or the old realms, at least. The assumption had always been that they were invention, a creative fusion of multiple existing creatures, something imagined out of the minds of prehistoric orcs.

  The snake of the sky. It was a difficult piece of iconography to grasp. Orcish druids and shamans on Teriax used the creature’s image to represent the potential duplicity and insidiousness of invented concepts, imagined structures. Anything that might be held up as an example of how intelligent creatures rose above their animal natures could be warped and used by the snake in the sky.

  The snake in the sky twisted the blissful self-transcendence that could come from religious ecstasy, from seeing oneself as small and insignificant when compared to the cosmos, into the savage fervor of the crusade.

  The snake in the sky twisted the righteous desire for a just world, a desire that could carve out codes of law that would form the foundation of civilization itself, into nothing but the brutish, dominating desire of the tyrant.

  The snake in the sky twisted the the natural sense of honor, the feeling that could drive one to sacrifice themself for something larger than they were, into an animalistic compulsion toward suicidal bloodthirst that rose to the scale of nations instead of tribes.

  This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

  Nationalistic zeal, religious fanaticism, intellectual and artistic elitism… the snake in the sky brought all these things. Or so the wise orcs of Theriax still taught.

  In fact, the hybrid form of the sky serpent had seemed so well-suited as a symbol that it was easy to believe that nobody had ever seen one because they not only didn’t exist, but never had.

  Yet one was here, floating a hundred meters below me.

  Two possibilities existed. The orcs of Theriax might have imaged the image of this creature by coincidence, or even happened upon its image via fossil or ancient painting—and though its origins were lost, its shape was adapted to the myths that most suited it in their minds.

  The second possibility was that an old memory had reached me through the stories that mortals had made to keep it alive, and it was telling me, very clearly: do not trust this creature.

  For the sake of my people, I had to assume the second while I hoped for the first.

  Somehow, I knew that they were intelligent. I felt their mind searching the area with a [Wild Bond] skill, felt a direct, deliberate intention behind it as I had myself from their gaze. I watch the motion of their flight as they descended into the nest, rippling through the air as if they were swimming. They had jagged, luminous lines of cerulean blue on their back, and as their body undulated the lines made a pattern like a wave.

  Their class was obviously more oriented toward [Elemental] skills than [Body] ones, because they were flying. In fact, they were flying with a skill that suggested very high [Focus] as well as considerable natural aptitude.

  Still, they had the granted [Wild Bond] that was so common to wildlife’s classes. That meant it was unlikely they had many physically-oriented attribute skills: they were likely fragile. If it did come to a fight, my [Channel] was so powerful that I could likely strike them from the sky despite their swiftness.

  [Elemental] skills along with high [Focus] meant that they wouldn’t need to smell me or sense me psychically to know where I was: their gaze might feel my weight on the stone, or, more likely, the hollow that I made in the air.

  I knew that they’d found me when they pulled up short midair, becoming as still as they’d been when I’d first seen them. I stepped out of my tiny crevice and onto a small shelf of stone, then began to stretch my legs as I uncloaked myself with my [Wild Bond].

  The serpent gathered the air taut around its body, then flowed up through the space between us, stopping short only feet from me. Their eyes were a vivid green—likely colored that way from prolonged exposure to primeval mana, just as mine had been made red. Their thin facial features, set as they were at the end of a long, deadly beak, made no expression that I could recognize.

  If they were surprised that I hadn’t tried to flee, I got no indication. It was good at hiding emotions with the [Wild Bond]—I sensed a vague curiosity emanating from them and that was all.

  Greetings, I told them.

  They drew back a little when I spoke. The word would have opened up contact between our minds

  You are skilled to have hidden yourself from the powers of my mind, they said. But it matters not. My gaze stretches long and my eyes see much.

  Thinking that the best way to see if this creature could be trusted was to seem weaker than I was, to give them many opportunities to strike with seeming impunity. Because they were intelligent, I decided that would mean a feined mixture of arrogance, ignorance, and low attributes.

  They were close. Close enough that I would need to move quickly indeed if I wished to stop them from suddenly lunging forward and picking me up in their beak. Already, things were looking good.

  Do you come for the eggs? they asked. You sensed my treasures beneath the earth? They are my treasures, but I will share them if you like. For friendship.

  I considered the creatures, deep, unknowable green eyes. An intelligent ally who had spent a long time roaming the land would be a powerful asset, in this new world. But still—the serpent in the sky….

  I have not come for the eggs, I told them. I eat when I will it, and need no offerings. I have merely come for curiosity. I wanted to see what killed the hydra, and why.

  A light dash of amusement seemed to touch me through the bond. Mighty creature, it was, they said. Much essence. Some [Behemoth], some [Plural]. Eight eggs: more than I can eat myself. Have some, if they are to your liking. I offer freely, asking nothing. Have some.

  I have killed many hydras, great and small, I said. Their eggs are not to my taste.

  Shame! they said, floating back from me and making a quick circle in the air, their windsleeve so tight that their movements barely stirred my hair. You are a strange creature to see, they said. Yet one of kinship, I think. One not given to the laying of eggs, but who gives her children succor. Others of your kind help you when the time to breed has come, yes? Bring those others if they like eggs: there are many here.

  Another flash of amusement, and they said: It was a big hydra.

  I considered this. They knew I was a mammal, and believed that this meant I was more likely to form strong bonds with a pack—perhaps they’d even assessed my teeth and claws and determined I made a poor predator.

  I had no interest in letting them know of the existence of the other elves, though. Not with the broke fragments of eggshell still visible on the ground beneath us: they had the taste for other creatures, and their morality had yet to be discerned.

  For my sight, I was exiled, I said. Willingly do I embrace this fate. My kin were of dark mind. They were not my people. I am mighty alone.

  So sad, they said. But it is a story I have heard many times. The mana grants great power, but also great loneliness to those who are wild.

  Again, I had to wonder at them: they knew that the mana was what altered creatures into having intelligence?

  Have you name? they asked.

  Slowly, I nodded. I am Aziriel.

  I am Eli, they said. Come, come! Follow me, Aziriel. I will lead you. And they rose a little into the air.

  I cocked my head. Take me where? I asked.

  You are lonely, they said, as if this explained all. Come, come! We must meet the others.

  My eyes widened momentarily. If it was a trap, it was an interesting one. But I had to know.

  I rose into the air to follow them.

  one week break from posting updates to this story, starting today. We'll be back next Thursday.

  Edit: I am extending the length of the break to two weeks. My other story is now in RS top 10 and I'm currently filling the Patreon with chapters for the final tier. I also need to make a second cover and three new ads (paid for with Patreon money, which is pretty cool) by tomorrow afternoon.

  Suffice it to say that I'm keeping very busy at a very crucial time in the story's lifespan. I still hate to do it, but I don't want to once again end up in a position where I'm wondering if I could have made top 7+ if I had just done a little more.