The Hunter's Song

8: Passive (Mourning Crow)

Yes?

YES!!!

Are you fucking kidding me?

I fought the urge to twitch my ears and left the bathroom abruptly, leaving that gigantic moron standing there naked and confused. As he very obviously was!

Hasn't he figured it out yet?

I wandered into the dormitory and gathered up my clothing.

This is what you get, Mourning Crow, for insisting on removing ambiguity! All you had to do was walk away, but No... You were all, he did that thing three times now in your presence. What is up with that?

All that blather about training and discipline. My ass!

That time, while I was out cold, being carried was a little weird, but the idiot was likely bored lugging a corpse through the forest. Probably watching porn under that visor.

Ugg!!

I pulled on my clothes and stomped out to the bridge.

No, you couldn't leave well enough alone and go on assuming it was some totally normal Zhaguai biological tic. You just had to have clarity!

I wanted to punch something but I didn't want to damage his ship.

Mate for life! No, you're just horny, you dumbbell! Not to mention we're entirely different species! How dare that nitwit settle for not having children!

I couldn't stop my ears from spasming with rage.

No. I'm shutting this down! I will get the truth through his giant scaly head!

I tapped on the main screen and opened up the file labeled PASSIVE when Eh'kt entered the bridge wearing only his loincloth.

"You want to know who taught me to speak, write, and read Zhaguai?" I turned around to face him with my arms crossed tight around my chest. "Fine, here it is."

I stepped up to him and jabbed my finger into his black-scaled chest. "You did!"

The thick-skulled lizardman shook his wriggling cranial quills in defiance

"That day in the forest, the second you got near me," I turned my attention to the screen. "Computer, begin recording."

I swung my attention back to Eh'kt. "Pay attention, because this is how I became a monster."

I was exhausted. At first, it was exciting having another living person to share my exploits with, but talking non-stop about the Graven was starting to take its toll.

Eh'kt's people lived by an honor code and according to their laws, I was beyond criminal.

"I killed a defenseless living thing," I glared at him and moved toward the wall, speaking loud and clear for the computer to record every detail. "Not for its bones, but for its knowledge. Because I told myself I had to."

Eh'kt gave me no response. He only shifted his weight from one leg to the other and continued listening.

I laid it out for him. This was the only Graven that refused to fight me. No guardians, or fangs, or toxins. It didn't even have limbs. It was worse than slaughtering livestock. The thing just squealed and squirmed in agony, and still, I murdered it.

"I took no pleasure in it," I explained, not as an excuse or a rationalization, but to affirm that I was in full possession of my mental faculty. "There were whispers toward the end of Thorngate, chatter I followed up on and interrogated other Corrupted Slayers to corroborate. All that data pointed to this little slug sitting alone in a field of lime-green flowers. They said it was the gatekeeper to enlightenment and could light the passage to an exit. Except when I found it, it did nothing but lay there munching on flowers."