Limitless Evolution As a Snake

The sound she makes isn’t a word. It’s just raw, cracked open. She folds into me, and my coils tighten on instinct, holding her up. Crap, this is the part I’m bad at. The comforting part. I just told her I’m a full-blown monster, and now she’s... breaking. All I can do is wrap her up, gently, like she’s glass, even though I know she’s the toughest person I’ve ever met.

Here’s the thing I keep coming back to, sitting here with my coils curled up and Lyra asleep against my side: I’m not going to tell her the truth.

Not the whole truth anyway. Not the ledger, not Old Mate, not the weird glitchy voice in my head that talks like a bogan who’s been drinking since breakfast. She doesn’t need that bit, nobody needs that bit.

Because here’s what I’ve worked out. Lyra and Cherry don’t need to know about the system that’s running under my skin like some pirated app I downloaded off a sketchy website. She doesn’t need to know that every choice I make gets tallied up somewhere, turned into points, spent on scales or venom or whatever stupid new mutation I decide sounds cool that week. She just needs to know one simple fact, one true fact, the only fact that actually matters to her.

I will always be a monster.

That’s it, that’s the whole conversation. I can’t go up to her like, "hey babe, so there’s a magic god who was meant to be a hot goddess, koala living in my skull," not "the ledger says I owe way more than money," none of that. Just this: I’m not going to wake up one day with legs and a normal face.

I’m not going to turn into some half-human man like the others down here. I’m a snake all the way through, well, whatever I turn into down the line, but definitely snake-something forever.

She deserves to know what she tangled herself up with—the final shape of the monster. Not the mechanics, not the score sheet. Just the end result. I can carry the rest of it myself. I’ve got wide shoulders for it. Metaphorically, of course. My shoulders are just more ribs, but the point stands.

Protecting her, Cherry, and whoever else comes along just means keeping some doors shut. It’s not lying. It’s management.

"You gave up being half human," she says against my coils, voice muffled and wet. "For me."

"Wasn’t even a choice." I press my snout against her hair, breathe her in, letting a deep rumble vibrate through my coils, doing the talking my mouth can’t manage right now. "There was no version of tonight where I let you die so I could keep my legs."

She’s crying properly now, whole body shaking with it, and I just hold her there in this room on this rooftop, coiled around her like I could keep the whole storm off if I just squeezed tight enough.

"I felt it," she chokes out after a while. "The bond, I felt it breaking, Matt, right before everything went white, like something was tearing loose inside my chest and I thought-" She stops, presses her face harder into my scales. "I thought I was losing you."

"You weren’t losing me." My voice comes out steadier than I feel. "The bond wasn’t breaking, it was just stretching, trying to keep up with whatever the hell just happened to my body. It’s still here. I’m still here."

"I can take care of myself," she says suddenly, pulling back just enough to look at me, eyes red and swollen but fierce underneath it. "I don’t need you to throw yourself away every time something goes wrong, I’m not some- some fragile thing that needs saving every five minutes."

"I know." I brush my tail along her cheek, slow, careful with the ridges. "I know you can. Doesn’t mean I was ever gonna stand there and watch you die so I could keep something as stupid as being human."

"You should have thought about it," she whispers. "Just for a second, you should have thought about saving yourself."

"No." The word comes out low, final, with that new rumble underneath it that makes the whole thing sound like a growl. "Never. Not for a second. There was no time when I would pick anything over you, Lyra. Not then, not now, not ever. You and Cherry are my world. You’re all that matters to me."

For a long moment, her eyes search mine. Then the fight just drains out of her, and she’s crying again. It’s a different sound this time, less broken, more like something finally letting go after holding on too tight for too long.

I don’t say anything else. I just hold her, coiled tight under the storm, letting her cry it out against scales that feel different now, slicker, harder, shifting from black to deep blue like an oil slick on water.

Lyra pulls back just enough to look at me, eyes still wet, and asks the question I’ve been dreading.

"Why didn’t it work? You’re supposed to be stronger now. The Koi thing, all of it. Why did the poison still get through?"

I don’t answer right away. My tongue flicks out on its own, tasting the air, tasting her fear, and I hate that I can smell it.

"Because it’s not that kind of poison," I say. "Cyanide, snake venom, whatever, that stuff plays by the rules. Body versus toxin, and if your body’s strong enough, you win. This isn’t that. This is old and deep. The kind of stuff that doesn’t care if you’re beast,snake, or a god. It hits everyone the same way."

She stares at me like she’s trying to find a lie hiding in my words, but there isn’t one this time. Just the parts I’m choosing not to say.

I press my snout against her hair anyway, because saying half the truth still counts as comfort if you say it soft enough.

"Point is, I’m still here. I’m still me, just wearing a bigger, uglier coat now."

She lets out a shaky breath, half laugh, half sob, and I feel her hand tighten against my scales like she needs the proof under her fingers.

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