This Beast Tamer Has So Many Questions

It did not know much. It never had.

There were no thoughts in it, not really—only instinct and hunger. From the very first stirring of whatever it was, before it had eyes or wings or any way to understand the world, there was only the wanting. A deep, formless, gnawing need for something it could not have named, because it had no names for anything at all. It simply hungered, and reached, and wanted, without ever knowing what for.

And then, one day, it got it.

Something came—something poured over it and into it, and the wanting answered all at once, recognizing in a rush the very thing it had been made to crave. So it drank. It drank greedily, desperately, pulling in every last drop it could reach, and for the first time the gnawing eased. This. This was the thing. This was what it had always needed.

Blood. The thing was blood, though it had no word for that either.

And in all that blood, drinking and drinking, it found something. One blood, among the others, that was different. Warmer. Sweeter. A blood that tasted of something the others didn’t—something it could not describe and did not try to, only knew, with the whole of its small hungry being, that it was better. The best. The one it wanted above all the rest.

It wanted more of that warm sweet blood. More, and more, and more. However much it got, it was never enough—could never be enough—and the wanting of it became the center of everything, the single bright point around which its whole dim little world turned.

Then it hatched.

It came out into a wider world with a body of its own at last, small and soft and new—and the first thing it knew, the very first, was that the warm sweet blood was here. Close. It could smell it, a rich and wonderful nearness; it could feel it, somewhere just out of reach, a great warm source of the thing it loved most, moving through the world above it.

Him.

It did not understand what he was. It had no word for human, no understanding of anything so large and strange. It only knew him by what mattered: he was the Source. The warm one. The sweet one. The great moving wellspring of the blood it craved, always near, always just there—and oh, how it wanted to reach him.

But it never could. However it tried—and it tried, ceaselessly, with all the determination its tiny body could muster—it could never quite get to the blood. The Source kept it just out of reach, denied it the thing it wanted most, again and again.

And yet it did not give up, and did not go away. Because even denied, even thwarted, being near him felt good. It felt right. It felt natural to be close to the Source, to smell the warm sweet blood, to feel the wonderful fluid rushing somewhere just beneath, even if it could never have it. So it stayed close. It always stayed close. Near him was simply where it belonged.

Time passed that way, in wanting and nearness.

It never stopped reaching for the sweet fluid, and the Source never quite let it have it, and still it stayed, drawn to him by something deeper than hunger. The smell of him. The warmth of him. The rightness of being near.

And then, one day, it was given.

The Source let it close at last—let it feed, truly feed, directly from the warm sweet source itself. And it devoured the offering with everything it had, and it was perfect. It was more than perfect. As the warm sweetness filled it, something washed over the little creature that had nothing to do with hunger at all—a deep, drowsy, total rightness, like being carried back to the very beginning of itself. Like being an egg again, warm and weightless, floating and drifting in a soft endless calm. Safe. Whole. Home.

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This, dimly understood, was where it was meant to be.

And then something else reached for it.

Not blood—something other, warm in a different way, offered out from the Source toward the little drinking thing. It did not understand the offering with its mind, small as that mind was. But it understood it deeper down, the way it understood everything that mattered: the Source wanted it close. Closer than close. Joined.

Yes, it answered, without a moment’s hesitation, still busily drinking, far too occupied with the wonderful blood to give the momentous thing the gravity it deserved. Yes, of course, closer, joined, whatever you want—just let me keep drinking. And it was so. The warmth wove through it, and the Source was not only near now but part of it, a glow it could feel always—and the little creature, drunk on blood and belonging both, could not possibly have been happier.

Then came pain.

It squirmed under it, the cutting and the dividing, the strange harsh process that took it apart piece by piece. It hurt. But—and this was the curious thing—it felt no hatred at all for the one who did it. Not a flicker. Because through the new warm bond it could feel him, feel the Source’s own ache as he worked, the care and the sorrow threaded through every careful cut, and it knew, in its wordless way, that he did not want to hurt it. That this hurting was a different kind of thing.

And deeper than that, instinct told it plainly: this was good. This was needed. Whatever was being done to it was meant to happen and was carrying it toward something it had to become. So it endured. It endured the cutting and the dividing, sinking into a strange, drowsy, dreamy haze where the pain grew distant and far away. It was uncomfortable. It was frightening, a little. But it was right, and the Source was there through all of it, so it bore it without struggle and without blame.

And then blood—a great flood of warm sweet blood, poured over its divided self—and it forgot the pain entirely and fell upon the offering, swallowing it all, greedy even in its broken state. The blood filled it, knit it, carried it down and down…

And then everything went quiet. And the world went dark.

How long had it been?

It could not tell. In the dark there was no time, only waiting, and a strange new ache it had never felt before. It missed the blood—of course it missed the blood, the warm sweetness it had not tasted in so long. But it missed something else, too, something it was only now, in the quiet dark, learning it could miss.

Him. It missed him.

Not just the blood he gave—him. The Source. The warmth, the nearness, and the rightness of being close. Even here, even with no blood to be had, it wanted him. Wanted to be near him again, because near him was when everything had felt all right, and away from him—even sleeping, even safe in the dark—something essential was missing. It had not known, until now, that the wanting had grown into something more than hunger. But it had. Somewhere in all that drinking and nearness, it had come to want the Source himself, blood or no blood. And it ached for him in the dark, and waited, and did not stop wanting to be close.

Then, at last, it was time.

It felt the moment arrive, some deep certainty rising through it, and it began to move—to squirm and push and strain against the dark that held it, working with all its strength to break free. The shell resisted. It pushed harder. And then, all at once, it broke through—tumbling out into light and air, new and whole and changed.

And it knew where he was instantly. It could feel him through the warm bond, a beacon it could not have lost if it tried, and it went to him without a heartbeat’s hesitation—flew to him, found him, and latched on, settling against the warmth of his neck where the sweet blood ran closest.

And everything felt right.

Its mind was clearer now, less fuddled, the dim hungry fog of before lifted into something almost like thought. And with that clearer mind came understanding it had not had before. It knew, now, that taking the blood hurt him—that the warm sweet fluid it loved came at a cost to the Source it loved even more. So it would not ask. Not anymore. It would be near him, always, smelling the wonderful blood and feeling it rush warm beneath, content with that—and it would only drink when he chose to give, and never take what wasn’t offered. Never hurt the Source for the sake of its own hunger.

But.

If anyone, anything, ever tried to stop that flow—ever threatened the Source, ever came between it and the warm sweet wellspring that was the center of its whole world—then the little creature, clear-minded now and utterly devoted, knew exactly what it would do.

Anything. It would do anything at all.

Nothing in the world would be allowed to come between it and him.

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