Fowlhunter [GL]

Asha was dreaming.

Asha didn’t always know when she was dreaming, but this time she knew. She was swimming through water. Her body felt light and drifting, even though she was sweeping her limbs powerfully through the current. Her senses should’ve been sharp, but they felt muddled, the dirt kicking up below her feet soundless and not entirely solid, the rippling sky above too bright.

Also, instead of an elephant trunk, she had the long, pebbled snout of a crocodile. She hadn’t had jaws like these in years.

She recognised this day. This was a memory from some time ago. Night was falling, a fiery sunset that bled its rays into the river. She rolled through the golden water, not quite in control of herself. She was alone; crocodiles were solitary creatures. Something twitched by her ears. With a kick of her legs, she let herself drift towards the surface. Silently, she broke the surface of the river, vermillion eyes sweeping the landscape. She locked her gaze upon the humans standing on the bank. Their bags were laid on the grass behind them. They were conversing with each other, boots peeled off as they washed their legs off with buckets. A third sat on a nearby rock, a hunting rifle cocked in his arms.

Asha licked her jagged teeth. Humans weren’t a common sight, for most of them had the good sense to avoid saltwater crocodile territory. But there was always bound to be one or two idiots who came anyway.

Asha made quick work of them. Even though she was a small crocodile, the three of them were no match for her. The gun she’d been more wary of, but once the gunner was missing a leg he hadn’t been much good at firing it. Their blood darkened the water further, a delicious aftertaste in her throat and nostrils. In the past, Asha would’ve not felt a shred of remorse; this was simply the way of nature. But Asha of the present-day watched this scene with a certain sense of repulsion, feeling distanced from the way she devoured them, dragging them under the bubbling currents.

Belly full and appetite satiated, past Asha swam happily on. The sky fell dark, pinpricked by constellations. The water on her scaly skin became colder, as it did when the sun was down, but there was something wrong about this coldness. The crocodile frowned, but shrugged it off and swam on, searching for warmer waters. Yet with each turn she took, the streams only got colder. She was unaware of how the topography was morphing around her, turning from familiar to unfamiliar. The trees on both sides of the river grew taller and thicker, looming over the bank. Asha soon realised that the riverbed was knocking against her claws more and more, the waters growing shallower. A strange force still spurred her onward anyway, until the river grew so shallow she had to clamber out onto the wet grass, thick tail swishing. The air was dense with the scents and odours of dozens of other animals. Soon, the crocodile realised she wasn’t the only one who had been drawn here, by the edge of a shining lake at night.

The white glow of the moon reflected in her dinnerplate eyes.

That night, Queen Medusa's subjects had seized her and a crowd of other creatures, forcing them below the blinding pool of light. When Asha woke up, she’d had a rubbery trunk where her snout used to be, giant flapping earlobes where tiny earholes once were, and a… consciousness she didn’t know what to do with.

Using her new mind, Asha comprehended that she and the other animals rounded up had been essentially abducted and conscripted into being a pawn for a thousand-year war between a god and goddess—Queen Medusa, who desired the sun, and Emperor Prometheus, who refused to yield his sun to her. She learnt too that now she was no longer a crocodile, but the amalgamation of an elephant and crocodile—a makara, a fictitious creature once known only to mythology. Other animals had turned into different legendary creatures. Broadly, they were all known as Beasts.

As a Beast, Asha had sparkly new magic powers and could take on the less strong, but more nimble form of a human girl. But Beasts were also reliant upon the moon, and thus their Queen, who was the only one who could allow them to drink from it. If they went for too long without refuelling, their magic would consume them and kill them, their corpses turned into Runts—unthinking, deformed zombies that wrecked havoc across the undercloud, before they faded with the daylight. Pack animals could not return to their herds, being ostracised against for their new body parts. So, despite not having the friendliest starting point, most Beasts just sucked it up and tried to make the best of their new situation.

It wasn’t all bad. Asha had made precious friends in the den, like Ying and Jemi. Her anthropine form allowed her to experience the human part of the undercloud in ways she could’ve never done before. A part of her, though, always wondered what it would’ve been like if she had still been in her river, an apex predator in her territory, not having to think about anything that wasn’t her next meal.

But there was no going back to those days. She had people to worry about. She couldn’t lie here, dreaming as she was. She wasn’t supposed to be here… she had something she was supposed to be doing.

Gritting her teeth, Asha kicked her legs. Hard—one thing that Beasthood hadn’t taken from her were her powerful crocodilian limbs. The images of the den before her rippled. She kicked again and again, until the memories were swimming, and she was clawing her way to the surface. She broke the surface for the second time. Her lungs felt like bursting—she gasped for air:

And blinked.

She was…

…Running across a courtyard. It was dark at night. Rain poured around her as thunder flashed. Her boots squelched through the muddy grass, strong winds ripping at her hair; her mouth opened in heaving breaths. Asha knew immediately that she was not herself, but someone else—her skin was pale and freckled, and her eye level was short, like that of a child’s. Suddenly, Asha heard a small voice. It came from the waterwell in the courtyard, that the child was currently racing towards. It was then that Asha could hear the voice more clearly: a boy’s voice that cried from the bottom of the well, smothered by the flashing thunder:

“Someone help me, please!”

Asha felt her mouth opening to reply, but then the courtyard suddenly spasmed around her.

That’s enough.

The wind whooshed. An invisible force below her feet sent her rocketing toward the stormy sky, blasting above the clouds. And everything was dark again.

“Mmgh… ugh…”

Asha blinked her eyes open groggily.

She was in anthropine form, sitting in a round, gold-walled chamber. It was only dimly lit by a few torches latched to divots in the walls. Her throat felt supremely parched. Her arms and legs felt like jelly, and they were bound by her sides by golden string. Each string was fine, but there must’ve been thousands of these strings wrapped around her, bundling her like a cocoon.

There was a woman crouched in front of her. She was stunningly beautiful, with skin as smooth as polished marble, silky black hair, and hazel-brown eyes. She was wearing a red peplos that draped over long legs, dainty feet encased within gold sandals.

“It’s my first time meeting one of your kind,” the woman spoke. “Even though it’s been so long since I was outside, I’ve heard of the Beasts. It’s truly fascinating.”

“Who are you?” Asha asked.

The woman put a hand to her full, red lips. “Oh, how ill-mannered of me not to introduce myself. Forgive me, it’s just been a while since I’ve talked to a person. My name is Ariadne. What’s yours?”

Asha squinted at her. “You already know, don’t you? You were rummaging through my memories. That’s totally uncool, by the way. Very ill-mannered.”

“Hmm,” Ariadne studied her. “That is true, Asha. You’re very intelligent, for someone that’s half-animal.”

“I assure you,” Asha said, steely, “that animals are smart. When I was a crocodile, I stayed in my section of river, others stayed in their section of river, and everything was peachy. Humans are the ones who barge into others’ spaces and make up a million problems for themselves.”

Ariadne’s smile did not change. “I assure you, makara, I completely understand you. I did not mean to insult, but to compliment. You have an incredible mental capacity… to think that you even managed to…” She paused. “Never mind.”

“......” Asha was silent as she thought back on the events that had led her here.

When she and Ying had tried to escape from the entrance, the way was blocked by an ocean of spiders. When they surged forward, they’d had no choice but to run back in the maze the way they came. Each time they were going to take a turn, however, more spiders would come rushing out of all paths but one… as if they were directing them somewhere. As they ran, Asha mentally reconfigured her internal map of the maze, but the spiders would not let up their chase, and fifty turns ran dry quickly. They made the fifty-first turn, and from then on that Asha knew that they were going to be lost here forever. They ran in the dark labyrinth until their legs gave up from under them, and they collapsed, while the spiders crawled over them in a wave. A single set of jaws pressed against the back of her neck, bidding her to close her eyes…

And now she was here, wrapped in a golden cocoon, faced with a mysterious woman who could look through her memories. It didn’t take a genius to put it together.

“You’re the one controlling the spiders,” Asha realised. The red-eyed spider that had approached them around the sixth turn of the maze. She thought about that other pixiu—the other pixiu that had strangled themselves, collapsed in a heap of fur and wing. A jolt of panic shot through her: “Where’s Ying?”

“Relax. Your friend’s just in another room,” the black-haired woman smiled. “I didn’t know how you two would react to the spider venom—I couldn’t have you two accidentally ripping each other apart, you know?” She curled a red-nailed finger, and a clicking spider scuttled up her hand, spitting golden thread that curled loosely around her hand. “Your friend will be fine… if she wakes up, that is.”

Asha growled. Lunaki sparked over her figure, silver electricity that coursed through the cords of spiderweave, but the bindings held fast. Ariadne’s brown eyes sparkled.

“I’d always wanted to know how the moon’s magic would hold up against my own,” she said. “That’s a little disappointing. Since Soleki can’t enter this maze, I thought Lunaki might fare better. I guess I was wrong.”

“Lunaki is strong,” Asha narrowed her eyes. “I’m just not the strongest. But I’ve got powerful friends—and they’ll be coming for your hide if you don’t let us out.” Unable to move her body, she rolled her head around, gazing at the engraved golden walls, covered in sprawling, ancient etchings. “What did you do with Ying? Where are we? Why can you control the spiders?”

“So many questions,” Ariadne trilled. “I know you’re a curious person at heart, Asha. Ever since you ceased to be a savage crocodile, you’ve not been a warrior, but a scholar. And there’s a lot to be learned from these walls, you know. The Cretan Labryinth is an old place.”

“Then answer the questions.”

Ariadne went on dreamily, “Time isn’t the same in this place. You have no need for the same impatience that has plagued your life this far.” Her smile grew sharper. “You’ll have all the time you’ll ever need. Because you’re going to be here forever.”