9. Foretold Foes

The hit to Ionadanaris’ body wasn’t too bad, but the hit to her thoughts was horrible. She had suspected her parents made crocodiles out to be much larger than they truly were. This one was even larger than that, like a dinosaur crocodile. She didn’t know how. But she froze, inside and out, and waited between two dirt hills until it was over.

No crocodile bite came. The gods waved their arms and kept the beast barely under control. She was happy to be alive, but also heard mother’s voice. She always heard mother’s voice.

You must defeat the crocodile. No help. No cheating. Only then the Venomous Bite returns.

But—CROCODILE!

She barely dared look at it. If she didn’t make it, her side of the family was done for. And didn’t she just learn that crocodiles probably had nothing to do with their poison?

But a life of warnings and fear, dear reader, is not easily changed by simply thinking the right things.

She got up and walked to the crocodile. Her mind had already decided that she would defeat the crocodile, and she would bring back the Venomous Bite, and all the other pretty promises she’d heard all her life. If she didn’t do it, she’d feel a worthless loser for all her life.

“Stop your magic,” she yelled at the gods, who instantly dropped their paws. “I fight this creature … alone.”

“But—” Bella shut Eeris’ mouth. They also knew the myth. Maybe they were even involved, and Ardex had somehow placed a magical spell on all crocodiles to create this prophecy.

The crocodile’s head slowly turned, choppy, as if unable to find Ionadaris’ small frame. Crocodile! Crocodile! Crocodile!?

The body seemed blocky and clumsy in the faint moonlight, as if the crocodile was too large for its own skin. The teeth were huge, but not too sharp. The tail moved lazily. This crocodile was beatable. She wasn’t sure if all these things were true, but she told them to herself to gather courage.

Courage which she needed now.

The creature leapt at her. His snout only touched dirt hills. She jumped aside and rolled to his paw. She smashed it with all her power, and to her surprise, she broke a toe, which immediately stood askew. The green monster didn’t growl or roar in pain, but he did temporarily wobble on his damaged leg.

She rolled to his hind leg and did the same thing. This time she knew where to aim and managed to break two parts. The crocodile wobbled, but righted himself with his snout. She noticed too late that his tail started to circle her like a constrictor snake.

She bit left, right, up, down, with all her power. The tail left with deep wounds. Even this wasn’t enough to make the crocodile react, except by temporarily losing control over his tail. How many times do I need to hurt him to scare him!? she thought in a panic.

A formation of stone around the Throne area, created by Darus, formed a staircase in her eyes. She ran for it, dodging a sweeping tail. She jumped from one stone to the next, higher and higher, until she appeared above the crocodile’s head.

He looked up. She jumped on top of his head.

At the last moment, her enemy opened his massive jaws. She screeched. She fell in his teeth, hopelessly, with nothing to grab or to bring safety.

But his jaws shut too soon.

She landed on the tip of his nose, alive, and instantly bit at his eyes. She didn’t feel the hit anymore, but the eyes shut and the crocodile wobbled. I can do this. It doesn’t matter how often I must bite, I will do it.

He almost fell on his back, but turned around rapidly, flat on his belly and ready for the next attack. She floated through the air again and tried to get her feet below her. The fall was long, but she—

She was stuck in something. A thin wire, stretched between the trees near the river. A rod!

Her claws grabbed it and she thanked the wire a thousand times. She rocked back and forth, high above the ground, as the crocodile estimated if he was able to make this jump. They were no jumping creatures, they were sneaking creatures, close to the ground and the water.

She thought she was safe—she thought wrong.

The wire snapped under her weight. She pushed off a tree trunk and made a final swing, which threw her over the crocodile in a fast arc. He bit at her, but she was already gone. The speed wasn’t enough to escape, though, which made her scared and surprised. She must have flown ten tree lengths in a heartbeat, and still the crocodile was at her heels.

I can’t do this! This beast is too powerful!

She landed on the floor. Hard. Hard enough to stop feeling her legs. Flat on her belly, she tried to slither back to the fight, like—like a snake. The crocodile attacked again, but she’d already reached his other legs. She bit and bit, until those also gave out. Now he tried to raise his paws to stand on top of her, crushing her, but she slithered around his ankle and simply followed his steps.

She was stuck to his chest. The heart. Go for the heart! She expected to find a place that regularly bulged, with each heartbeat, but found nothing. Do crocodiles even have a heart!?

She gathered her last powers and blindly bashed, bit and scratched the crocodile’s chest. For the first time, the creature roared, though it was soft and with effort. He swayed as if somebody sat on his back who tried to send his stubborn pet the right way, but couldn’t. He was increasingly unstable; she just clung to him and let him stagger.

Until he closed his eyes and fell down.

Ionadanaris screamed and squealed. “I did it! I defeated a crocodile!”

She felt her body change immediately. Stronger, faster, more certain. She could do anything. She could look at the dark forest and not see the eyes of five monsters. She could think without being interrupted!

Freedom. Peace. The Venomous Bite back?

Her enemy shook the ground with his landing. And then he exploded into a thousand pieces.

That … isn’t right.

One of the pieces rolled to her. What should have been a living eye, was just a block of wood. She looked up and now clearly saw them in the moonlight: hundreds of wires from rods, criss-crossing in the empty space between trees. One end held a piece of the crocodile, the other end a smiling Gosti in a tree.

It was all an act. For her.

They had rapidly built a crocodile from their thingelings and brought it here. That’s why the gods stopped helping so easily. That’s why she won. She had defeated a wooden creature on wires!

And that changed nothing.

She still felt strong and unbeatable. She had looked a crocodile in the eyes, thinking they were real, and still found the courage to try, to move, to fight. She’d accepted mistakes could happen, and still lived on and tried her best as fearlessly as she could. She could overcome trauma.

This family accepted her. Her own family would also accept her. Maybe, just maybe, they could continue together.

And she really had changed.

An odd, sour taste shot over her tongue. She couldn’t stop it and dripped on the stones before her. Stones who, at the touch, crumbled slightly. Her family looked at her as if she were a goddess. They crowded around her and all wanted to touch her venomous teeth, which didn’t seem smart to her, but they seemed immune to the poison they created themselves.

But not all mistakes have good consequences.

She could no longer feel her legs. She would never feel them again. Just as her ability to create poison had turned on, her ability to create legs had turned off. This happened easily, because her ancestors had no legs and swum in the sea. A few tiny changes to her DNA, a few major changes to her life.

She suspected the gods did have something to do with the prophecy and making it come true one way or another. Bella just smiled at her and walked away—she couldn’t walk after her, never again.

Still, Donat rushed to her to ask Ionadanaris to bear his children. He saw a strong woman who could deliver strong children, and that’s all that mattered.

At the birth of their first child, both sides were present. At the birth of their second child, any talk about “two different branches” ceased. Eeris had to repeat that all crocodiles had left the area a hundred times, and even that wasn’t enough for some. The Gosti were able to easily overcome the ingrained fair, her own parents less so.

The warnings about crocodiles stopped. The commands, about everything you couldn’t do, stopped. At Ionadanaris’ advice, the snake from the prison in the Throne was released. He shouldn’t suffer because of the actions of his ancestors, especially when Ardex—arguably the Chiefgod of this world—told them to.

Fear and danger were never far away, of course. But their life wasn’t ruled by it anymore, nor the toxicity they spread through it.

Ionadanaris’ new features were so helpful to survival, that she bore many children and they all lived long enough to bear many children themselves. Soon, they massively outnumbered the non-venomous versions, beating them at everything. And so, equally soon, the order of Euchambersia was entirely filled with animals lacking paws but having the Venomous Bite.

They had become venomous snakes. A species that—like most venomous species—barely changed and didn’t go extinct until humans arrived.

They kept the bright colors from this side of the family, to warn everyone to keep their distance. Even a tiny snake could now defeat a huge crocodile. And when tiny animals could suddenly win from the biggest predators … the chain of food would be disrupted again.