Icarus's blog: "Somantics"

The trail was either cold or never there.
No flattened grass, no slick trampled mud.
Why couldn't it ever be a thousand years in the desert on a day with no wind, downwind and downhill?

He felt the earth, tasted it, pleaded with it, threatened it a few times, but to no avail. The mountain was on the snake's side.

All he could do was calculate the trajectory and make an educated guess based on the creature's size and destination. The fact that there was no trace meant that he was aware of Alorid's presence... but why be so cautious and leave the skin in plain sight?

Almost as if the damn thing was taunting him. Waving a sign of his failure in front of him of his nose.

It was almost as if the snake was laughing at him.
Or was it the mountain?
Snakes are rumored to be pleasureless, unfeeling murderous things.

Perhaps that's why it wanted to become a dragon.
They at least have two emotions Alorid had seen, a smug sense of pride and anger.

In the language of dragons, snake meant cold brother.

If this was true, then why would a snake taunt when it could strike?

It wasn't instinct, it wasn't a missed step, or a snapped twig reflex

Striking from behind was exactly what Alorid would do once he smelled fear and realization on his prey. After all, there is no shame in fear, it can be a great tool.

As Alorid spun, his dagger caught the sun, but no flesh. It glittered against the eastern dawn peaking over the mountain as the great searpent reared back its massive body, coiling to strike again.

"What do you intend to do warrior? You have an impressive fang but just the one!" The great snake lunged, and snapped for Alorid's shoulders, hoping to burrow two poison needles right next to his heart. Alorid kicked back, an audible snap as the snake's jaw grasped nothing.

You may be asking how a man can dodge a snake, is he a trained athlete, a seasoned veteran, a demigod? Well have you ever woken up from a very long nap on a cold day? Your muscles are sore and slow to break that stoney grip of rest. Your eyes are scratchey and dry, vision is a dancing fuzz against the light- Its the same concept only greater in scale. And the older you get, the worse those mornings become. You have the advantage of not living a thousand years, your heart beating more than a few dozen times atop a cool mountain while you sleep, waking only occasionally to count the seasons or devour a smelly local that intruded too far up your mountain.

But the snake did have cunning and experience on his side, the lunge was a feint, as his body sprung forward, he rolled the motion into the back of his body and flung his long, thick tail right into Alorid's ribs. There was a full and resounding thud as Alorid's body went sprawling backward and rolled several times downhill.
The snake now holding the high ground, and no broken ribs.
Alorid was slow to stand, he tasted blood in the back of his head, but this was a barely audible warning over the pain in his chest. The snake was wise, it didn't take this opportunity to dive on top of the man, and risk a dagger in the belly during the exchage. It just prepared its next attack, reserving its strength for the one -good- bite it would take to stop his heart, it didn't even need to be somewhere vital or exposed, he was strong enough to shred that armor like wet paper.

This fight was over.

Alorid could give a berserker yawp and charge, damaged and dazed uphill to a coiled and ready set of springloaded teeth, assuring injury to the beast, a scar, or at best a lost eye...
Some heroic
and foolish gesture.
What would the world suffer in the loss of one stranger, and one eye of a dragon?

He could swear a blood oath, a thousand year grudge, and raise his son to raise his son, to raise his son to raise his son to be a great sea-searpent slayer, and failing that- they could raise their son's son to be a dragon slayer...

But Alorid had no intention of settling down and raising the next great kingdom of slayers... those folks tended to side with aristocrasy and hypocrisy, becoming more foppish and dazzlingly over-equipped and under-skilled by the generation.
He just wanted a new pair of boots that supposedly could walk over water and unseen traps, a suit of armor that could withstand the cold, a mask of the snake's glands that could filter the toxic mists in the swamps to the south, and maybe a few pounds of gold from selling very over-designed handbags and coin-purses from the scraps...
There was supposed to be razorwolves in the swamps to the south, and a toad that oozed happiness...
He could only imagine what that would do for business.

Of course, rumors of these oddities' effectiveness was always overblown by salesmen and travellers... rumor mongering booze hounds that they were.

One thing was certain, this great snake had beautiful skin... pearly white, shimmering every color faintly against the sunshine. That in itself should've been worth the trip, worth the trouble, worth the months of rumor and nonsense in taverns, but Alorid never intended to fight the snake, he had imagined he wouldn't have caught the beast on his final molt, awake and alert downhill...
This was all to be a simple act of murdering a stranger in their sleep.
Some beautiful, great, one of a kind magical stranger.

Alorid sighed, and placed his dagger back into its sheathe.
"Can I at least keep the molt?"
The snake flicked his tail... perhaps amused.
Perhaps amused for the first time of his life.
A whole new set of emotions, sadistic mirth, unquenchable avarice, unparalled arrogance awaited the creature in just a short millenium.
And who was Alorid to deny him that?