Chapter 1: Chapter 1 – Die, or Fight To Survive

 

Dara was nearly dead. Her back was streaked with blood, and her clothes ripped apart, much like her skin. Her father rolled up the whip, and sneered.

"Throw her outside. If she dies, it will only save me the trouble of killing her myself." The heir to the Gulvor family, Sel Gulvor, walked away from his own daughter after he nearly whipped her to death.

"She didn't even do anything wrong." The guard said quietly as he lowered Dara to the floor, and after her father left. The guard sighed sadly. "When a middle child is ignored, and beaten mercilessly, how can she grow strong enough to protect herself? An utter monster." He lifted the young woman off the ground and put her arm over his shoulder.

"Child, I'm going to take you outside and put you outside the walls of the town." He whispered as he carried her. "Fight. If you want to survive, fight to live, or you'll die. You'll die at that bastard's hands, or through the claws of the beasts, though there isn't much difference."

"Won't he kill you?" Dara whispered. The guard sneered.

"Your father, no, that isn't a title fitting for someone like him. The heir to the Gulvor family isn't as strong as he thinks he is. I'll take my belongings and leave this cursed town under this declining family's control." He growled. "My brother lives near the capital, and can get me on at the city guard."

"Why couldn't you have been my father?" She whispered. He smiled.

"Sometimes, that isn't the path the gods want for us, child." He nodded at the gate guards as he took her outside the town and walked her to the edge of the forest, along the eastern wall that didn't have a gate. "Like I said, fight to survive, and fight hard." He put a dagger in her hand.

"This is all I can do to help." He said softly, and walked back the way he came. She smiled weakly.

"It's more than anyone from the family has ever done for me." She said quietly. She clutched the dagger to her chest, and treated it like a treasure.

Not long after, she passed out from the pain, and blood loss.

 

* * *

 

"How come I don't see the corpse?" Sel asked the guard as he returned. The guard snorted.

"I took her outside the town." He walked away, which surprised the arrogant heir to the family. After he came back to his senses, he walked towards the barracks to have a word with the guard, but found the man had put on his backpack, and slid his sword into the sheathe.

"Where do you think you're going?" Sel said angrily. "You need proper discipline to serve this family." The guard showed him a face that held no respect.

"Discipline from a murderer? From someone who whipped his own blood to death for no crime at all? From someone who whipped a teenager to show his own strength?" The guard barked out a laugh, then sneered. "You can show me nothing, family heir. You should remember your place. You are an heir, not the patriarch." The guard walked passed him, and pushed him away when he tried to stop him.

"A simple heir to a merchant family tries to stop the son of a count? My family may have many sons, but my father cared for his children. Try to get your dogs to bite, and you'll find your entire family turned into slaves." The guard left while Sel was still too shocked to stop him, or gather any guards to prevent him from leaving.

"Hold the stone! He is no son of a count!" He rushed out to the gate, but couldn't see his backpack in the small amount of people moving about their business. He looked at the gate guards.

"Did you see where he went?" Sel asked angrily. The guard frowned.

"See where who went?" the guard asked. He didn't know who Sel meant as the only one he saw was a former guard that had no crimes on his shoulders.

Completely enraged, Sel punched the guard, and knocked him down. While he was disoriented, he dragged him into the compound and whipped him for insubordination.

Sel treated those that were employed by the family as though they were slaves, and he had full rights to do to them whatever he pleased. He was so arrogant that he believed he was of the nobility.

It was obvious to anyone that their family was on the decline.

 

* * *

 

Dara crawled through the underbrush, her body cried out at every movement. She had escaped the hellish place she once called home, but only thanks to that random guard who felt sorry for her.

"Survive! Fight to survive!" Those were the words she remembered, and chanted them like a mantra.

The skin on her back cracked open, and blood seeped from her wounds, but still she struggled, and moved forward. There was a scent in the air that stirred her senses, and her belly.

When she found the source of the sweet scent, her mind recoiled, but her belly protested fiercely.

"Bones. Why is it in the middle of a pile of bones?" She whispered and crawled over the pile of bones that belonged to elemental beasts. Bleached white in the hot sun, the flesh long rotted away, the bones were a stark message that her body could not obey.

The single fruit on the ground, the sweet scent, and the sense of surging power within the fruit said that it was a high level fruit. Something strong must guard it, but the call was too strong to ignore.

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With her life on the line, Dara reached out, plucked it from the ground, and stuffed it into her mouth. She thought the fruit was on a vine, but it was on the ground as though waiting for her to pick it up.

The fruit was pungent, sickeningly sweet, and the elements within were extremely potent. The 'fruit' went down her throat like it was pushed down by an unseen force, and she nearly choked on it. If someone else was there, they would have seen the large lump move downward.

The nightmare began at that exact point.

 

* * *

 

As agony wracked her body, Dara watched a dark panther approach. She couldn't move, or run away. Fear flooded her, even while her body felt like every nerve was on fire.

Rage infused the elemental beast's mind. The small human was already injured, and she dared to pluck the fruit that it protected for the last decade. Every elemental beast that had approached the fruit had already died, drained of their life force after they ate it.

A piece of elemental fruit like this would help the dark panther to climb from the third rank into the fourth. It could become a boss of the territory, and take over the management of the lands from the currently dominant stone bears.

In a fit of rage, it approached the girl now writhing in agony. It would eat the girl, and therefore get the benefits of the fruit itself. That was the plan within its limited brain. If the dark panther was a rank four, it would have already figured out that the fruit was not an elemental fruit at all.

The pain the girl endured was not going to kill her as it now seemed to be over. The panther thought it would be easy to eat the girl.

When the panther was close enough, the girl sat up, and opened her eyes. She opened her mouth impossibly wide, and revealed two inch long fangs that weren't there before.

Far too late, the panther felt the presence of a beast so strong, it would never come within a hundred miles of its territory.

The girl's long fangs sank into the panther's neck, while her claws dug deep into its flesh. The girl's pure black orbs rolled back in her head as she tore out that flesh, and bit deeply again.

The panther fell onto its side as its strength, and life force was rapidly drained away. Its life was ripped out so quickly, the elemental stone behind its heart turned to dust, and the dark panther breathed its last weak breath. It could barely hear the last word it would ever hear.

"Delicious."

 

* * *

 

Dara looked at the dead panther, its huge size, and thought about what she just did.

"Eat, or be eaten. Law of this old Primeval Forest." That is what she had been taught since she was little by her family.

No, not her family. Those monsters were not family. They were her previous family, and her father was now her enemy. She bared her teeth as she thought about him, and her teeth lengthened.

"Oh." She licked the tips of her newly grown fangs. "I see. I want to attack, and it happens by instinct. What about will?" She thought carefully, and pictured her long fangs retreating. They slowly slid back. She felt the tips of her teeth, and nodded.

"Still incredibly sharp, but less obvious." She looked at the long talons on her fingers. From the third knuckle, the entire tip was a claw. She scratched a rock, and watched as her talons gouged it deeply. She tried to picture her claws retreating, but they didn't budge.

"Hm. Looks like I have a lot to learn." She pursed her lips slightly, and looked at the panther again. Dara turned her head and saw a flame wolf enter the clearing. Her eyes narrowed as it growled.

Dara started to smile and flipped over impossibly fast. She landed on her hands and feet, ready to fight. A rank one flame wolf dared to try and attack someone who just killed a rank three dark panther?

It wasn't even a battle. Dara ran so swiftly, the wolf could not respond. She dug her claws into its body, lifted it up, and sank her fangs into its throat.

Like the panther, it was dead in less then a minute, completely drained of its life force, and all of its elemental essence.

"Such a simple beast. Only thinks with its belly." Dara said after she drained it dry. She lifted the wolf in one arm, and the panther in the other. The meat was still good, and the hides were mostly intact.

"I think I can sell these for silver." She sniffed the air. "There is plenty of meat out here. What I need are clothes, pots, and a place to sleep. I wonder if there are any ruins that I can sleep in."

Dara's only thoughts were of survival, and not yet of revenge. She had the power to take revenge right now, but it was far too early to do.

What she needed was a place to sleep.

 

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