Kaerun

I do not remember warmth.

I remember screams.Stones thrown.Torches, like stars on fire, chasing me through the trees.I learned that to be seen was to be hunted.That to speak, to cry out, was to bring death crashing down like ice through bone.

So I stopped speaking.

I grew taller than the trees.My claws could shred bark, my jaws could snap through bone.The villagers call me It, The Maw, The Curse—But I never gave myself a name.Names are for things that are loved.

I roam the forest on limbs gnarled like roots, crouched low. I hunt at night.I sleep in caves where light does not touch.I watch the village only from afar,always from the shadows,because they always run.

They always run.

Except for you.

⸻

You walk into my woods with bare hands and bold steps.No torch. No blade.Just silence and eyes like moonlit water—soft and knowing.

I watched you first, before you knew.Curious, stupid thing.You left flowers near the old altar stone.Whispered words into the trees.You thanked the forest. No one thanks the forest.

No one thanks me.

You came back. Again and again.I smelled you first—sweet and strange, unlike the smoke and rot of the others.Then I heard your voice.You spoke to the woods like it was alive.It is.

I am.

You didn’t know you were speaking to me.

⸻

The first time you saw me—truly saw me—you didn’t scream.You froze. But not in fear. Not completely.

You looked. You really looked.At my teeth, my wounds, the broken places where fire had tried to take me.And still, you didn’t run.

Instead, you whispered, “I’m sorry.”

I didn’t understand the words,but I understood the tone.Soft. Gentle. Like wind through long grass.You weren’t praying. You weren’t pleading.

You were offering.

So I stayed.

⸻

I don’t know how to speak.But you taught me a language without words.

You placed berries on flat stones. I brought you deer.You left water in bowls. I brought feathers, bones, shiny things I thought you’d like.You laughed. I didn’t know the sound could feel like sunlight.

Once, you touched my arm. Just for a second.Your fingers barely grazed my scales.I should’ve run. I should’ve fled, like I always do when the burning in my chest rises.

But I didn’t.Because you didn’t.

⸻

The others speak of me with fear.They say I will one day destroy them.Maybe I will.

But not if you’re there.

Not if you keep coming back.Not if you keep whispering to the trees.Not if you keep reminding me that I am not only hunger and fury.

I am not gentle. I am not good.But I know what I want.

And it’s you.

The one who did not run.The one who saw me.The one who makes me wish I had a name.

Let them fear me.Let the woods tremble when I rise.

As long as you keep walking into the forest…

…I will never let harm touch you.

Not while I still breathe.