Chapter Text
Keith watched with wide eyes, clutching at his father’s hand tight as he could, as the elders of his tiny village led two strong steers and a small line of goats into the dark of the woods. The elders chanted and recited strange words that seemed almost alien to Keith, drawing intricate designs onto the livestock with a thick paste of charcoal and blood as they were shepherded into the black undergrowth, down a path no one but the elders were permitted to tread.
It felt like a funeral procession, and Keith found himself hiding further behind his father’s legs as the head priestess drew close; her face was obscured with a shroud of snake shed and her robes glittered with scales stitched into vibrant, swirling patterns. The air seemed to buzz unnaturally around her, more so when her hissing voice dripped from behind the veil like poisoned honey, cloying and choking as she spoke in a tongue beyond human understanding.
His father squeezed his hand gently, rubbing his thumb over his white, bloodless knuckles. Before he’d brought him to see the procession, his father had explained that this was necessary, that it protected the village from the beasts and horrors of the wood. When Keith had asked what sort of monsters could possibly threaten the village he hadn’t answered. Keith had seen plenty of wild animals in his short life, from wolves, bears, foxes, even the wildcats of the upper mountains, but they all fled from people and their fire and weapons. The thought of any animal that was so fierce that even weapons didn’t scare it, that required such scary means of placating, it unsettled Keith.
“It’ll be alright, I promise,” his father tried to soothe, “the druids have kept us all safe since well before I was your age. By this time tomorrow, they’ll be back with enough meat for the whole village.” His free hand ruffled through Keith’s hair, mussing it into an even wilder tangle. The elders and the robed druids followed the head priestess into the forest, the buzzing of their chanting voices fading into the hum of cicadas and birdsong. The rest of the villagers remained still for several minutes, his father tightening his grip on his hand whenever Keith moved too much or acted too discomforted outwardly.
Despite having witnessed the same ritual every year before then, that particular one etched itself into his mind with frightening clarity. He wrote it off easily as it having been the last one before his father died, or that he was just at an age to remember it more clearly than his childhood years, but it didn’t change the fact that some nights he woke up with the priestess’s voice echoing in his ears or with the sacrificial sigils painted on the back of his eyelids. He’d avoided the ritual entirely since his father’s passing, tradition be damned. If it was supposed to protect them and the village then it’d done a shit job of protecting his father, or his mother, who’d vanished into the wood when he was just days old.
It was all smoke and theatrics, but even believing that down to his core Keith never spoke it aloud. The rest of the village placed so much faith and stock into it, believing so fiercely that it was the only thing saving them from the horrors the neighboring villages whispered of, that heresy was sure to be met with swift aggression, or worse. Keith needed the village in the way his livestock needed him; they protected him and gave him a place to stay, even if it was only because he was useful to them. When the druids would return with their slabs of pale, pink meat, baskets of soft-shelled eggs, and bloody bundles of wrapped hide he’d still partake, for even his distrust wasn’t quite strong enough to drive him from completely forsaking the bountiful food the druids offered.
The sky was only just brightening and the morning mist was still thick between the trees as Keith set out into the wood, bow and quiver slung over his back and a heavy cloak obscuring his shape. It was still forbidden for anyone but the elders and the druids to enter the deep wood but the drought had pushed the game far into the forest’s heart; the old ways fell to the wayside of necessity in the face of famine and hunger. The same villagers who spit over his breaking of tradition would eagerly pay a fine coin for his fresh meat, despite knowing where he’d gone to hunt it. They could curse and shun him all they liked, but he knew that when the pickings got lean they’d slink to his doorstep with their ‘ righteous ’ silver and buy his blasphemous game. It only served to fortify in Keith’s mind that the ritual was just an act to give the village a false sense of security.
It was easy for him to pick out the game trails in the dense brush, weaving his way through ancient oaks and towering sequoias as he silently followed the chattering birds deeper and deeper. The underbrush was dry and brittle with a want for rain, crunching loudly underfoot no matter how light he stepped. It’d make it even harder to make a kill but he couldn’t afford to come back empty-handed. He was prepared to wait out the night if he had to, try his luck with the wild boar and the sun-fearing river fish, even though he’d never spent a moonrise in the woods. He might find the old traditions wasteful, stupid even, but he wasn’t an idiot; plenty of dangers lived among the trees, and most of them woke with the moon.
Sweat began to bead on his forehead by the time the sun properly peeked over the mountains, the air still chilled from the night but the terrain difficult even for someone as fit as him. Dragging a deer back would be a challenge if he managed to take one, but the resulting coin would be more than enough to keep his small flock of hens and his goats fed for the remainder of the season. He might even have enough left over to buy a proper blanket for his father’s grave; he’d made quite a bit of coin from the pelts of foxes and coyotes he’d shot digging at the grave, half-mad from hunger that even the chance of rotten bones was enough to draw them from the forest, but he’d gladly give it all up for the knowledge that his father could rest peacefully without fear of lowly scavengers picking at his body for scraps.
A pheasant shot from a thicket of reeds at his left, startling him with the loud rush of feathers and a high warning keen. He cursed and froze, having been so caught in his own thoughts that he’d missed the fresh tracks it’d left in the springy loam. It was almost painful to watch three more plump birds take wing and scatter into the lower branches and deeper brush, each worth half their weight in silver in meat alone. He waited until the leaves went silent and the songbirds began their cautious melodies again before he continued, bow in hand now that he knew there was game around.
“Focus,” he hissed at himself under his breath, his words a puff of hot smoke in the crisp air. The deer would hear him from much further off than simple pheasants, he needed to be more careful. He cinched his robe tighter around his waist to stop it from catching on the branches and saplings, pushing his hood back to better take in the sounds and signs around him. The low rumble of the river permeated the air, the water rushing downwards from the mountains as it strained and scraped viciously at the rock containing it. The drought was severe enough that he knew even the wariest of deer would make an attempt to drink from its slick, treacherous slopes, but also that so would the predators.
The soft soil absorbed his footfalls and the clover growth from last year’s fire was still too short to betray his passage, letting him creep clear to the edge of the treeline to peer out where the river bent and slowed its frantic downstream rush. The constant moisture and rich mountain sediment it carried down fed a patch of rich grasses and shrubs, the bank bolstered by rushes and speckled with duckweed in the slower alcoves. If any animal was desperate enough to try and drink from the river, this was where they’d come.
Keith settled against the side of an old maple, deciding it would be best to wait and let the game come to him rather than trying to seek it out himself. The pheasants still stung in his mind and he wanted to avoid such a foolish mistake again. He propped his bow against his knee as he sat down, quiver resting against the trunk as he pulled his cloak tight. It’d be hot as hell once the sun properly rose but it more than made up for the torture by smothering his scent from his quarry. If it got too bad he could dip it into the river, as the water was ice cold from the snow-peaked mountains and would keep the worst of the heat at bay.
The more he thought about it, the more he reasoned he should go ahead and do that now before getting too comfortable. He couldn’t see any sign of deer or turkey or boar or much else for that matter, so the risk of spooking anything he could take was low. He grumbled and pushed his bow aside, tugging at the wrap at his waist and sliding it from his shoulders. It’d wash any scent it’d absorbed from the hike as well, he thought with a half-hearted shrug at nothing in-particular, carefully picking his way down towards the grassy clearing with the cloak bundled under his arm.
Branches and entire tree limbs littered the dark soil as he got nearer to the river, all of the leaves and detritus having been stripped from it. There’d been a massive storm in the mountains a few days prior, the lightning having kept him up all night out of fear of another fire, and he began to wonder if it’d been strong enough to cause a flood this far downstream. A large, mossy log blocked the muddy spit of a trail, strangely banded with what looked like char from a fire. He’d never seen a fire leave such perfectly-spaced gaps of burned wood and untouched bark before, but even though he knew the woods better than probably even the elders he hadn’t seen everything.
Mud was caked to the underside of it, but something papery and thin shivering in the breeze caught his eye. It was silvery, almost like birch bark, but the log was clearly no birch he’d ever seen before. Even stranger were the perfectly spaced ovals that covered it, in neat, tidy patterns that reminded him of the scaled robes the druids wore. He’d always thought their robes were made of stitched hides but was it possible they were from some sort of strange tree or plant that only grew deeper in the mountains?
Keith set his cloak down in the grass and took a few steps closer, plucking at a patch of the stuff where it was stuck to the log. It didn’t come away easily like he’d expected, instead, it seemed attached to the bark, peeling away with a crinkly yet wet tear, exposing a shiny, glittering surface underneath. It looked like polished metal, or jewels, a pretty emerald green with a brassy gleam and iridescent cast. He’d never seen anything like it, especially not on a log of all things.
“What—” the grass beside him suddenly exploded with movement, a dark shape barreling into his side and slamming him down into the mud. He barely had a moment to register that he’d been struck before something coiled around him, tightening against his ribcage with ungodly strength, rendering him immobile. Everything felt tilted sideways and upside-down and he had no bearings whatsoever, even as he recovered enough from the shock to try and wiggle free. He couldn’t, barely able to breathe, let alone push off whatever was crushing him.
Keith cried out in surprise and pain and the blur of movement around him stopped, everything going eerily, unnaturally still. The birds held their tongues, the insects halted their songs, he couldn’t hear a damn thing except for his own hammering heartbeat and the wind rustling the grass. Whatever had him was green and black like the log, but a log couldn’t have attacked him, that was just stupid. Had another log fallen or rolled into him? He wasn’t able to right himself or see anything but the grass smushed into his face, but, no, whatever was on top of him didn’t feel like wood. It felt… alive.
“Druid,” a voice hissed dangerously close to his ear, startling him into lurching against the weight holding him, “how dare you show yourself here.”
“W-wha—no! Not a…” it was hard to force the words out with how compressed his chest was, his lungs barely able to fill enough to speak, “...not druid…”
Whatever held him twisted violently, jolting him upright and face to face with… something. Someone? A sharp-edged face with grey eyes glared at him, fair skin glittering with patches of black scales. Dark hair fell into his face from a wild fringe, the rest close-cropped to the skull. The face was human, but not any human that Keith had ever seen or heard of. Humans didn’t have scales, or pointed ears, or sharp needle-like teeth and inky forked tongues. They didn’t have bright orange splotched across their necks or chest either, or dark stripes down their arms and curling over the curves of their ribs.
Keith was so confused and uncomprehending that he didn’t even realize the pressure around his chest had eased until he gasped to respond. Clawed hands grabbed his face and turned his head right, then left, then up to bare his throat. He stopped squirming and swallowed his protests, the prickling unease of being in the presence of a predator permeating his senses. His thoughts spiraled wildly back to his father, his talk of the strange things in the woods that the other villagers feared, that the druids worshiped and reviled in equal measure.
“Not—then why are you here?” the voice sounded confused, and Keith found himself drawn to those eyes again. They were the color of silver, of clean stone, of rain clouds at the break of a drought. He’d never seen such a color in anyone’s eyes before, and was transfixed. The silence stretched for a minute too long before he realized he was supposed to answer.
“H-hunting,” he replied honestly, the words heavy on his tongue, “s’going to cool off in the river.” His eyes finally broke away to sweep down the other’s body, his confusion growing as he reached the man’s waist. His skin darkened to a rich green color, changing to thick, shining scales from soft flesh. The same green as the tree he’d been inspecting, the same as the things wrapped around him.
Claws suddenly pressed against his chin, Keith’s gaze bolting up, panic beginning to build as he realized this wasn’t a human or an animal but something else entirely. Calloused fingers prodded his mouth, the edge of a claw lifting his lips enough to expose his teeth. Keith swallowed the urge to jerk away or snap or bite at the strange exploration.
“... not a druid,” the man repeated, seemingly satisfied by whatever he’d seen inside of his mouth, “... no fangs.”
Fangs—what? Druids had fangs? Was that why their faces were always covered? “What does that have to do with anything?” he blurts out without thinking.
“If you were a druid, you’d be dead,” his tone was firm, cold, “dead and eaten.” His eyes roamed over him for a moment, and Keith hated that he could feel his cheeks heat the slightest bit under the close scrutiny. “What are you hunting, then?”
“Deer, boar, whatever game I can find—can you let go of me? I… I can leave.”
The man made a curious humming sound, the strange coils of thick muscle around Keith’s body rippling with it. The coils parted just enough for the man to reach out, his cold fingers pressing against where his shirt had been rucked up to expose his belly. Keith fidgeted at the touch, the sharp points almost ticklish against skin that could so easily be ripped open.
“You have an egg-mark,” he says, as if it's supposed to make sense to him, “born of naga blood, then.” And easy as that, the coils went slack and Keith thudded to the dirt with a soft oof . His first instinct was to scramble up and possibly make a run for it, but now he could see just how large the man was, his long, serpentine body looped in a haphazard circle around him; he wouldn’t make it three seconds. “My name is Shiro.”
“Naga?” Keith parroted the word, trying it on his tongue, “does… does that mean you’ll let me leave? I won’t come back, I won’t tell anyone—”
“You won’t tell anyone,” Shiro hissed, the loops of his body suddenly tightening like a noose around him, “you’ll only leave here if you prove yourself trustworthy.”
Keith felt a threat in those words, a knife-edge that he had no choice but to test against his throat.
“What… what do I need to do? To prove myself?” as soon as the words left his lips he wished he could call them back, the danger of them echoing in his ears like the roar of a fire. He could only watch as a thin smile broke on the naga’s face, revealing the glassy, razored teeth within.
“You have a dagger on you,” he said suddenly, eyes flitting down to the belt at his hips, “I can smell its ore from here. Give it to me.”
Keith opened his mouth to protest but choked it down. His knife? Why in the hells did he want his knife? His hands tugged the scabbard free, fingers tense and vice-like on the aged leather sheath. His father had told him that it was the only thing he had left of his mother, and by extension, the only thing Keith had left of her as well; as a boy, his father warned him to keep it hidden from the druids and their ilk, that it was special, and as a boy, he’d never thought to question why. He was no longer a boy, now, though.
“Why do you need my knife?” Keith tries to school his voice in something calm, non-threatening, “you have claws, teeth, far more weapons than I do.”
“I only need to see it,” Keith’s shoulders slumped visibly at the clarification, “I want to be sure it's genuine luxite.” He held the blade out far from his body but the naga didn’t take it from him, instead, he merely reached out and slipped it from the sheath, tilting it so the sun hit it properly, before sliding it back inside. “Genuine luxite,” he hummed, placated, “your blood is of the Marmora.”
“—but I’m human,” Keith protested weakly, struggling to wrap his mind around the fact that not only was the being in front of him very much real, but apparently his mother was of the same people, “I don’t—I’ve only ever been human. My father was human.”
Shiro hummed thoughtfully, resting on a thick portion of his coils so that he was closer to Keith’s height instead of towering. He blended in so well with the thick grasses and dark soil, even the gleaming orange of his flanks melting into the rich rock and dried lichen. If all naga were this camouflaged then he might have wandered past them his whole life and never seen them, scentless and silent and hidden as they were. Perfect hunters, the lot. Keith almost felt a tinge of envy.
“Your mother, then,” his voice was softer now, the sharp edge melting into something warmer, “it’s… rare, I’ll admit, for any naga to interact with humans in these times, let alone mate with one, but not unheard of in the past. Lots of the old stories speak of how humans and nagas once worked together before your druids stole the secrets of luxite and slaughtered us.”
Keith’s brow furled, mouth opening and closing silently. Nagas were the source of the exotic metal his blade was smelted from? That… would explain why the druids and elders were the only ones he’d ever seen with anything crafted of metal as dark as his blade. Was that why his father had been so adamant that he hid and guarded the knife?
He slid the scabbard back onto his belt thoughtfully, stewing over Shiro’s words. If he was part naga like he said, why did he look completely human? Why hadn’t his father told him? Was his mother… actually still alive?
“I’m… this is—” it was a lot to take in, honestly, “the druids forbid us from entering the forest. They say it’s for our protection, but… I’m starting to think that isn’t the whole truth.”
“Clever,” Shiro rumbles, “for a human.” His body shifted into a less threatening posture, the tense coils of his serpentine tail loosening into something more relaxed. “They seek to hide the truth of where luxite really came from, and what it can do in the right hands.” His claws drag over his right arm, over scales that Keith thought were black but glitter silver in the sun.
They’re almost indistinguishable from his other scales, so finely wrought and delicately woven into his skin that without the bright light, Keith never would have noticed. The flesh under them is gnarled and raw with scars and wasting muscle, forming a hard second skin that flexes and moves effortlessly with his body. It's one of the most incredible things he’s ever seen; he never imagined something as unforgiving and solid as metal could ripple and flow like living tissue.
“That’s…” he can’t even fathom a word strong enough to convey his awe, reaching out and touching without thinking. The metal is body-warm and smooth under his fingertips, almost silken, entirely unlike any metalwork he’d seen before.
“We’ve used it for generations to heal the sick and mend the injured, but you humans have twisted it into a tool for killing.” Shiro’s voice dropped into a throaty hiss, the black lash of his tongue flickering so close to Keith’s face. “Your druids have found a way to corrupt it, to use it against us to maim us, kill our children, paralyze us to butcher like beasts.”
Bile rose in Keith’s throat, his brain latching on to the memory of watching the head priestess paint sacrificial sigils onto drugged animals with a thick, dark paste that smelled of raw iron. The ritual, the meat and skins they’d return with… it wasn’t a protective ceremony, it was a slaughter. He’d eaten naga flesh, their eggs, dried and tanned their skins like he would any game animal. He wanted to retch but his stomach was just strong enough to hold it down.
“Good, you figured it out,” Shiro’s claws danced over his shoulders, then reached up to cup his chin, “and look at that, you’re more naga than I thought.” His other hand plucked the knife from its sheath, holding it in front of his face. The mirror surface showed his reflection, his eyes a slash of yellow and slitted, viper-like pupils against gunmetal grey. He stared, rooted to the spot, watching the inhuman eyes gazing back in an unmistakable confirmation of Shiro’s words.
“I—we have to stop them,” Keith breathed, anger and disgust tempering into resolve, “we can’t let them get away with this.” He snatched the blade back without thinking but Shiro merely smiled, leaning away so not to crowd him.
“Good. Consider your trustworthiness proved—"
“Keith. My name is Keith Kogane."
“—Keith, then,” Shiro’s grin stretched wider, “we have a lot of work ahead of us.”