Chapter 7: Natural Enemies
"Why the hell are you throwing out our furniture and tableware?! Do you know how hard it is to get those?! You knew no shit! You retard! I'll smash your damn bones till you grow some brain!"
Damn right, he would! Until he resembled the now broken items he unwittingly smashed from a hundred meters above the ground due to his temper!
Pak!
Boogsh!
Bam!
A scuffle broke out above, followed by an angry hiss.
"Ow, ow! Shul, it hurts— it hurts! You blue-scaled psycho! Why are you hitting me?! I'm only trying to make that woman stop destroying our home. Hit her, not me—ow! Let go of my hair!"
Wenshi, startled but quick to dodge the falling debris, looked up with curiosity. Without a second thought, she spread her shiny copper-feathered wings and leaped onto the tree branches to get a better look—only to find herself facing an unexpected sight.
"Two... young snakes?" she murmured.
Perched above her were two young men—though "young" was relative, as they appeared fully grown by human standards. Their upper halves were humanoid, but from the waist down, were long, coiled serpent tails rested against the thick branches. Their scales, however, were still dull and unrefined—proof they had yet to fully mature.
One looked brash and predictable, while the other looked soft yet cautious. Unknowingly, her eyes softened, recalling the younger siblings she had at home.
"They should be reaching their coming-of-age," Wenshi thought but then quickly shook her head to let go of her increasingly distracting thoughts and shifted her focus on the two young serpents before her.
Each species has its own unique growth period. While a wolf's body matures in a span of eight years, an Aves' maturity depends on the period they stay inside the egg. It took her ten years to be hatched and five years to mature into a full adult.
As for the herpes...
"They haven't shed enough skin," Wenshi mentally noted. Secretly observing as her sharp eyes watched their lackluster scales breathed and heaved. "That means they won't be much of a threat."
Their colors were dull, muted—far too ordinary if she may say. If anything, they looked like common snakes found in the wild, save for the unsettling anomaly of heads and limbs sprouting where they shouldn't. Nothing about them was impressive. Nothing about them was dangerous.
At least, not yet.
"Must be some juvenile snakes who were neglected after birth and never given care. They don't look anything note-worthy or strong." She relaxed slightly, concluding there was no need for unnecessary bloodshed.
Either way, she wasn't in a state to fight either.
"Are you guys fighting?" she asked curiously, tilting her head as she suddenly appeared beside the green-tailed one, who was in the middle of wrestling his brother's grip away.
"Tch, what do you think? Can't you tell the obvi—oh, shit!"
Blam!
Deus who was initially being sarcastic went rigid. Face drained of color, the startled snake turned toward her, wide-eyed. His body stiffened, and his tail twitched violently as he stumbled back, ultimately losing his balance.
"Ugh!" groaned the green snake after hitting his bum against the rough bark. "You—you swollen face, fat bird!" he blatantly dissed, brimming with accusation and a trembling finger pointed at her puffed cheeks and eyelids for crying so hard previously. "You snuck up on me without making a sound! Do you want me to die of a heart attack?!"
Was he... scared of her? His reaction only made Wenshi raise a brow but more than that, "Did you just call me fat?" she suddenly felt the need to split his numb skull in half and peer through its content if there was even a curve of a brain left.
Fine! She looked a little bit wasted after pouring out her grievances—a little bit more disheveled than she was normally because she just came out from the depths of the earth and ended up soaking in the rain afterward but she's still pretty!
Grrr! How dare he!
"How can you be so rude as to call a pregnant Zulna fat? Do you wanna die?" she shouted back burning with fire.
"... Eh? You're pregnant?" Frowning, Deus perked up his lips and muttered to himself still a bit doubtful like an ignorant kid just taking a gist of something, to which normally, just needed a little bit of common sense to understand.
Her eyelids twitched.
"Even a blind man would recognize it..." Wenshi said in gritted her teeth and internally screamed, looking at his foolish expression that said everything.
Sensing the ominous shade brewing in her face, Dues deftly quipped. "What are you mumbling? I-I said pretty bird. You misheard me! Ah, you shouldn't glare and blame ad... others, okay? It's... It's your fault for not cleaning your ears, lady!"
"..." Wenshi was utterly speechless.
'Damn, why is she being so fierce?! In any case, it was true she was fat!' Deus pouted and crunched his tall nose, sulking. The young man felt so unfairly treated.
Meanwhile, the other snake, Shul, immediately recoiled as well, slithering a step back as his sharp eyes darted to her belly. In that short moment, the man's eyes flickered, scanning the zulna's muddy appearance, and noticed something far more intriguing.
'She... doesn't she carry a beast mark of her mate?'
A pregnant zulna doesn't give out any scent, making them overlooked by ferals and wild beasts but he couldn't pick up the scent of her mate either. Shul tilted his head, and pondered hard like a troubled sage, 'Is it because of the strong smell of rain and mud that soiled her?" It washed her form like a damped, soggy hen.
Outside the unassuming tree house, the three stood quietly in a brittle silence as tension in the air thickened.
Wenshi sighed seemingly letting her frustrations go and tapped her numbing toes from standing far too long, before sitting on a higher branch and stretching out her legs comfortably as if she were riding a swing in a park.
"I just came up here to watch the show," she said lazily, folding her arms. "Why are you so tense? Tsk. It's not like I'm going to dash at you and split your bodies in half. If I wanted to crack your skulls open, I would've done it already instead of standing here talking."
Her voice was calm and soothing, but instead of reassuring them, the way she stated things only made them even more alarmed.
Their tails stiffened and their hissing grew more pronounced, locking at her frail form.
It was then Wenshi realized—they weren't just wary. They were instinctively terrified.
Ah right. Snakes and eagles were natural enemies.
Who would be glad to meet one in the dead of the night just outside their nest?