7 The change in croc life

Part I: "The Birthday in the Marsh"

The morning of Keesa's birthday broke with golden light and low mist drifting across the water like lazy breath.

Someone—probably Bryska-Tei—had hung dried reed garlands from the huts, braided with orange swamp blossoms and blue beetle wings. They fluttered gently in the breeze.

Croc stood near the edge of the square, arms crossed, watching.

He didn't move much. Didn't talk.

He hadn't asked what a birthday was.

But he'd been watching.

And when the sun was just cresting the rooftops, he stepped away and disappeared into the trees.

He returned an hour later with a bundle of river reeds lashed in wet cord and draped in purple moss.

Inside it: a freshly carved wooden stool, scaled exactly to Keesa's height—low to the ground, sturdy, with her name scratched on the underside in clumsy Jel.

She shrieked when she saw it.

He tried not to look proud.

He failed.

The celebration was small but vibrant.

Fish stew, hot bread, smoke-roasted lizard flank wrapped in crisped bark. Songs hummed in three-note patterns over drums made of hollowed wood.

Croc sat quietly beside the fire, a bowl in one clawed hand, his tail twitching in rhythm with the drums.

Shahvee sat beside him.

Close.

Not quite touching.

Yet.

She passed him a strip of smoked perch.

"You always carve furniture for birthdays?" she teased.

"I always drag furniture out of a swamp and make a kid scream?"

She smirked. "That's what we call a 'yes' in Jel."

He gave a soft grunt.

She leaned a little closer.

"I'm just saying," she added, voice low and sweet, "if mine's coming up, I'm expecting a throne."

He raised one brow ridge, sideways.

"Thrones are expensive."

"So was that necklace you're wearing," she said, eyes flicking to his chest.

He stiffened just slightly.

She didn't press.

As the drums slowed, and the laughter thickened like honey in the air, Bryska-Tei walked past Croc carrying a jug of river mead. She glanced down at him once, eyes lingering.

She didn't speak.

But she noticed.

The claws. Thicker. Longer. Slight curve now at the tips.

The scales. Heavier. Plated along the spine. Almost metallic in places.

His tongue. When he spoke in Jel, it was flawless—no stammer, no dropped words, no hesitation. Even the old ones couldn't tell he wasn't born to it.

And when he'd helped stir the stew earlier that morning, he'd lifted a cauldron full of boiling eel and root—one-handed. No strain.

They all noticed.

But no one said a word.

Because he didn't seem to notice.

And for now, they let him keep that.

That night, as the fire burned low and the marsh frogs returned to song, Shahvee walked with him along the outer fence.

Their shoulders brushed once.

Neither pulled away.

"Next time," she said, voice soft, "I want a chair. With a backrest. None of this stump-seat stuff."

"You want footrests too?" Croc asked.

"I want wine holders," she said, "and a carving of a flower no one's ever seen."

He nodded slowly.

"Should be doable."

She laughed.

It wasn't loud.

But he heard it louder than anything.

Elders pov

Part II: "The Marsh Watches"

The hut was dim.

A bowl of glowing swamp coals cast soft light over the woven reed mats and bone charms strung from the rafters. The air smelled of dried lizardleaf, bitter root, and dust from too many tomes.

Three elders sat cross-legged in a ring, the way they'd done a thousand times before. Bryska-Tei, spine straight, frills braided with old copper thread, held the bowl of warmth between them.

They spoke in Jel.

Soft. Even. With gravity.

"His back's plating," said Isk-Nal, the dark-scaled former priest of Lilmoth. "Not patterning. Not age. Armor. Bone over bone."

"He lifted a building," muttered Shurik-Tha. "No iron rod, no brace. Just his hands. Just will."

"He hasn't noticed," Bryska said quietly.

The others fell silent.

Then Isk-Nal murmured: "Or he has, and doesn't care."

They sat with that a while.

The wind whispered across the top of the hut. A frog croaked somewhere far off. Reed chimes clicked like old teeth.

Bryska broke the silence.

"He doesn't snarl anymore when children touch his arms."

Shurik-Tha nodded. "He speaks before being spoken to."

"He laughs," Bryska said, with quiet weight. "Did you hear it tonight? He laughed with Shahvee. It wasn't loud. But it was… whole."

"His Jel is flawless," Isk-Nal added. "Not learned. Breathed. Spoken like a soul remembering."

They sat with that, too.

Then Bryska leaned forward, voice low, reverent:

"The Hist drips off him. You feel it, don't you?"

Shurik-Tha nodded. "Every time he passes. It curls off his skin like steam."

Isk-Nal's eyes narrowed. "Do you think it's the necklace?"

"No," Bryska whispered. "The necklace may shape him. But the Hist called him first. It reached across the world. It sang to a monster."

"And the monster listened," Isk-Nal said.

"No," Bryska corrected gently. "The man listened. The monster just stopped screaming long enough to hear it."

They let that hang in the still air.

Outside, Croc was sitting on the stone near the fire pit, showing Keesa how to balance a stick on the edge of her snout.

He was grinning—not a grimace. Not a sneer.

A real, quiet grin.

Shahvee sat nearby, arms folded, watching the lesson with patient amusement.

When the stick fell and hit Croc in the eye, Keesa gasped.

He barked a rough, honest laugh that echoed across the marsh.

Inside the hut, Bryska watched from the slats in the wall.

"He's not a freak anymore," she whispered. "He doesn't see one in the mirror. He doesn't hide in the shed. He smiles."

"And that," she said, eyes glowing softly in the dim light, "may be the strongest magic in this world."

Part III: "The First Flame"

The fire had gone to coals.

The sky was bruised with stars. The frogs had gone silent again, as if they too were listening.

Most of the quarter had drifted off to sleep. Children in hammocks. Elders near the warm walls. The drums had long stopped, but the beat lingered in the bones.

Croc sat on a low stump, staring into the glow.

His tail curled lazily around the base. The necklace rested cold and perfect against his chest, the dragonbone gleaming faintly.

Shahvee approached barefoot.

He heard her before she spoke—her footfalls on the planks, the whisper of reed threads brushing her knee.

"Didn't think you'd still be up," she said, easing down beside him.

"I don't sleep much."

She smiled sideways. "That because of what you are, or what you've seen?"

He thought about that.

"Both."

She nodded. Didn't press.

They sat quietly for a while. Watching the coals dim to orange threads.

"Your scales," she said after a while.

He glanced at her.

"They're thicker. Around your shoulders. Almost like plates."

"I've been eating more," he muttered.

She smirked. "And you're fluent now."

He blinked.

"Jel," she said, resting her arms on her knees. "You don't even notice when you switch anymore."

Croc didn't answer.

She tilted her head. "Does that scare you?"

"No."

"What does?"

His eyes stayed on the fire.

Then: "Forgetting who I was. Before."

Shahvee studied him. "Why would that be so bad?"

"Because I fought like hell to be something. Even if it wasn't good."

She considered that.

Then leaned back on her palms. "You're not forgetting. You're becoming. It's different."

He didn't answer.

Instead, he reached down, picked up a stick, and passed it to her.

"Show me how you carved those flowers. The ones on the fence rail."

She raised a brow. "Why?"

He shrugged. "Might put some on your throne."

She barked a soft laugh. "You haven't even started it."

"I've been busy."

"With what?"

"Fixing my roof. Watching the fire. Listening to you talk."

She flushed slightly. In the firelight, it looked like gold blooming beneath her scales.

"You're not as quiet as you used to be," she said.

"I'm not as scared as I used to be."

They didn't look at each other for a while.

But then she leaned her shoulder gently against his arm.

And didn't move.

Croc looked down at the place where her scales touched his.

Then let out a slow breath.

Not of tension.

But of something that almost sounded like peace.

Part IV: "What Sleeps Beneath"

Croc is laying in his bed tossing and turning from a dream.

The dream didn't start with fear.

It started with silence.

Not quiet—silence. The kind that settles over the world just before something ancient rises from the deep.

Croc stood in the center of a still marsh. The water was black glass. The trees towered around him, but their branches didn't move. No frogs. No wind. Just that perfect, waiting hush.

Then the water rippled.

And two figures stepped out of the dark, one from each side.

Each of them looked like him.

But neither was him.

The one to his left was massive—stockier, broader, a monster of jagged scale and crushing force. His teeth were longer. His claws curved like hooked blades. His eyes burned low with orange light.

His scales were almost black. Thick. Armored like a beast meant to survive war. He moved like a storm barely restrained.

The Daedric Croc.

The necklace around his throat pulsed like a heartbeat. Each beat shook the ground.

The one to the right was leaner. Taller in posture, though not in size. His snout was more Argonian—less croc, more dragon. His frills were curved back, and horns rose from his temples like twisted roots. His eyes were green—but not glowing. Alive.

His scales shimmered with faint patterns—tattoos shaped by the Hist itself. His movements were deliberate. Balanced. Watchful.

The Hist Croc.

He carried nothing. But his presence was undeniable.

The two snarled.

Then charged each other.

Croc didn't move.

He watched them collide—claws and fists, snarls and roars. The marsh didn't break, didn't ripple. This wasn't a place—it was him. His soul, laid bare.

The two forms fought with the fury of gods.

And Waylon just stood.

Then said—calm, deep, steady:

"Enough."

They froze.

Mid-swing.

Snarls paused in their throats.

Waylon took one step forward.

"You're not enemies."

He looked from one to the other.

"You're not even real. Not like this. You're parts. Pieces."

They watched him. Breathing hard.

"You're not Killer Croc," he said. "Neither of you are."

He raised his chin.

"I'm Waylon Jones. And you belong to me."

He held out his hands.

The Hist-version stepped forward first. Gripped his forearm.

Then the Daedric one did the same.

Their hands met in the middle.

And with a sound like old bark cracking underfoot, they dissolved into mist and light and ash.

The marsh faded.

The silence lifted.

And Waylon woke.

The morning air was cool on his skin.

He sat up slowly, claws brushing his brow.

The necklace pulsed once, faintly.

He stretched.

Didn't remember the dream clearly. Just a feeling.

Heavy.

Strange.

But he pushed it aside. Got dressed. Went to check the water barrels.

Just another day.

But inside Bryska-Tei's hut, the elders were wide-eyed.

They'd all woken at the same moment.

Sat up.

The Hist was singing. Louder than it had in decades.

And it was singing for him.

Part V: "The Day of Stillness"

The morning sun rolled in slow.

The mist clung a little longer to the ground.

The frogs didn't sing.

Not at first.

Croc stood beside the stump where most in the quarter came to split wood.

But no axe rested on the block.

He didn't need one.

He reached down, lifted a thick log the width of his thigh, and held it upright.

Then, with a slow breath, he flexed his claws—and drove both hands down the center of the log.

It split clean in two with a sound like cracked ribs.

No strain. No stumble.

The two halves dropped onto the pile.

He picked up another. Did the same.

His palms didn't blister. His claws didn't chip. The wood gave like bread crust.

He worked silently. The way a tree might grow.

By the time Keesa passed with her frog bucket, he'd already built a wall of clean-split logs behind him.

She watched, wide-eyed.

"You're not even sweating," she said.

He shrugged. "Axe is busy."

She skipped away, muttering, "Still seems weird not to use a axe…"

He didn't think about how fast it went. How straight the cuts were. How the motion was smoother than ever before.

He didn't feel the slight tingle that rolled down his spine when his feet touched bare earth.

Didn't notice the faint shimmer on his scales when the light passed over his back.

Didn't see that his claws—just slightly—left deeper prints in the old stone beneath the walkways now.

But others did.

Bryska-Tei paused on her porch, a bundle of dry flowers in her arms.

She watched him rip once. Then again.

Then closed her eyes.

The Hist was speaking.

No longer whispering.

Now it throbbed.

It moved through him—not around, not beside. Through.

It recognized him not as guest or adopted kin.

But as chosen.

Keesa played near the edge of the canal, balancing a rock on her doll's head. When Croc passed, she looked up and blinked.

"You smell different," she said.

He raised a brow.

"Not bad," she added quickly. "Just… older. Like trees."

He snorted. "That's the fish smoke. Go wash your hands."

She laughed. "Nooope!"

When Croc passed Shahvee later near the reed crates, she gave him a look—just long enough to see it wasn't the same Croc.

He moved with the same weight.

But now he wore it differently.

His eyes held depth. His voice had weight. When he stepped onto the planks, they didn't creak.

They listened.

Still, he said nothing.

He worked.

He flirted.

He laughed once when Shahvee joked about how she might paint vines down his arms and claim him as her garden monster.

And when she leaned close to whisper that "you haven't built my throne yet", he only smiled.

But later, when he sat down to sharpen a claw with a stone that should've dulled long ago…

He paused.

Just for a second.

The edge gleamed back at him.

Like it had never been chipped.

He thinks it's a trick on his mind lays down the rock and turns in for the night

Closing his eyes to sleep.