The blanket of night began to fall, the last sun of winter slowly slipping behind the west horizon. The air had filled with great joy and the sound of their large beating drums, a beat which gave a rhythm to their spirits. They had all convened at the top of the village path, which spread into a wide circle near the large house the elders. Long tables of cut logs lined the circumference of the circle, holding the remainder of their winter supply for the annual feast.

In the center there was a roaring bonfire, its many blazing arms and fingers waving through the sky. Bibek, standing and looking proudly at his creation, had fulfilled his promise on delivering the largest fire that they had ever seen. Shirisha stood in a relaxed manner on the outer edge of the circle, finishing her rather frugal amount of food so that those who needed it would have more. She looked joyously on the young children basking and dancing in the swirling orange light, walking past them holding one of the coarse and flat pieces of bark that served as their plates, tossing it into the fire to feed it as she smiled at Bibek. She stopped and looked around her, seeing only the flowing movement of her people dancing in the way of the fire, rising and falling, wavering left and right.

Bhavaroopa slowly shuffled along a table scooping grains and a few vegetables on her bark while laughing and talking, the village elders from the large house doing the same. Though he stood quite still, even Udgam cracked a smile. Udgam, the village chief, old as he was, always watched village life observantly from the side on his withered legs, thinking and leading with deliberate rationale. He never made any decision without thorough thought and revision, almost similar to the way he moved: slowly but with intention. She walked past the crowd, continuing farther up past the end of the path and the last of the huts. Udgam became chief about ten years ago, being the highest elder, when the previous chief Abhiraj disappeared in mystery and tragedy. This had never happened to any chief they could remember, and they expected something like this least of all to happen to Abhiraj.

She couldn't recall him all too well as she was eight when he disappeared, but the memories she had from her childhood mixed with stories told from her elders revealed him to be a large, strong man, a skilled hunter, but despite that in no way intimidating. He was known among them for his deep, contagious laugh, always bringing a smile out in others with his own. He put the needs of his people before himself, always working diligently to solve the problems that would arise. Despite his refined and practiced hunting ability, he always had an innate respect for nature, only taking what was needed as a good hunter should. She gathered from all the stories that though he had immense stature, the biggest thing about him was his heart, and its ability to reach and lift others up. It proved a sensitive topic bringing up the event of his disappearance, partially on the way the people missed him, but there was something else to it as well.

The other piece of this story was commonly known, but hardly ever mentioned or talked about in the many conversations of the village. Shirisha was now a few hundred paces away from the great fire, looking over it and into the distance lit by stars.

It was a dark night in early spring, and Abhiraj left into the forest down the mountainside on his own. It was a hardened rule for generations in their society that no one was to leave the village land alone, especially so in the night, for this was a thing that took years of memory and carried great risk of getting lost without precautions. Whether he was searching for something, someone, perhaps a query that he thought would be better hunted at night, to this day no one knows. Many in the village awoke suddenly by the cries in the middle of the night by Abhiraj's wife, who had at one point woke to find not only Abhiraj but their ten year old son, gone. A searching party quickly and frantically assembled, people rushing, grabbing spears, lighting torches and following hunters into the woods, into the dark, terrified. Though the dark that encircled the parties frightened them, the will to find their leader, their friend, pushed them forward. A few hours had passed on their trek through the wilderness, and hope was starting to be lost for both missing. But then, just before they all deemed it to be a lost cause, one party found the son, lightly clothed, barely conscious and shivering under a ridge. They carried the boy back up the mountain to the village, who seemed to have gotten lost and would have certainly froze to death had they not found him.

Abhiraj, however, was never found. The boy spent days recovering, with still and almost lifeless eyes. He refused to speak or respond to anyone when asked about what happened, and he never did. It became common talk that the boy had woken to see his father missing, and then blindly ran out to the woods in search of him, overcome with emotion, getting lost in the winding paths and layers of cold and dark, the same mountainous night Shirisha was in right now. She remembered standing outside the crowded hut, voices and commotion overtaking the small crackling of a fire inside as they questioned and argued with each other and with the boy that wouldn't speak, young Shirisha told by her parents not to enter. She thought of this often, and it held always over head concern and worry where others wanted to separate and leave behind, for the name of the boy was Sang.

Shirisha lowered herself on a cold rock, continuing to look out into the vast land to the south from which their lord was destined to arrive.

This village in which she lived was a peaceful one and the only her people had ever known, high atop a mountain in a range that ran in skewed formations as far as the eye could see while overlooking a forested valley. The village had been run nearly the same for all generations of its existence, one where everyone pulled the weight they could under a chieftain that would seek council with dignified elders. Hunters were raised to kill and bring home wandering animals at the more heavily forested base of the mountain, predominantly the horned Nilgai. Up near the village grains were grown, as well as a small variety of sweet fruits like the mango. The mountains collected rainwater in springs that ran clean and beautiful down the sides of the mountain, especially during the late springtime.

However, as many beauties nature beheld for them in the warmer seasons, it always struck them brutally and mercilessly with the livid force of winter. Snow could be heavy and unrelenting, and the winds that carried them felt like barrages of needles on the skin. Nilgai would migrate far from the mountain, fruits were difficult to store and keep fresh, and the grain supply dwindled fast. Though they wore warm layered pelts illnesses were still caught, and some of the weak elderly or children would die. Spirits were always dark and bleak, and the only thing on anyone's mind was survival. Except for today. The day that winter lifted. The day the snow stopped falling and began to melt. The day Abhinatha would come.

Suddenly, Shirisha saw it: far off past the mountain on forested hills, trees were shifting off their path, twisting, sometimes falling with a crash in a trail that moved towards the base of the farthest mountain. Cupping her ear she heard the slow grinding of its body on the snow. Shirisha waited until she saw the small glint of moonlight off scales, and then started sprinting down to the fire to prepare everyone as Abhinatha began its slithering ascent to cross the mountain range.