Zinc

She heard it. She saw it. The call was undeniable. Her enclave had spent generations learning how to divine signs of their patron deity, so when the call actually came, there was no mistake. It was shocking to her little enclave on the plains upon sight. First came the dreams; visions in her sleep of a mossy log in a cold forest, the floor of which is covered in pine needles. A ringing sound, like a tuning fork being struck and used as a conductor’s baton, resonates from the log in this dream. The silent god calls.

After that came the sound in the day; a ringing that no one could hear but her. She’d look to the left, then to the right. The ringing would dissipate for a while, then start back up again, hours later. At that point, she knew. The silent god calls.

She brought the incidents to the attention of the enclave elders, who instructed her to be vigilant, that most true signs come in threes. The next day, a burn appeared in her right palm. It was a circular indentation with an eight-legged horse depicted within the circle. The burn didn’t hurt, but, even more curiously was that Sleipnir would be the symbol shown in her palm. She presented this to the elders, and, to a one, they agreed: Zinc was to find the log in the forest of needle-leaves. The silent god calls.

She packed the essentials–a pack of preserved food, a waterskin, plate-barding, a compass, a sleeping mat, and other wilderness necessities. The elders instructed her to leave her axe at home, for axes were not welcome among forest spirits, like she might encounter where her destination lay. Instead, she was bid to bring a lance, a weapon to symbolize a direct journey with no distractions.

She kissed her mother goodbye, her father farewell; her mother gave her a scepter of potent bloodwood for her magics, and her father gave her his sword, that she would have versatility in battle.

She traveled north through the plains. The coyotes and hyenas steered clear of her; Centaurs, unlike deer and zebra, were naturally burly in the equine portion of their body, as a bull might be, the front legs built for supporting the constant weight falls of a humanoid torso and the back legs build for propelling the whole forward. “Imposing” might be too soft a word to use; nevertheless, some of the plains’ larger predators decided to take advantage of Zinc’s solidarity and attack her in the night. A lion lay dead one night. Three plainswargs lay dead the next. The third night, though, at the edge of the plains, Zinc’s campfire was joined by some traveling goblins. She ate with them, laughed with them, and shared some of her dried meat, while they shared some of their bread. Their green skin and large ears were foreign to Zinc, but she found that compassion and humor were not foreign to either party. Their red, beady eyes, designed by nature to be a warning to larger predators, were instead, glossed over with tears of laughter by the end of the night as Zinc told the story of how her drunk uncle stumbled off a cliff and started a legend of horse-men falling from the sky like lightning among a nearby tribe of vole-people. It was tragic at the time, because her mother lost her brother, but the process of turning tragedy into something useful was taught in her enclave early on.

The next day, this day, Zinc galloped through the forest at breakneck speed. Centaurs, though sturdy in build, were designed to live out on the plains where they could run unhindered. Sprinting through a northern forest like she was doing invited injury. She risked it, however. She felt the call. It rang in her ears more urgently, the closer she got. If she turned to the left or right, the ringing would soften–her goal was dead ahead. Trees blurred past her, she leapt over rocks, and she zig-zagged as every trunk rose up to stop her.

The centaur practically flew to her destination as the ringing grew more and more insistent. She stopped, though, not far from where she instinctively knew her destination was. The ringing resounded urgently, but something was off. Something else was sounding alarm bells in her head–something primal; nothing so magical as the call of Vidar: she felt uneasy, as a horse does when it knows a predator is watching it.

Zinc looked around. Pine trees were everywhere, tall and voluminous, causing the light from above hit the ground with a greenish glow. There was a rumble of an incoming storm in the distance. She exhaled, her breath coming out as a brief mist in the chilly air. Birds. The birds had stopped chirping. The forest was silent, save for the low rumble of distant thunder. There was some sort of monster in the area. Had to be. What else could spook the birds like that?

Glancing around warily, she clopped slowly towards the destination, letting the ringing guide her. After a few minutes, she came across the log, which was covered in moss as it was in her dream. Zinc gave another nervous look at her surroundings, but, not seeing anything amiss, she stepped up to the log. The ringing intensified as she looked at a hole, a hollow, in the fallen tree. Zinc kneeled down and reached into the hollow with her left hand, wrapping her fingers around something circular and solid. The ringing stopped.

Drawing her hand back, she found she was holding a coin. The flat of it showed a depiction of Sleipnir, the eight-legged horse. She turned it over and there was a depiction of a serpent coiling in on itself that she could only guess would be Jörmungandr, the world serpent. Flipping it back over, she was shocked to see the symbol of Hel. Another flip showed a wolf with his mouth held open by a sword, which would be Fenrir. One more flip brought her back to Sleipnir. Zinc looked to her right hand to find that the burn was gone, her hand completely unmarred.

She took a moment to go over the coin again. The depictions were all Loki’s children. Why would Vidar guide her to an item that was specifically associated with Loki? It made no sense. She had never made any sacrifices to Loki, nor had asked any divination be performed to his domain.

There was a snap of a twig ahead, past the log, deeper in the forest. Her head snapped up and, in the distance was a lupine form. There was what looked like a grey fox staring at her with great, yellow, almost luminous eyes. Zinc started to relax, but alarm quickly returned to her as the fox stood up onto its hind legs and started to grow bigger, stepping forward as it shifted. The fox-thing stopped growing at a little over five feet, and a seam appeared down the middle of it. Out stepped a woman, fully dressed in various furs and holding a leather duffle bag, the fox pelt shrinking into a hood that she quickly pulled back.

Her skin was grey like a drowned corpse, and her thick, dark-brown hair tumbled down to almost her ankles; her eyes stayed an alarming shade of yellow and an even more alarming size in proportion to her head, giving her something of the distinct gaze of a tarsier.

Zinc knew what this was. She had heard the stories. The hidden species of monsters that could shift into the shape of whatever skin they donned, hunting people through the forest. Some called them witches, but the magic required for such shifting was too potent for a base witch; this was a fear-bolg, murderer of civilized people and terror of the wilds. As the shifter walked casually up to the centaur who towered over her, Zinc said the only thing that came to her mind:

“Well, aren’t you adorable?” The way Zinc figured it, the fear-bolg could just change into a large cat or something and kill her, but, instead, opted to reveal her true form, indicating that she wanted more from Zinc than to just kill her. The shifter tilted her head and smiled, revealing a top and bottom set of canines slightly longer than the teeth around them.

“Who are you?” the shifter asked in a surprisingly normal, almost feminine voice. Zinc focused on not turning and running.

“My name is Zinc. Who are you, and what do you want with me?”

“Zorah.” the shifter said, simply, holding out her right hand, palm-first. Burned onto her palm was a depiction of Jörmungandr, the serpent. So, she had been called, too. A monster. Zinc sighed–there was no use questioning the gods; she was supposed to meet Zorah.

“Here, Zorah, grab onto this coin.” Zinc said, handing the coin to Zorah. The shifter took the coin, turned it over a few times, blinked, and looked at her right hand.

“It didn’t go away.” Zorah remarked, surprised. “My hand is still burned.” Taking the coin back, Zinc asked,

“Do you hear a ringing?” Zorah nodded and pointed behind her. “Then that sounds like the direction we need to go.”

“Are you sure?” the shifter asked. “I thought the ringing indicated a place that I needed to stay away from.”

“What? Why would you think that? It’s the god, Vidar, calling us.”

“I don’t know! I’ve never had a premonition of this sort before. It could have been a psychic creature that wants its space.”

“I see. You aren’t familiar with Vidar, are you?”

“Who?”

“What about Odin?”

“Odin, I’ve heard of. Big guy with lightningbolts?”

“No, that’s Zeus. What about Loki?”

“Loki? Ummm…”

“How were you chosen?” Zinc cried exasperatedly.

Zorah shrugged her shoulders and said, “Well, since it’s gods at play, we should ask them. Do you happen to know how to contact one?”

“N-no. They’re not exactly easy to contact unless you are a big-time priest or something. Don’t you worship any gods?”

“Sure, I do. Thaugahm the Restless, Girjukoffkan the Life-Soaked, Taraftow the Longing, and Ywigm the Vast,.” Zinc just stared at Zorah for a few seconds, slack jawed, before shaking herself and replying,

“Did you make those up?”

“No, I swear, I didn’t.”

“I’ve never heard of those gods.”

“I’ve not heard of yours, either, and they are apparently a thing.” Zorah said, matter-of-factly.

“I suppose that’s fair.” Zinc took a moment to sigh, then continued, “Well, let’s head towards the ringing. It seems the gods want us to stick together, and if this coin is any indication, we’ll likely meet others looking for their coins.”

Zorah grinned her terrible grin and replied, “This’ll be the most interesting thing I’ve done in a long time.” The two started walking to the north, following the ringing in Zorah’s head. Zinc could hardly believe it: she was traveling with a monster that, by all rights, should be hunting her down and eating her. Instead, she was passively walking beside her. Maybe it would be a good time to ask her some questions, get a feel for this thing.

“So, Zorah?”

“You have questions.” Zorah said as a statement, a matter of irrevocable fact.

“If that’s okay.”

Zorah shrugged. “It’s only natural.”

“Do you know that many people consider you a monster?”

“I am a monster. It is only natural they think of me that way.”

“How do you know you’re a monster, though? I mean, people call each other ‘monsters’ all the time, and people do monstrous things on a regular basis. So what makes you so sure you are a monster and others are not?” She pulled a bit of dried meat and offered it to Zorah.

“Function and point of view.” Zorah replied, taking the bit of dried meat from Zinc and biting down on it.

“How do you mean?”

“Tell me, what do you know about nature as a whole, Zinc?”

Zinc took some meat for herself and chewed on it nervously. “From what my enclave teaches, it’s arrayed in circles. Plants drink sunlight water and feed off of the nourishment provided by the ground; grazing animals devour the plants; hunter animals keep the grazing animals from becoming too numerous and killing all the plants; both kinds of animals die one way or another and nourish the ground, which in turn nourishes the plants.”

“Close enough. Plants drink sunlight as they do water.” Zinc waved noncommittally at this. “You’re closer to the answer than you know.”

“So you consider yourself simply to be a predator?”

“Definitely not. Predators are natural. I am–and I am not.”

“I don’t understand.”

“I exist outside the circle you speak of. Sure, I’m like predators in some ways. But in many ways I’m not like them. I hunt and kill things like you. Most often things that go on two legs, but you are no exception to the creatures I kill.”

“And why do you kill us?”

“Sentience. Sentience is unnatural. A mutation. Animals change over time to adopt defenses against aggressors or to give them a needed edge over prey. Predators grow smarter to stay ahead of their prey. When animals adopt these changes, sometimes things go wrong. Sometimes, when animals adopt greater speed, they instead grow longer claws, making them a threat, sometimes to themselves, but also to the rest of the circle. Sentience is such a mutation that shows up every now and again, and it’s dangerous to the whole of nature. Sentient creatures destroy and add less and less to nature, so nature has a harder time keeping her circles going, because not as much are going back into the circles or too much is being taken out.”

“Aren’t you sentient, though?”

“Am I? But I also, though unnatural, am an occurrence of nature. I exist to kill those with sentience. I exist outside the circle as you do, yes. I’ve been naturally given an unnatural state for the express purpose of hunting and killing those that have the mutation of sentience. Those with sentience deny their place in nature. I do not.”

“How do you know all this, though? Were you taught this? How do you know that this is what you’re supposed to do?”

Zorah smiled. “How do you know that the feeling of fear is an indication to leave? Were you taught to react that way to the feeling of fear or did it inherently upset you as a child as it did every other child? Sharks exit the womb already knowing that they need to devour other creatures to survive, and it is beautiful. That same way, I know my purpose. I am a monster. Those with sentience don’t know their purpose and so they recklessly destroy, prompting monsters like me to come into existence.”

“What about gods?” Zinc asked, thoroughly unnerved.

“What about them?”

“Aren’t they sentient?”

“Are they? They possess some sense of self, yes, but so does a common house cat. The gods act according to their nature, as they are pinnacles of the things they embody, and they can do nothing else but their nature. That would indicate that they are not sentient, but instead are parts of nature greater than ourselves.”

“And so, because a god is compelling you to work alongside a sentient being, you do so because it is a force of nature greater than yourself?” the centaur asked.

“Pretty much.”

“...So, onto my next question.”

“No.”

“What?”

“No, I don’t plan to turn on you and kill you. Not even when we part ways.”

“How did you know I was going to ask that?”

“I could smell the fear coming off of you. It radiates from you when you sweat. My presence makes you nervous, because you know that I would try to kill you under different circumstances, and aside from the strange hints from a god that I don’t know much about, all you really have is my word that I won’t try. I understand well enough.” Zinc swallowed and nodded. “No, but when this god business is through, I will part ways with you peacefully. Just try not to come across me again after that.”

“Would you regret killing me after our business is through?” Zinc prodded.

“No.” Zorah said too quickly.

“Mm-hmm.” Zinc replied, unconvinced. Strange. This little monster seemed capable of regret. More interesting than that, she didn’t seem to realize that she had just made a statement insinuating camaraderie. Gods, they hadn’t even been working together for more than twenty minutes! Zinc smiled. This might actually be fun.

“So since you know of my nature, Zinc,” Zorah said, conveniently changing the subject, “why don’t you tell me a bit about yourself?”

“I come from a group of centaurs–”

“A herd of centaurs?”

“Of course I’ve heard of centaurs–I am one!” Zinc joked, receiving a blank stare from those great, yellow eyes. “Nevermind. Most groups of centaurs would be called a herd. This one is different because we’re a group of warriors that specialize in tending the wilds around us.”

“Tending, like caring for?” Zorah asked, frowning.

“Very much so. We’ve got our own little spot of nature that’s defended by not only our own numbers, but the plants and animals around us.”

“I feel like that’s almost as bad as tearing up nature, as sentient creatures do.” Zorah mused.

“No, we definitely safeguard it and suffer no harm to come to the plants or animals under our protection, save for the materials we need.”

“And there it is. You could be buck-naked using your hooves to knock the fruit from trees. Instead, you’re co-opting a circle to stockpile resources.” The conversation had taken a turn, it seemed.

“It can’t be as bad as you’re making it out to be.”

“It’s what I exist to kill.”

“Let me ask you something, Zorah.” Zinc said, turning her head and looking at the small form that walked beside her. “Do you think that sort of behavior is evil?”

“I think I’m here to kill it.”

“Yeah, but your existence implies intent. You claim you are here to do something–in your case, to kill. That means there’s a reason for it. If there’s a reason for it, then there is something doing the reasoning. Something–based off of what you said, this something is nature as a whole–thinks that sentient creatures should be eradicated. My question is ‘why is that?’” Zorah scowled.

“You think too much. My head is hurting.”

“Oh, no, you were so chatty about why you think you’re a monster, and how you instinctively know it–”

“That’s because it is instinctual. I already know it and I don’t have to think about it.”

“At the same time, Zorah, you’re not a speechless beast. Words beget communication, so let’s put that keen intellect of yours to use. You’ve been given that intellect, right? Isn’t that what you were saying? Then what is it for, if you’re only going to think about things you already know?”

Zorah was becoming agitated, but there were no aggressive signs in her movement, so Zinc was content.

“Fine!” Zorah snapped. “Headache and a half, you are. Sentient creatures are destructive. They break circles that could simply keep moving forever, had they not been touched. Nature only exists where the circles continue. So it’s not hatred that nature creates me with, but instead self-preservation.”

“I didn’t ask that, though, did I?” Zinc asked coyly. Zorah scowled again. “I asked if you think that sentient creatures are evil.”

“What is evil, though?” Zorah shot back with a smirk.

“Ah, trying to escape the answer by stumping me? Tsk, tsk.”

“Fine. Yes, I think I’m here to eradicate an evil that thinks only of itself, forever and continually inward.”

“Great. Do you think I’m evil?”

“If sentience is evil and you have sentience, doesn’t that make you evil?”

“You’re doing it again: you’re asking me a question so you don’t have to answer yours. You have a mind. What do you think? Do I seem evil to you?”

“Well I–no, of course you don’t seem evil… Look, can I reserve judgment until I’ve had some time to really observe you?”

Zinc grinned triumphantly. “Be my guest.”

The centaur decided this might actually be a fun trip.