Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Waves lapped at the sands which coated the perimeter of the island, serenading the shore as they had done since time immemorial. Back and forth, the water brushed over the surface.

Near the center of the island, a towering presence loomed, casting a shadow over the surrounding trees and vegetation. Appearing at first to be part of the island’s geography, this large mass of faded black scales rose and fell with deep breaths; it was a massive creature, curled in on itself, sleeping. This behemoth was the native of this secluded land. It would often leave, but it would always return.

As the evening turned to night, the beast continued to slumber, at one with the stillness of the island, its breathing at one with the ebb and flow of the ocean waves. In the dead of night, there was a sudden disturbance. Usually devoid of life aside from the greenery and its primary mountainous inhabitant, a distant cry could be heard echoing through the rolling terrain. Stirring in its slumber, the titan rose from its rest, standing with a force which made the surrounding earth shudder in reverence.

The behemoth’s burning gaze scanned the landscape, searching for the sound of the noise, and suddenly its eyes locked onto a small, unfamiliar figure far in the distance. This was the source of the noise. At once, the looming figure began to move towards the shore, each step landing with a distinct thud which from a distance sounded like the rumblings of a distant thunderstorm, slowly but surely approaching.

Upon reaching the source of the cries, the beast’s gaze reached downwards. Lying on the sands of the beach was a lone human child, wearing loose, slate-coloured clothing. They didn’t look to be more than a few years old. After a moment, the child looked up, noticing the gargantuan beast hunched over them. The soft, ambient glow of its eyes illuminated its rough features with a pale blue, and the form of its gargantuan body was revealed by the moonlight. The sobbing was replaced by a dense silence, the human and the creature staring at each other with an indistinct look.

Eventually, the beast turned away and began to lumber back towards its resting spot. As the child watched the presence slowly leave them, disappearing into the night, they let out a slight whimper. The beast stopped, its gaze turning towards the child once again. Letting out a low grumble, the creature took a small step backwards, closer to the child. Then, facing downwards as a low growl began, the beast’s mouth and eyes began to glow with increasing intensity, followed by a sudden blindingly bright beam colliding with the sands below with a deafening impact. Despite the distance, the child felt a wave of heat pass over them, followed by a torrent of sand grains hitting their face as the top layer of sand was forced outwards in all directions.

From that moment, the cold, lonesome cover of darkness which had wrapped itself around the child was dispelled, replaced by the warm afterglow produced by the constellation of newly forged glass coating the surface of the fresh impression on the island’s beachside. This sight left the child in awe, watching silently as the beast curled up into itself and collapsed into the small crater it had just created. Gradually, its breaths became heavier, the rhythmic inhales and exhales causing the ground to resonate with matching vibration.

No longer alone in the cold wilderness, the child listened to the deep, rumbling breaths of the beast before them. Gradually, their eyes began to grow heavy as their thoughts gave way to slumber.

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With a stir, the child awoke. As they opened their eyes, a blinding light on the horizon filled their vision. Instinctively, the child winced and covered their eyes with one of their hands, allowing their eyes a moment to adjust to the sight.

After a moment, they lowered their hand to look into the distance once again. It seemed they had been awoken by the newly risen sun, peeking over the ocean with a soft yet intense glow of oranges and yellows. In the sky overhead, rays of sunlight penetrated into the handful of clouds, casting their shadow towards the heavens. The beach the child had fallen asleep on was coated in a golden glow, the sands surrounding them glistening in reflection of the sun’s warmth. Taking this sight in, a feeling of serenity washed over them.

Gradually, the child began to awaken to their senses. They noticed the feeling of the warm, dry sand below them, running it through their fingers and feeling it with their toes. They heard the sound as the sand fell to the ground, rustling as it became one with the beach, alongside the sound of nearby waves crashing with a gentle rush of water. The child noticed another sound, a deep rumbling which intermittently broke the silence; it was less of a sound to be heard, and more of a sound to be felt.

As they turned around, they froze as they saw the gargantuan creature emitting the sound in its rest. In the night, it was difficult to grasp the titan’s sheer size, but seeing it now, their true scale was clear. Curled in its makeshift resting spot, the beast’s body towered over anything in its surroundings, the trees which dotted the coast further inland still dark under the beast’s shadow, which stretched outwards as it obstructed the sun’s golden glow. Its charcoal-black scales basked in the warm light of the sunrise as its body rose and fell in time with the low rumble of its breathing.

Looking at this monster, and recalling what had happened in the night, the child began to stand, and once they were on their feet, began slowly walking towards the creature, following a sense of burning curiosity. Despite the creature's imposing appearance, the child somehow didn't feel threatened, and as the distance between them closed, the child anticipated a sense of apprehension… but this feeling never came.

Eventually, the two of them were face-to-face. The beast’s scaled snout, obscuring the right side of its face in shadow, exhaled plumes of warm and moist air, evoking the distilled essence of the deep ocean with the force of a fierce gust of wind. Even just the creature’s resting head seemed to tower into the sky, the rest of its colossal body curled into a mountainous curve. Resting close to its head was the tip of its tail, from which a row of spines began, running up the back of the creature’s body where they became obscured by its massive physique.

The deep breaths emanating from the monstrous creature halted, and two giant eyes gradually opened. The soft blue glow which had emanated from them in the night was replaced by their natural golden-orange hue. Taking a moment to adjust, the behemoth’s gaze wandered, and then quickly locked onto the child. It let out a single, low purr, and slowly blinked at the small child. While maintaining eye contact, the beast slowly began to stand, at first pushing up onto its arms and legs, and eventually raising into a bipedal stance, towering far above anything in its surroundings.

Breaking eye contact, the creature lumbered towards the sea, each step leaving a massive imprint in the sand. As the leviathan before them reached the ocean, the child got a look at the larger spines on its back, which had previously been obscured. These spines, which shared the same dark colour as the creature’s body, were much larger than those on its tail, jutting out like jagged rock formations in an arc along its hunched posture. The titan gradually sank into the water as it waded, and as its head submerged, all that remained were the tips of its spines, parting the sea as it swam out into the open ocean, creating a rush of waves and whirlpools.

The child watched curiously, the shadow of the beast’s form wavering back and forth as if searching for something in the waters below. Then, suddenly with a speed that didn’t seem possible for a creature of its size, it dived into the depths, its tail momentarily flinging out of the water before crashing down with a force which sent a monstrous torrent of water flying high into the sky and emitting a circular wave with intense momentum in all directions.

In the minutes following, the faint but huge shadow below the surface could be seen intermittently striking out in many directions at random intervals. With each of these movements, large humps of water would appear on the surface of the sea, displaced by the action happening below. Shortly following this burst of activity, the creature’s head re-emerged from the sea with a lack of urgency, and following it was an increasingly red patch of water surrounding the submerged leviathan. The creature then turned towards to the beach, and began wading from the crimson waters towards the child.

After the scene they had just observed, the prior feeling of curiosity was replaced by a sense of fear as their expression shifted to one of discomfort. The child instinctively began to step back from the coast, not running, but walking away in a state of concerned shock. Their meagre pace was no match for the scaled giant which was quickly approaching, but they felt a weakness in their legs which stopped them from accelerating any further.

The child could see that the beast, which was now standing in the shallow waters off the coast of the island, had distinctive trails of deep red liquid dripping from the gaps between its teeth and leaking down its jaw, and staining the sand below as it approached. The child tripped backwards, falling onto the sands of the backshore with a thud, and covering their head with their hands in fear and staring at their feet while shuddering.

After a moment, the stomping of the bloodied behemoth approaching them ceased, and silence followed. Eventually, the child mustered the courage of every cell in their body to glance upwards at the creature looming above. The sharp, exposed teeth of the monster were coated in an uneven veneer of red.

Caught between two of its teeth was a single large red fish, hanging by its pierced tail fin. The beast tilted its head slightly at the child, seeming to hesitate before making any sudden moves. It then carefully placed the fish hanging from its jaws onto the sand below, looked back at the child, and then left, maneuvering towards the center of the island.

Watching the behemoth leave, the child realized the rapid pace of their heartbeat, the sensation feeling like it was going to burst out of their chest. Once the monster was at a comfortable distance, the child sheepishly went over to observe what had been left behind. It was a pinkish-red fish with a white underbelly, and it seemed to be completely untouched aside from the jagged hole in the fish’s fin where it had been carried from the sea minutes earlier.

Now alone for the first time since arriving on the island, the child noticed the intense hunger which gnawed at their insides. They were initially apprehensive, but determined that there was no other way, so they took a bite out of the fish. This apprehension was replaced by surprise, finding that they enjoyed the taste: the bite was met with a firm texture, and a mild yet sweet flavour spread through their mouth as they chewed. They took several bites out of the fish, enjoying the meal while satiating their hunger.

Once they ate what little they could of the huge fish, they gingerly turned back towards the direction where the beast who left this fish had gone. They saw the creature lying on its front, watching after the child in the distance. Seemingly satisfied, the beast rose to its feet once again, and travelled further inland, never out of sight due to its sheer size, but further away nonetheless. The child, bemused at what they had just experienced, simply stared.

Chapter Text

For countless miles in every direction, all that existed were the rolling waves of the ocean. The child had been sitting there for hours, watching the horizon, hopeful that they would see any sign of life. As sunrise turned to day, it began to dawn on them that they were truly alone, and that nobody was coming for them.

Sitting with this feeling, they contemplated their situation with a solemn expression. They had no-one to turn to and nowhere to go, and as this sank in, a feeling of anxiety grew. They couldn’t defend themselves, they couldn’t get food for themselves, they couldn’t prepare a shelter. They were helpless.

Faced with this crisis, their mind wandered to the creature they had encountered when they appeared on this island. Despite all reason, it didn’t seek to harm the child. It chose to stay beside them when they were alone in the dark, it offered the spares of its hunting, and when the child needed free space, it left them while keeping watch from a comfortable distance. They wondered why such a formidable creature would even bother with a human, who by comparison would seem so insignificant.

The child decided that, if they couldn’t leave this island, they wanted to stay close to the one being who had provided any semblance of safety, despite its frightful appearance. Facing inland, they scanned the landscape for the dark mountain of scales and spikes. Their eyes eventually caught sight of the creature’s spines, barely visible in the distance. It would be a long journey, but there was nowhere else to go.

A continuous series of impressions in the land left by giant footsteps trailed off into the nearby forest, each of them so large that muddy pools of water had begun to collect in them. These clearly marked the path the beast took through the thick wilderness ahead. Stepping into the unknown, they felt the texture of the ground below them change from warm, dry sand to the cool sensation of untamed grass and dirt. As they progressed, trunks of wood appeared, reaching towards the heavens as the sky became obscured by a vibrant green ceiling of leaves and branches, gaps in this cover allowing cascading rays of sunlight to shine through and illuminate the forest floor.

The child continued following the gargantuan footprints which trailed off into the wilderness, each with a myriad of broken trees in their midst, allowing light to flood in and shine a spotlight on the impact the beast had left on the landscape.

A light gust of wind blew through the secluded undergrowth, the surrounding flora quietly rustling in resonance as it passed over the landscape. Close by, the steep incline of a rocky cliff cut into the landscape, and a tranquil stream of crystal-clear water trickled down from above, flowing into an especially vibrant patch of vegetation on the forest floor. Seeing an opportunity for hydration, the child ran over to the stream, and placed their mouth under the small yet constant stream, catching the water before it reached the ground and drinking until their thirst was satiated.

By now, the sun was slowly beginning to set, and the light shining through the trees had begun to soften with a yellow tint. The child, not built for this kind of exertion, was exhausted, but continued along the trail of footprints they had been following. As the sky began to darken, they came across a large clearing which housed another cliffside, however this one was different. The cliffside had an enormous indent in its side, looking as though its side had been blown apart, creating a large deformity in the landscape. In the middle of this crater, taking up the majority of the space it encompassed, was the dark-scaled leviathan the child had been searching for.

The colossal creature was now resting on its side, eyes open. It caught the child in its gaze, its head raising and straightening slightly to get a better look. In this moment, the child noticed that the sky, which had once been clear, was now becoming obscured by dark clouds, a growing haze approaching from the distance. A single drop of water landed on their face, a feeling they confirmed by feeling the moisture on their skin with a touch from their finger.

Attempting to gauge whether it was safe to approach, the child timidly moved forward, each step an independent action followed by a moment of cautious observation. The creature maintained a non-threatening look, and as the child approached, the beast before them adjusted its posture, the front of its body becoming visible as its tail moved out of the way and its head once again resting on its side. Meanwhile, the sound of large raindrops impacting the surrounding landscape of grass and stone grew, a faint sound of running water beginning as the precipitation ran down the side of the cliff.

The intensity of the rain quickly increased as the child approached, a downpour of water building from the skies above, sticking the child’s hair to their face and dampening their clothes. Their pace increased slightly, and before they knew it, they found themselves face-to-face with the beast’s head. They remembered the warmth they felt during that first night on the island, and they knew they couldn’t let themselves be alone again.

They wanted to know for sure that they could trust this otherworldly creature; if not, they would be truly alone. Forcing their inhibitions aside, with slow movements, the child timidly lifted their hand in the direction of the beast’s snout, palm facing outwards. They locked their eyes with their raised hand, carefully measuring the distance, before turning to the beast’s eyes as if seeking confirmation. They received a gentle gaze in response, a look which seemed to sap worry from the child’s body. Delicately, starting with just a single fingertip, the child began to place their hand on a single scale, its size larger than the entirety of the child’s hand.

At the first finger’s contact, the beast’s scale was warm to the touch and unexpectedly smooth. As the rest of the child’s hand pressed against the scale and their fingers spread apart, the sensation felt like pressing against a solid wall of stone. Intermittently, the vibrations of the behemoth’s breathing could be felt travelling through its scales and into the child’s hand, a feeling which reverberated throughout their body. The child broke their fixation on the scale, their eyes looking back once again to gauge the beast’s reaction. A soft gaze greeted them, followed by the beast’s eyes slowly closing. The child was stunned, hardly believing what they had just done, and allowed this moment to sit for just a while longer.

Eventually, the child gently lifted their hand away from the beast’s snout, first releasing their palm, then each of their fingers. The behemoth’s eyes gently opened once again, and a short, quiet huff emitted from its nostrils. The child took this as a sign of acceptance, and they felt the weight of the world lift from their shoulders, a breath escaping from their chest as the tension dissipated.

The child walked closer towards the beast’s body, a wall of scales and spines which had begun to shield them from the rain. The fear which had nagged from the depths of their instincts had disappeared, and in its place, a sense of comfort remained. As the last of the sun’s light disappeared from behind the clouds, the child sat down on the stone ground close to the beast, feeling the familiar heat of its body enveloping their being, combatting the bite of the night’s air. They heard the sound of the torrential rain they were being protected from, accompanied by the noise of water trickling down distant, unseen surfaces. The behemoth’s tail began to move, sliding across the bedrock and curling around towards its front, creating a protective barrier around the child in all directions. Seeing this, the child laid their head on their hands, filled with a feeling of safety, and gave into their fatigue with a smile.