Chapter 5: Silent Contempt
Something…
was approaching.
I stopped eating at once.
My head lifted slowly, while the piece of meat remained caught between my fangs, and the warm blood had not yet dried along its edge.
The air around me changed.
It became heavier.
Colder.
As though the forest itself had sensed the presence of the one approaching before I saw it.
My glowing eyes moved slowly toward the source of the sound, while my scales tightened along my neck, and my breathing stopped for one brief, sharp moment.
Between the dense trees…
behind the light mist…
a shadow appeared.
A relatively small shadow.
But it was not weak.
Then, as it came closer, its features began to grow clearer little by little, as though the mist were slowly peeling away from it.
It was a monkey.
But it was not an ordinary monkey.
Its dark fur leaned toward black, thick in a way that swallowed the light, and its limbs were unnaturally long, giving it a disturbing appearance, unpleasant to look at.
And it stood atop the branch of a gigantic tree, high above me, with strange steadiness, as though it were watching the scene from somewhere else, from a world to which I did not belong.
It did not move immediately.
It did not attack.
It did not make a single sound.
It only…
looked at me.
A steady, calm, cold look.
A look that did not tremble, did not hesitate, and did not carry even the slightest trace of caution.
Its eyes held something close to understanding.
Or perhaps…
contempt.
My gaze fixed on it.
And my body stiffened instinctively, from the span of my wings to the tips of my claws, as though a sudden chill had slipped into my bones all at once.
This was not a creature of the kind that fled merely from catching the aura of my lineage.
No.
This kind…
knows what it is looking at.
And thinks.
And decides.
The monkey remained standing on the massive branch, holding onto it with one hand in provoking confidence, while its long tail hung slowly behind it.
Then…
it smiled.
It was not a friendly smile.
Nor an innocent one.
Rather, it was a short, slanted smile, carrying clear mockery.
As though it had seen something pitiful.
Or something not worth its attention at all.
Its gaze on me sharpened for another moment.
Then it looked at the torn prey at my feet.
Then it looked back at me.
An explicit look of contempt.
No ambiguity in it.
No attempt to hide it.
A dry, cold look, fixed on me with cruelty, as though he saw no reason to soften what it carried.
As though my presence here was nothing more than an amusing sight to him.
Something between mockery and disdain.
Something the eye could fall upon for a moment… then leave behind.
I felt a faint heat rising inside me.
It did not rise violently.
Rather, it slipped in slowly, as though a small ember had fallen into my depths, then remained there, burning in silence, pressing from within without going out.
It was not fear alone.
But irritation.
Silent anger.
That kind of anger that does not explode at once, but gathers inside, and tightens the body from its depths until even stillness itself becomes a heavy burden.
My scales tightened along my neck.
My breathing grew heavier in my chest.
And my claws dug deeper into the ground without my awareness, until the damp soil resisted me for a moment before cracking slightly beneath them.
But I did not move.
I did not lunge.
I did not roar.
Because I knew.
In this world…
foolish recklessness does not mean courage.
It means death.
And death here does not always come screaming.
Sometimes it comes quietly.
Coldly.
It looks at you first… then decides.
That was why I kept staring at it.
In silence.
With steadiness.
Watching its face, its stillness, and that provoking coldness that never left it.
While it stared at me.
With the same calm.
As though it saw before it neither an opponent worth caution, nor a danger worth preparing for.
A silent moment passed between us.
Short…
but it seemed longer than it should have.
As though time itself had slowed within it, only to let that silence press harder, and reveal enough of the ugliness hidden inside that look.
Then, as though it had completely lost interest…
it turned its face away.
Not with caution.
Nor with the attention of one expecting an attack.
But with a simple, cold movement, carrying such disregard that it was more insulting than any confrontation.
With complete ease.
And complete coldness.
And without saying anything, and without giving me another look…
it left.
It left the gigantic branch with astonishing lightness, and moved off between the branches as though its body had no weight, and as though this height, this shadow, and these distances had all been created to obey it.
Its body compressed for a brief moment before the leap, then stretched through the air with silent lightness.
It jumped to another branch.
Then another.
Then another.
And with every leap, it grew farther away, but its trace did not.
That feeling remained hanging in the place.
That cold contempt.
That effortless departure.
As though its appearance had not only been a threat…
but a silent judgment.
Then it vanished among the shadows of the trees, as though it had never been here at all.
As though what had happened moments ago had not been a confrontation.
Nor a threat.
Nor even an equal meeting.
And I remained in my place.
Still.
Silent.
I watched the emptiness it left behind.
The forest returned to its silence.
But that silence was no longer what it had been.
It was no longer a still silence.
Rather, it had become something heavier, as though the air itself had retained its trace, and as though the trees that swallowed it had not yet forgotten that it had passed between them.
My eyes remained fixed on the direction where it had disappeared.
I did not move.
I did not blink.
I remained still, as though my entire body had turned into a solid mass of restrained anticipation.
Calm on the outside.
Silent.
Without chasing after it.
And without showing anything.
But inside…
there was no calm.
Something else was moving.
Something sharp.
Hot.
Heavy.
Humiliation.
Not a passing one.
And not a light one.
Rather, a humiliation that settled in my chest as though it were a claw driven into it and then left there, neither coming out, nor calming, nor allowing me to forget.
I pressed my claws slowly into the damp soil.
They sank in at first.
Then the earth cracked beneath them little by little.
And my head lowered slightly, while my scales tightened along my neck, and my eyes narrowed further, not with exposed panic… but with that cold tightness that silently turns into something far more dangerous.
That monkey…
looked at me with contempt.
Then smiled.
Then left.
With complete ease.
As though the matter did not deserve more from it than that.
As though my existence had been nothing more than a passing moment that happened before it by chance.
A hot breath left slowly from between my fangs.
Long.
Low.
Its faint warmth mixed with the coldness of the forest, then faded into the air the way everything weak fades away.
But what was inside me did not fade.
It was not unrestrained anger.
Nor a foolish desire to rush after it.
Rather, something colder than anger.
And steadier.
Something that sank into the depths, then settled there in heavy silence.
I am a dragon.
Even if I was newly hatched.
Even if my body was still small.
Even if my bones had not yet hardened, and my ferocity had not yet fully formed as it should.
That did not change the truth.
It did not change what ran through my veins.
Predator's blood.
Blood that was not meant to be met with that look…
and then left afterward as though it were nothing.
My gaze remained fixed on the still trees for a few more moments.
On the branches that had carried it away.
On the shadows that had swallowed it with provoking ease.
Then I lowered my head toward the remains of the prey at my feet.
I tore into the meat again.
But this time, the bite was not as it had been before.
It was stronger.
Harsher.
Deeper.
My fangs sank into flesh and bone with muffled violence, and the sound of tearing came out low and heavy, as though what was between my jaws was not only prey… but something else I was trying to crush along with it.
The taste of blood in my mouth mixed with something more bitter.
A cold bitterness.
Dry.
It did not settle on the tongue alone, but inside as well.
I swallowed the last piece slowly.
Then I licked the blood clinging to my fangs with a calm, slow motion, as though I were gathering the scattered fragments of my outward silence once again, and returning them to their place.
And I raised my head once more toward the depths of the forest.
That smile remained lodged in my mind.
And that look as well.
The look of superiority.
The look of disdain.
As though I had been nothing more than a small creature learning how to stay alive among the shadows.
As though I had not yet reached the rank of beings that were taken seriously.
My breathing gradually steadied.
And my body regained its outward calm.
The tension in my claws eased.
My scales settled.
And steadiness returned to my stance.
But the fire that had ignited in my chest did not go out.
It did not die down.
Rather, it sank into the depths.
It quieted…
and turned into something more dangerous.
Something that does not scream.
Or rush forward.
Or get wasted.
Something that remains.
Something that remembers.
I turned my body slowly.
Then I began moving between the trees again.
Quietly.
And with greater caution than before.
My steps were lighter.
My gaze was broader.
And my senses were more strained.
In this forest…
strength alone is not enough.
Lineage alone is not enough.
And blood alone is not enough.
If I wanted to stay alive…
and if I wanted that look to never be repeated again…
then I had to become stronger.
Much stronger.
The monkey disappeared among the shadows.
But its trace did not disappear.
It had left behind something clear.
A cold reminder.
Harsh.
Silent.
That I, despite my lineage…
was still weak.
And that truth…
I would not allow it to remain for long.