This Is A Thing

The species of monster that live on this island don’t live very long. It’s one of the defining traits that separates them from the more typical fauna. They mature quickly, they grow strong, and they only have about six years to do it, if they live peaceful lives.

Peaceful lives. My mind punctuated the syllables by tapping my pen on my desk. Peace filled lives. Click, click, click. I didn’t look at the combat tournament trophies on the shelf, but I could see them, while blinking absently at my accounting books; where I worked out how much luxury and how much labor a living being could afford in six years. With the right stimulants and nutrients, it could be a very exciting three years, before they went on to live forever in entire chapters of history books. If we took our time, it could be a very relaxing ten years, before they got a loving grave marker that only fit their name on it.

Time already passed so quickly here. There was so much to do, always. Weeks could feel like minutes if you let them. Three hundred and fifty weeks. Three hundred and fifty minutes. An entire life.

Click, click, click.

Kamui was a hunted beast. Something like a wolf, of pure white fur, and equally white horns that bent forward to add two more teeth to its bite. All scrappy muscle, and anger in its eyes. We hadn’t expected to meet them on that mountain; my jungle-attuned naga was already having a miserable time in the snow. We were warned there were dangerous, wild monsters out there. This was one of the most dangerous: a white wolf, hunted for the killing of its previous tamer.

There wasn’t much to the official story; a dead tamer, teeth marks in their body, blood on a fleeing monster’s jaw. That was more than enough evidence for there to be a need to put down something dangerous. Time and snow had hidden the blood by now, so all that was left was the thoughtless violence of a creature that would tear through any barrier to see tomorrow. Just one more minute.

I wasn’t really thinking about it when we plucked their unconscious body out of the snow, got Jumgler’s help to carry it from the mountain to our base camp, to our coach, to the ranch. Hindsight narrated two different thoughts for me:

“It’s a shame to let a strong monster die.”

“I can’t let them die alone.”

Wrote into the local authorities, the International Monster association. Yes, they really write their name like that. Let them know I’d found and secured a monster on the wanted list. Got the bounty for their capture, got a cautious suggestion list on what to do with them.

And it took patience, and kindness, and it took bandages, and it took months, which is no time at all really, before the white wolf stopped ignoring me, stopped cheating at their exercises, stopped mugging nearby travelers for their shoes. Even if you start with a strong and wild monster, it takes training before they’re ready to compete, to be an athlete. But they took to it. They got anxious if they didn’t fight, like death was waiting the moment you stopped fighting.

And they won trophies, and they got praised, and they saw new parts of a small world. Sometimes they’d sit down beside me and do nothing, and that was the most magical thing they’d done, including the blasts from ice from their mouth and lightning from their horns.

And I got to feel their fur, feel their scrawny and angry muscle become a proud and sturdy body. And I got to see the anger in their eyes became a focused flame. I watched their body grow bigger. Then, in no time at all, I watched the wrinkles in their fur. I watched time slip away.

But I never watched them leave. There was no fence to stop it. I never watched them stare at the mountains in longing. When it was time to eat, they stood with dignity and lumbered to their food bowl like they had always done it.

It had been hours since I met Kamui, here in this island so far from my home. And when we buried them, we buried a part of me with them.

Click, click, click.

My vision turned away from those trophies, and into the books full of the economy of being alive. It was easy to think my time was in that grave, same as theirs. But as long as I was still with them, they were still with me. Still in these records, in these notes. Not just the ones I had written, but the ones written by others. Every textbook, every journal, every blog entry, was a piece of each other, and of a special someone, that we got to share, and carry to a new generation.