Hear me out, youâre a monstrous-wolf creature that begins living just outside of a peaceful farming town. Theyre scared at first, but eventually they assume youâre a spirit of the surrounding mountain wilderness. Every harvest, they bring you some of the spoils in exchange for your protection. Wines, breads, cakes & roasted meats are outside of your home, lined up with hand-written thank you notes and candles. This happens every season, and itâs not long before youâre noticing your waistline expanding, but their treats are delicious and you delight in your gluttony, after all, you get four feasts a year, itâs not that bad.
The people start getting bold, coming by to hand deliver their goods, the bakers chatting you up when they bring you baskets of indulgent pastries, the local vineyard invites you to come tap their aged barrels, and gleefully let you down what you want, who wouldnât be in heaven as the maidens in the town praise your gorgeous fur & hand feed you figs and plums that they picked for you. The troubadours even write a little song celebrating you, and lightly poke at how your appetite knows no bounds, how your belly has gotten soft.
Their fall harvest celebration has transformed over the years into a massive feast, and youâre welcomed with open arms, flower crowns, and cornucopias of everyoneâs best picks from the season. There you sit in the town square draped across silk pillows in your personal temple; heavy, hedonistic, and a welcome sight to your town who smile and chatter amongst themselves about who has pleased you the most with their gifts that year, but youâre more occupied with the decadent rack of lamb with jellies and herbs that the shepherdess youâve been particularly fond of recently brought. They all take great pride in making sure your inevitable food coma comes on hard and heavy, taking your heavy, full belly as a sign that prosperity is on its way.
Your lifeâs been nice and easy, and the village provides for you simply for your approval. Itâs more comfortable to not have to trek down from hills, think youâd start living in the temple, enjoying your offerings?
August you truly are a man after my own heart. This is the worship I desire, the intimacy I crave.
At first I would delight in the mortals fears, enjoying the taste when they leave measly offerings at the base of the hills. When they confuse me for a God, I accept it. Who am I to stop man in it's folly and delusions?
But then something changes. The humans enjoy my presence. They arenât fearful of the fur, or the fangs that gleam in smile, or the way my belly rumbles like the mountain thunder.
Somehow over the course of the years, I grow fonder. I blame the feasts and the food and the prosperity. After all, I had to do something in return for the villagers and their offerings. So maybe I ate a few attackers and they never knew, or caused trees to fall and direct caravans and merchants to their town. I don't fully understand commerce but the rules of the forest are simple: give and receive.
Then I find myself in a stone temple surrounded by fattened maidens and my belly plush and full. My fur thick and curly and slowly I learned to shift between my true form and a smaller one if only to fit the temple. I like the humans throwing festivals and feasts, there's something that rubs my brain right, "pack," is what they have become. My pack.
So to answer your question, yes, I would dare deign the mortals with my permanent residence and presence. A few lucky ones are now sporting bite marks, nails and incisors sharpening, bellies full of both honeyed meat and a possible pup. In a weird way, it's nice. Perhaps all a God truly desires is company. Especially when that company offers belly rubs and scritches and the promise of a bigger temple when you outgrow the old one.
