Bliss

They had to be here somewhere

Grendel was rooting around the leaf litter, arms pushing dried leaves and rooted plants away while tauric forelimbs dug and removed the dark soil underneath. Broad nose sniffed the air at every turn. He was sure he had caught a most enticing smell just now, but there was nothing on the floor but a sea of rotting plants. It had to be under here, he told himself. It couldn’t be just his imagination, could it?

His long claws combed over a loose patch, and he finally found his prize: A whole batch of achigate eggs, all shiny and slimy and clumped together in a gelatinous mass. Their bright yellow translucence almost made them glow in the dark burrow, and they seemed to be in different stages of development for while some were full of nothing but fluid, others had minute embryos, staring blankly at nothing with black dot-eyes

And the squamataur couldn’t help but salivate at this sight, for he had found quite the feast. Happily he picked up a couple of the eggs and plopped them on his mouth. Such a heavenly flavour they had, that soft and creamy texture, the thick yolk bursting at even the smallest of bites. Grendel’s mind seemed to drift away as he chewed and savoured contentedly, but it was for but a moment, and then he smacked his lips approvingly and moved on to the rest of the clutch. He felt so lucky right now.

Enslaved by his gluttony as he was, he didn’t notice that he was not alone.

Up in a nearby tree, an elf was spying Grendel. Twenty feet tall at best, his spindly, lithe figure clinging to the mossy branches still as a rock. Skin and carefully preened curly hair were completely covered in a pigment of various green colours, making him almost invisible in the foliage. Long and triangular ears lied flat on the sides of his head, twitching at every sound made. And his blue eyes were squinting at the unknowing squamataur, nothing sort of pure hatred blazing in them.

Yes, he had finally found him. He may have thought he could get away, but he wouldn’t have that luck. His sister….his beautiful big sister…They were just walking home after a good day’s hunt, and then….he appeared. That foetid brute burst from the peat bogs, got a hold of her. How she struggled, what brave fight she put up. But he…he….he disembowelled her with his bare teeth. Her screams, dear goddesses, her screams. And what did he do? He ran. Ran far and quick from that scaled ogre, from her dying sister begging for help, from the horrible crack her head made against the ground when the behemoth silenced her. Run away like the spineless coward he was.

But this would change. This blade in his hand he coated with countless different poisons. Flesh that rots, veins that rupture, agony of the highest degree. That the brutal fiend was much bigger did not matter. One stab, one little puncture, and it would be all over. He would die a most slow and gruesome of deaths. But not before he saw his face. He will have his revenge. Her soul will be laid to rest. That inferior beast would curse the day he made such a crime. He’d show him what happens when someone defies an elf. He’d show him. And he couldn’t wait.

The squamataur suddenly lowered his human half towards the hole in the ground, reaching for more of whatever caught his interest. His back was exposed. This was the chance! No more hiding! No more running! For her sake!

With an even tighter grip on the dagger’s handle, he jumped from the tree with all his strength and fury. His feet hit the leaf litter with a soft thud.

Grendel turned around.

He scratched his head as he stared confusedly at the quiet wilderness. Was that a presence he just felt right now?

A few feet in front of him there was this narrow, gaping hole on the leaf-choked ground. Rustling and muffled noises could be heard as this light green shape retreated inside

Oh yes, something must’ve been caught by the doormat plant. Good thing he had noticed it before, he would have been in quite the pickle.


With a dismissive shrug, Grendel wiped the yolk that had remained splattered on his jowls and turned back, crawling through the dense crowds of dark trees ahead. Maybe there’d be more eggs that way...

Oh wow, I love the way in which you built up so much tension only to have the affair climax in a humorously underwhelming manner. Your descriptions flow nicely and mesh well with Grendels own rather simplistic mindset, giving the whole thing a good sense of how he himself feels about the situation.

Another good one.

Indeed, This is humorous in a way, yet also a sad tale. I like it.