tundrafrog1124
ERode
Sunny Suzuki
Thunder999999
Xaltwind
Dark Cloud
Izurich
strawbsandsugar
Zapdos
TeyaoThe Crowe
The young huntress panted, her quivering and labored breaths appearing in the cool high-altitude air like small puffs of steam. From where she lied upon the ground, she might as well have been as dead as the bear that now lied next to her in the same pool of blood. Its great brown and hulking hide had only mere seconds ago been hefting itself upon her, having intruded upon the young female Crowe's freshly killed stag. But in the heat of the moment...with her life and hunt on the line...something had clicked in the young female's head.
She grabbed for a nearby branch, straight enough on its length and after then jaggedly sharp on the broken end, and jammed it upwards towards the towering predator before her. It was an action that had felt as natural as breathing, though initially she hadn't understood why she'd done such a thing. But as the mighty beast had landed upon the stick, the wood had dug in deep to the beast's hide as its weight pushed it down upon it. The red blood of life had flowed freely upon the huntress below, upon the stick, and upon the ground. It had taken all the young female's strength to merely twist the stick inside and wrench the leveraged weight of the bear to make it fall to the side with a thunderous CRASH!!!
...Then there was silence, cold and empty, until eventually the rain began to patter down and fall from the grayed skies above.
The young female felt her breathing begin to slow, but as it did she pulled up a hand in front of her eyes. It was a right hand, but it was...her hand. The young female's eyes seemed too suddenly glow with a spark, a spark of curiosity and recognition that hadn't been there before. She began to slowly look over her hand, as if fascinated by the entirely new realization that this was "her" hand, before sitting up in the pool of the bear's blood and looking upon herself. That bare physical form, primal as any animal, yet suddenly all the more fascinating. The huntress began to touch her other arm, her legs, her chest, and other parts of her body as the sensation of touch and "self" crept ever inwards with a newfound sense of recognition.
She could feel the touch of the rain too, the water that came from the sky, and could see as it washed off some of the animal blood that had clung to her skin. She slowly began to stand once more, before slowly looking to the sharp branch still stuck inside of the bear. After a moment of contemplation, she pulled out the stick and held it in her hands once more. Some organ of the bear was stuck to the end in pieces, and it was covered in blood...the huntress took a wary bite of the severed flesh after a moment. Her eyes then widened, as further realization about this stick and what she had done finally clicked into her mind in turn.
The world seemed to open up before the young female's eyes more and more, more than it ever had been for her species since their evolution. She was herself. The rain was...cold, but wet. The blood of this bear was wet...yet warm. Its fur was soft, the stick's end was pointy...there was so much she hadn't yet grasped that was to be seen. To be felt.
A goofy grin came to the female Crowe's face, as she hefted the bloody branch towards the grayed skies, a clap of thunder striking not a moment after as she let out a resounding and triumphal "ROAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA" into the heavens.
She could roar to the heavens like the bear had roared, and like the sky had always roared above them. She could overcome the bear, with its size and larger claws than those on her soft-skinned hands. Who was to say the sky was not next? Who was to say this bear's lifeless husk could not be of more use than mere "food" either?
The huntress would soon began to drag back the bear and the stag she had slain.
She would bring to her people what she had learned, and what she had realized. Their eyes soon too would begin to open with the glimmer of wisdom as the felt the stick, touched the blood, felt the rain on their skin for the first time, and listened to the victorious cry of the huntress. Indeed, life for the Crowe would never be the same again.
Long had they feared the bear, but no longer would she fear it. Once they had feared the roar of the skies themselves...but no longer would they have to fear the roar of the skies! Perhaps the sky roared for them as it had once done for the bear, and rang its thunderous call over their victory over the bear! Their strength would prove mightier than even the largest beasts of their very lush and temperate home, which sat at a high altitude up close to the heavens!
In the many days following, the slain bear would itself too prove the beginnings for much more for the Crowe to discover.
From its soft and warm fur, sections would be experimentally torn off and kept close. Its largest bones were used to smash smaller prey over the head. Its blood left a strange print on the wall of the rocky overhang the group was living under.
Other gathered sticks had sparked when rubbed together by accident, producing a painful heat....one they had begun to see the use of. Fire. The glowing, beating heart of the world they looked upon with a naive fascination. Meat close to fire seemed to also taste better, and fire made the larger beasts keep away and hurt them.
More branches too, sharpened using claws and rocks on the broken end, seemed to make more mighty Basic Tools with which to pierce the hide of the formerly mighty bear from up close or afar. The skull of the mighty beast, when dipped in the flowing river nearby, would too hold the liquid within it...an unexpected but amazing sight. It could hold more so when the holes in it were filled with leaves or dirt.
So much to see, so much to devour, so much to feel...for the Crowe, like others in their world, it was like everything had been born anew...much like how the rain had washed the huntress anew after her hunt.
