Break To The Sky (Watty's 2019 Entry)

16: Why Is It Always Me?

I ripped my Taka fruit apart viciously. It wasn't ripe yet, but I learned a trick. Just as it was coming back down, I sent out a short plume of flame and burned the piece of fruit on the outsides, making it crunchy as I bit down on the fruit.

I hummed as I tasted it. The outside was crispy from me burning it, but the inside was mushy and delicious. It had the weird combination of watermelon, cantaloupe, plums, and a few other fruits mixed together. It was bittersweet and I loved to eat them like this. It tastes even better if I add some of the dried seaweed to it.

It's been a little over a week since I left that Kymari's house. Tasha and I have been talking whenever we can. Apparently, he is insisting on hand feeding her only now. I know that if he insisted to do that to me, he would have significantly fewer fingers than when he started.

I finished up my Taka fruit. Oh, you also always have to cook the outside of the fruit for it to be properly edible. The peel is just like an orange peel in taste when not cooked or burned. It simply doesn't work.

I stood up and stretched before taking off to another Taka tree. The one I just ate was delicious, but unripe. Technically, with Taka fruit, they are almost always ripe, but when they are at their peak, they grow from the size of cherry-plums to the size of a mango. The largest one I ever found was the size of a small cantaloupe or honeydew. I'll just say that it was delicious.

I gathered some of both the ripe and unripe fruits to hide in my burrow and flew back out.

Now, you're probably wondering why I'm talking about my oh-so-normal day. Let's just say, I'm only now getting started.

I was basking in the sun when I smelt it. Not as strong as a sicora, but it was still potent enough to make me want to rip its limbs off slowly.

I got up and flew to the treetops, scenting the potent trail that led to a few trees where it grew stronger. It must have waited for a few hours there without finding any food to hunt.

I growled as I scented the putrid smell become suddenly stronger. It was in the clearing somewhere...

I glided to the edge of the clearing where the smell was almost unbearable. What was worse was that there was a Kymari child that was pushed up against a tree.

She was crying out for help that wasn't there as a creature–a crawler, as my memories told me–cornered her. I scented the air once more and found that it was the same girl that seemed to be following me.

"Miss Fuyari! MISS FUYARI! HELP!" Aluah cried as another crawler hissed from the bushes jumped out and would have landed on her, had she not twisted at the last second.

Unfortunately, that caused her to fall and I couldn't handle my emotions anymore as I let out a feral screech. The crawlers both turned to me as I dive-bombed one, throwing it up into the air by one of its eight legs and spitting out fire that seemed hotter than normal.

Growling, I stood in front of Aluah once more, the burned crawler falling to the ground and crumbling on impact just a few feet to my right.

The second crawler hissed and jumped at me while I spat fire at it once more, the orange flames being half blue from the heat.

It let out a pitiful scream as I darted at it, biting its neck harshly and yanking back, nearly decapitating it as it went into seizures.

I panted, the red in my vision slowly disappearing. Why is it always me that ends up protecting the Kymari?

Footsteps behind me had my spinning around, only to come face-to-face with the girl I just saved.

"It's you!" she said to herself, walking closer before getting on her hands and knees, just sitting there. I took a cautious step back, eyes narrowed. I could feel the nerves rolling off her, and she was probably just talking to distract herself.  "I don't know why you always protect me. I'm just a no-one that prefers animals to people, but why is it you?"