Chapter Text
Humans did not belong in her forest. This much, Madaras knew.
Madaras - whose family name was, as most snakes' are, taken from the village that her thrice-great grandmother had hailed from - had long since claimed this forest as her own. It had been hers since she'd swallowed her mother whole, for her mother was smaller and weaker than she, refusing to eat the creatures of the forest that had consumed the poison leeching into the water.
Let it not be said that Madaras enjoyed the poison, but surely, she reasoned, there was no point in avoiding it. The poison was in the water, the very lifeblood of the place, and over the years, as the forest had begun to slowly sink into marsh in some areas, Madaras knew: to avoid that which had touched the poison would be to starve.
Thus, in the forest's tainted waters she bathed; at first, just barely, then swimming further and further from dry ground. And yes, at first, she'd become terribly ill, writhing in pain as she questioned whether it would pass or take her with it, for many terrible hours on end. But end, it did, and after some recovery, with herself no worse for wear. And a tolerance she did build for herself, expanding her options of meals as the poison spread and her mother's own options dwindled in turn. Her risk had paid itself forward, and for that, her mother would pay with her life. Madaras honored her by being the creature of the forest to consume her, leaving no part of her for a lesser creature to scavenge upon.
That was the way of the forest. Untamed, unburdened. It was how she figured she would remain for as long as she could grip onto the sinew of life itself.
And yet, tameness comes in many forms, not all of them weakness. In some forms of tameness, there lies a deep strength; the strength of protection and rejection of one's nature.
This she learned when she came upon two tiny things shuffling through her underbrush with the subtlety of a newborn boar. She expected an easy meal of them, with what her stomach snarled at her that she was due for a meal.
Small, helpless human morsels. That's what they were. Scented the same, for all that one was holding a rusty blade smaller than her eye and thrusting it towards her face as the other hid behind him. So pressed to his back, he was, that she almost thought they were a single trembling human rather than two.
But like humans, they did not smell. Men from out of the forest smelled of meat and metal, and slowly, they had begun to reek of Beast and Blood. These two smelled of swamp, sweat, and fear, not of civilization that crept on the edges of her domain.
She was not sure what endeared them to her. Not sure how they went from trembling to understanding so quickly. Most likely, they were merely desperate. Desperate enough for some form of care that they were willing to interpret even the actions of Madaras as maternal. And for some reason still little understood to her, she did not think to make them pay for that mistake.
Madaras did not concern herself with the affairs of the Higher Powers that plagued Yharnam. For the most part, in the city they stayed, and of those victims to them that found their unfortunate ways into her domain, she quickly dispatched of if they had enough awareness to not be trampled to death by the boars she and her sons had grown a taste for. But blind, she was not, and even she could see the way the scent of Yharnam changed to something beyond her comprehension; god-scent - rather, god-sour - permeated throughout the meat that made up the city.
Her own boys, however, were, above all, grown and proud and scented as she, not of fear sweat and ape-stink. For what they lacked in keen snake-instinct (as much as she'd hoped they could navigate the forests as well as she, there was something she suspected humans were missing that hindered their ability to see as she did), they made up for in time in her forest and dedication to their family of three. Madaras, of course, had laid other eggs, birthed other daughters, but all were, as she was, expected to raise themselves from hatch.
Humans did not operate on the same assumptions. Humans kept their young close, raised them right and true, and for all that taking care of two human boys, curling around them on cold nights, has been unnatural for her in the beginning, she quickly grew fond of the experience, as fond as they grew of her for her care.
It had been difficult to adapt her nature into something that was compatible with how humans cared for their children, but she found herself fond of the title of Mother, all the same.
A shrill shriek summoned her savagely to her sons' sides. Capable men as they were, it was not often that they called for her, though each wore a whistle around their necks in case they needed her assistance. Even less often, that they shouted "MOTHER!!" into the forest in desperation for somewhere to hide. She expected nothing less than a beast, nay, a veritable monster to be waiting for her when she arrived, coiling around her boys in an instant, protecting them before even seeing what danger may now threaten them.
What she found, after orienting herself towards the direction her sons rattled towards, was a man. Not standing and brandishing a weapon, but rather, shaken so entirely by the thunder of her approach, frantically squeezing himself between thick roots of an ancient tree in the hopes they would protect him from her. He was covered in blood, both human and Beast, she scented, head to toe splattered in gore like the massive boars that she regularly made her meals. But above all?
He did not smell just of fear. He smelled of god-stain and sorrow, of ocean brine tears and purgatory doomedness. He was marked, not by blade or blood but by terror, by Yharnam. He would not be leaving alive. Only death could save him from this place now.
But the way he shivered behind those roots reminded her of the desperate way all those years ago that her Elder Son gripped a tiny knife to thrust at her as he shook in fear so primal, his bones nearly fell apart. A helmet and cane lay in front of him, outside of the wood-bars of the cage he hid himself in, too wide to follow him in but grasped tightly in his hands, within reach of her teeth. The message was clear; he'd rather lose the hands than the items, as ridiculous as it seemed for someone whimpering as he.
"What are you doing here?" her Elder Son demanded of the stranger, emboldened by her presence.
"I-I- please don't hurt me." The bloody man's hair stuck to his face, glued by blood and sweat. "I'm not from here, I-I didn't mean to-"
He choked on his words, pressing his forehead to the rough bark of the wood as if the pain would silence whatever cruel Higher Being was surely echoing inside of his mind.
"I come from afar. We were hunting a creature, some kind of beast, but it- it came here. We followed it. Stupid, stupid, stupid-"
Madaras shifted around her sons, carefully as to not send the bloodied man into a frenzy. She creeped closer to him, wanting to peer into his eyes and uncover the depth of how entirely God-Stench enveloped his mind. Luckily, he stirred not at her approach, distracted entirely by his frantic musings.
"They grabbed me by my hair- God, my hair-" He grabbed at the blond hair, chopped in frayed chunks just below his ears. "I had to- they were going to- the fire-"
As if the word cast a spell on him, his breathing quickened and his eyes glazed over, peering towards some far-away place. His muttered words fell apart like a rotting tree, of which she could only catch "I can't, I can't-" over and over, like it haunted him.
Her Elder Son put a hand on her spine, bidding her to yield and let him pass. She was close enough, should he be put in any danger. She slithered her massive body out of his way, muscles primed to defend him if need be.
"They wanted to kill you?" her Eldest asked the man.
"They left you out here to die?" her youngest asked. She could hear the olive branch they were extending this man, this stranger, and yet, she bid herself not to stop them.
"…the Crow woman told me that if she hadn't seen me walk into the city, she'd have thought me already mad. That if she saw me there again, she would kill me. I just… ran."
Her Younger Son crouched down to meet the man's eyes himself. He narrowed them slightly, then puffed air through his nose.
"The blood. Awful lot to be from running away."
The blond man looked down at himself in surprise, as if just now realizing that he was bathed in it. He wiped his mouth, and it was in this instant that Madaras realized the blood she'd assumed he'd coughed up and had upon his lips was not his at all. The blood oozing from the back of his head was hardly sweet, but it was purer, brighter, more full of vitality and simplicity than the darkened beast blood on his breath. Curious.
"I- there… there was a beast. I had to kill a beast. A-and then I- The people, they- " His head bowed in shame. "It was self-defense."
Her Elder spoke once more, offering a curt, "Beasts are formidable, but people are the truly monstrous ones in this city. I wouldn't recommend your return even if the Crow hadn't exiled you from its walls."
"Could he stay with us?" her Younger asked her over his shoulder, though Valtr looked at her Elder for a response, likely assuming he was the one being asked. Her Elder looked at her for confirmation, and she merely hissed her approval.
"Seems so."
She could sense his smile as he stood and offered his hand. "You have a name?" he asked.
"V-Valtr. Dvorak. But…" He glanced over at her warily. "C-can you call off your snake?"
Her Younger flared his chest, huffing at the man. "She's not our snake, she's our Mother! And you'd best treat her with some respect!"
For a moment, the man, Valtr, simply stared, as though the information were filtering through whatever he had left behind his eyes. Madaras tensed subtly, ready to strike. This man, whoever he may be and wherever he may come from, was on a precipice so precarious that he may soon be lost to the blight plaguing him.
Then, as if something shifted to click into place, he simply nodded and muttered, "My apologies, ma'am."
He began to extricate himself from the roots, grabbing what were apparently his helmet and cane before pulling himself to his feet laboriously. He began to sway back and forth, likely from the exhaustion rolling off of him in waves. Just as she swore he was about to fall to his knees, he dug the tip of his cane into the ground and panted as he leveled himself. Each step he took following her sons was slow and looked painful, but he did not falter as they marched deeper into her forest.
She believed she could come to respect this 'Valtr'.