My slit tightened against further swelling.

River help me.

I remembered rutting... someone. Many someones, I was fairly certain. I could recall no faces or names, but my body held the memory of the sensations from before the darkness. The hot, hard slide of my cocks against and inside flesh.

The more I remembered of myself before, the more complicated things became. It had been simpler mere moments ago, before I remembered concepts like female and the unmatched pleasure of spilling seed inside a wet, pulsing channel. It had been easier to touch her last night, back when she was simply my sacred salvation. She had almost seemed not entirely real to me, like she’d floated on another plane of existence far above my own. Something spiritual rather than corporeal.

But she was corporeal, alright. She was still sacred, still my salvation, still the star that had found me in the darkness the way no other light could.

But she also had a pretty, ripe cunt and that information was most assuredly not helpful. Because now, I had to balance even more against the knife’s edge of my sanity. Balance the need to touch her to ground myself with the need to pull away before arousal surged too strongly. My head ached. My whole cursed body ached, my groin most of all.

My touch on her arms had become a caress, and I wrenched my fingers away. Colour bloomed in her cheeks and across her chest. Mammary tissue. Teats. Breasts. I remembered that now, too, as my gaze snagged on the supple, heavy swells of her chest.

She could have had a mate somewhere.

She could have had children.

I wondered what sort of male I’d been before. If I’d always been the selfish sort. Because I felt only the smallest twinge of regret at that thought before it was smothered under a jealousy that claimed her as mine above all others. Her mate could come for her and I would slit his belly before he even got close.

I must have indeed been a selfish sort of male, I decided. Because this kind of desire, this possessiveness, this need to keep her no matter whom it hurt, no matter whom I’d have to kill, did not feel unnatural in the slightest. It felt right, and I felt righteous.

I kept my eye on my little star and then walked past her to the water’s edge. The sun warmed my scales in a way that felt like home. Without thinking or even realizing I could do it, I lifted my hand and a sheet of water rose with it. I inhaled deeply, stretching into this familiar and near-forgotten power. I did not think I’d done anything but smash things with my tail and my face and my fists in the darkness. I held the sheet of water suspended like a wall of crystal, watching fish swimming through the wall.

Within moments, I’d used my power to draw several fat fish from the suspended water and into my claws. I snapped their necks for a quick death, tossed them on a flat rock near my feet, then released my hold on the water. I did it slowly, carefully, so that the water was re-absorbed into the river with nary a ripple.

I quickly turned to make sure my little star had not gone anywhere. But she seemed frozen in place. One small hand was clapped over her mouth, her eyes gigantic, her pale eyebrows nearly at her hairline. I did not think she looked scared, exactly...

It bothered me immensely that I could not read her expression easily, nor could I ask her with words what she was feeling. It seemed wrong. Like I should have been able to comprehend her instinctively somehow, though I did not speak her language. My ears burned slightly, and I rubbed absentmindedly at my right one, as if by simply rubbing it I’d be able to make my own ear translate whatever words she used. Why did it feel like it had once been that way before? Like it had once been that easy?

Nothing’s easy now.

At the very least, I could slice some blasted fish. I crouched, cleaning and cutting the first fish on the rock, preparing raw slices in a way that felt like muscle memory. I could already taste the white flesh even though I could not actively remember eating it before.

“Come. Eat,” I grunted up at the little star. Now that I was growing more and more lucid, it felt a bit odd to keep referring to her as that. I wondered what her people called themselves. I wondered if she had a name, but found I had no way to ask.

When she didn’t move, I tossed a strip of the raw fish into my maw and swallowed, indicating that it was meant to be food. It tasted exactly the way I’d expected it to, which was both comforting and destabilizing. I jerked my snout towards the other pieces from the first fish as I began to clean and cut the other two.

Slowly, as if against her own will, she edged closer, peering at the sliced fish and watching the quick movements of my claws.

She said something. It sounded like a question. My inability to parse the words made my jaw tick.

“Eat,” I said again. I was finished slicing everything now, and I remained crouched and watching her.

She spoke again, and it sounded like the same question as before. But this time, she added hand gestures. She mimed rubbing two objects together, then threw her hands upward like two flying birds. I cocked my head, frowning and not having the faintest clue what she was trying to convey. She blew out a breath between tight lips then tried another gesture. She poked at the air then yanked her hand back, as if burned.

“You want fire?”

She pursed her lips and stared at my mouth as I formed the words. I grunted. We wouldn’t get anywhere trying to describe what fire was to each other. Better to show her and confirm that was what she’d asked for.

I strode back to the grove, peeling away several more sections of bark. The bark was very flexible and naturally followed the curve of the shape of the tree trunk, allowing me to slice and then roll the sections into small tubes of wood. I arranged them in a pyramid on a flat rock near the fish. Something at the back of my skull told me I had no ability to summon or control fire the way I could control water. There was someone out there who could do it, I was sure, but if they had a name I did not know it. Instead, I focused on the tubes of wood, holding my outstretched claws above them and using a small amount of power to make them vibrate against each other. Soon, a wisp of smoke floated upwards, curling into the bright sky. Small flames appeared and then grew larger as the tubes of bark caught.

I added more wood and bark, and soon the fire was crackling and strong.

“There. Is that what you wanted?”

She grinned, showing tiny white teeth, and nodded her head vigorously up and down in such a way that seemed to indicate the affirmative. A small rush went through me, a piercing satisfaction that I’d understood her, at least a little. That I’d made her happy in some small way.

She hurried to the river and rinsed her hands thoroughly in the water before returning and grabbing some of the raw fish and placing it on the flat rock directly beside the base of the fire. Within moments the thin strips began to sizzle.

So, she prefers her fish cooked. I can do that.

I ate more of the fish raw, preferring it that way, then brought the rest over to be cooked, flipping the pieces with my claws, not wanting her hands near the flames. Once the first two pieces had developed a cracked, golden crust, I removed them from the heat and let them cool in my claws before handing them over. The little star paused, glancing from my face to my hands, before taking a piece. Her silken fingertips grazed my palm as she did so, and that tiny touch made every muscle in my body wind tight. I watched her closely as she ate, studying the muscles in her delicate jaw, the way her narrow throat constricted as she swallowed. I could see her pulse there, river help me. Her skin was so thin I could literally observe the trilling rhythm of her heartbeat at the sides and the base of her neck.