One does not know what he has until he has lost it.
But in the case of the juvenile serpent: He was too young to have experienced the wonders of parental guidance and protection but, at the same time, old enough, due to his premature birth, to know what he was missing.
The familiar sound of the surf awoke the serpent from a horrible night's sleep. It wasn't much different from any other night, dreaming of the same inexplicable scenarios over and over again:
A father he hardly knew, a woman he had never seen before and a shower of insults and curses. He became so small, defenseless and innocent.
He made his way to the opening of the cavern, the same cavern he had sought shelter in sixteen years ago. Wreckage of ships and their cargo were strewn across the floor and lined up along the walls. Needless to say, he had grown considerably over the years, from being compared to stallions to being measured in the length of merchant vessels. He spanned four of those.
Not one of those ships had, however, been sunk by him. Early on in his lifetime, he learned one thing about his rejection: Trying to reach out to other humans like his father had always gone the same way: People fled from him and he became hurt, in one way or another. He linked those incidents together and created a theory to live his life by.
As the years passed by, he distanced himself further away from the human dwellings and ports by the coast. Sometimes he witnessed raids conducted by pirates and bandits on those settlements, but he never interfered. When the attack was over, he quenched his curiosity of the barbaric race that lived there by scavenging whatever he found interesting and brought it to his home. If there were survivors, he left them where they were.
Those who had seen him during his hunting and scavenging referred to him as a monster feasting on the spoils of the battles. This kept his curse intact and, at the same time, lured inexperienced slayers to the sea to kill him. Up until now, they had always returned home empty-handed.
As the serpent recollected his thoughts, he muttered a statement to himself as he did on every morning:
"Let them shed each others blood, they deserve nothing else."
With that, he slid into the cold sea and swam towards his hunting grounds.
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