The D'rrynger

Dedicated to Poe, who inspired this story with one of his own...


Know that I have never been named, though several have sought to do so. I had a name once, but it would do me no great service to make it known to you. You're young yet. If it means that much to you, I'm sure you'll name me on your own.

You've come to me because you crave something. Something that keeps you from enjoying your life like the rest of your people, who waste theirs ignorant and petty.

No, I do not read minds. Many powers have been attributed to me unnecessarily. When you are old enough to be ageless, and you have seen what I have seen, then you will see that mind-reading is a waste of time. But I digress.

You have no doubt been waiting your whole life for me, wanting to know what I have to say. I will tell you my story. You have earned it.

I was young when the world was old(it is ancient now. There are things gone from it now that would make you weep from the loss of what you can never know. I am thankful to be beyond tears). I was born into chaos, at a time when laws were optional, rather than the rule. Mothers killed sons, and fathers killed daughters in quiet regularity. Sisters and brothers killed each other as soon as they understood how. Death was a revered friend.

Am I scaring you, little human? I've a long way yet til my story's end. If that slice of truth scares you, then perhaps you should leave now and forget me.

No? Then I will continue. I was among the weak in my youth. I sought no one harm, though the same could not be said of those around me. Daily, death alluded me, though I saw my share of traps. It seemed a distant, and yet ever present companion.

I grew from shaky youth to iron adulthood through no small deed of my own. I worked my body and my mind hard, turning them both into weapons. I killed my relatives in their own games, killing them with their weaknesses.

I can still remember( though countless centuries separate me from what I was from what I've become) how I killed my brother, the last to die. He was almost as weak as I, but he was far more intelligent. He fancied himself so "brilliant" as your kind says, that it was also his weakness.

I gave my dear "brother" a present(You see what is coming little one. The greatest tragedies begin with presents, from the Trojan Horse, to the coffin Set gave to Osirus. But I digress. You don't know the older stories anyway. The true ones.). Of course, knowing that I had single-handedly killed my parents, and ten other siblings, he was wily. But he thought he could kill me first, so he accepted it.

I gave him a small D'rrynger, which, roughly translated into your barbarous tongue, means "blood-drinker".

Your expression is quite humorous, human! No vampire did I give him, at least, not in the way you understand. The name is quite misleading, as you will soon hear.

A D'rrynger is far gone from this earth. Back then they were already uncommon, so much so that it was quite an expensive gift. To describe it in terms you would understand, the D'rrynger I gave my sibling resembled an anteater, in that it had a large "snout". The "snout" was actually it's mouth, it's long lips lined with grinding teeth made especially for obtaining it's food. It was covered in thin black fur, which was used in making a coats. It had no claws, I had broken them in my haste to capture it, and small gray eyes that gleamed silver in light. It was too weak to be considered beautiful, at first glance, but there was something in those metallic eyes, a hunger perhaps, that chilled all who saw them.

My brother didn't know what to make of my "gift". The small creature seemed to be quite safe from harming him in it's large transparent jar, made from a single piece of clear quartz. The jar actually had a thin neck, many times smaller than the D'rrynger's head, which could be held to carry it gingerly so as not to break it.

"How did you get it into the jar?" asked my brother, peering at the D'rrynger, quite asleep at the bottom of the jar. "A model of a ship, I've seen. But a living creature!"

I smiled knowingly, displaying my sharp teeth. "What does that matter? It's yours. You like a challenge. See how to get it out."

My brother took the gift with caution, but I could tell he excited at the prospect of owning the expensive beast in such an unusual entrapment. "What does it eat?" he asked me, rolling the jar between his claws. I told him the meaning of the D'rrynger's name, and he laughed. "So you think I would be so stupid as to try to free it with my hands. Really, my dear sibling. You know me so much better than that."

I smirked and left him, knowing the D'rrynger would get to him in time. I left my home country to attend to some personal matters, and did not see my brother again for several of your months. When I returned to visit him, he was in an agitated state.

"Whatever is the matter?" I asked him sweetly.

"What does it eat?" he questioned me. "I've had that thing for a long time, and everything I've put into that jar it hasn't touched."

I looked into the quartz jar and saw the assorted bloody pieces of animal with the D'rrynger. The D'rrynger seemed to be sleeping, it's trunk curled up into a swirl, it's strange eyes closed. "Am I to believe that in all this time, you haven't figured out how to feed the creature?"

"Well, yes." He admitted.

I smiled at him sweetly, and moved my claws over the jar of the sleeping D'rrynger. "Blood-drinker, long of sight, sipping spirits burning bright, do not feed it, or you'll find, you'll lose more than half your mind."

"Strange lyrics." he noted.

"It's an old song, sung by people long gone from this plain. It's a warning about the D'rrynger."

"Then I shouldn't feed it!" he said. "But why isn't it eating blood?"

"It is an old song sung by primitives. It could be completely false, or half-right." I smirked. "But you haven't even figured out how it eats. I doubt you'll understand the song."

My brother proceeded to go into a long speech about he was mentally superior, and how he would find out the meaning of the song no matter what it cost him. I laughed silently, and took my leave again. It had never occurred to him that I had made the song up. He was so obsessed with the D'rrynger that he would accept anything I said to get to the creature's secret. Everything was working out according to plan.

When I returned to see him some time later, my brother was a fraction of his former self. His garments were disheveled, his claws unsharpened, his eyes dull and rheumy. "What is wrong with you?" I asked, disguising my glee with concern. "You look terrible!"

"I just can't figure it out! I've fed it everything I can think of, and yet it won't eat anything! But it's still alive! How can it still live after two years? Two years!" He was starting to come apart. My brilliant, wary brother didn't know the D'rrynger's secret. I would have laughed then, but then he might have gone into a rage, and I wanted him to suffer more before I killed him. Murder was an accomplished art in my time. Something to be proud of. The D'rrynger opened it's strange silver eyes and threaded it's trunk through the neck of the jar, waving it around outside of the jar like an insect's feeler. "What is it doing? Sister, tell me what it is trying to do?"

"My knowledge is so far below yours, that I can only guess, but I assume it is trying to feed." I pointed out. I decided to leave quickly. The D'rrynger had not eaten in some time, and would not be choosy.

"Stay and help me feed it, sister. Please." he begged, crawling towards me, his strength leaving him. I looked at the D'rrynger, those long lips undulating with something unseen.

"You will stay, brother. You and you alone!" I quickly took my leave of him and did not return for several days, allowing the D'rrynger to eat it's fill.

When I returned, my brother had been dead for some time, one of his appendages still being sucked by the D'rrynger. There were no marks on his body, no sign of fang or claw, yet he was quite dead. I picked up the jar containing the now harmless D'rrynger, asleep once more, and whispered in my brother's ear.

"It was unfortunate that you believed the meaning of it's name. But you were always a believer of science and experiments. Any priest would have told you that the D'rrynger is a drinker of souls, not blood. I hope you will be more open-minded in the future." I laughed and left him.

Now, little human, you are wondering what the moral is. What could I possibly learn from this, you are thinking.

I offer no advice except this: Do not cross me, and do not think that those closest to you are above slitting your throat while you dream. Your kind may no longer be of my race, but you humans still love betrayal.

I pray I could help.