Instincts
Fallterhumanity Week 3: Instincts
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Instincts are completely inseparable from my identity as a dragon. It’s woven too deep into the fibers of my species and to remove them would be the same as removing an important chapter of my story.
Dragons where I am from are solitary and ruthless. We don’t form great societies or have interest in associating with other species. When we’re born, we live with our mother as hatchlings as long as she will tolerate us. And, if we don’t kill one another first, we disperse far away from our other family members soon after our wings are sky-worthy.
The time spent with our mother was less about learning and being supported than it was surviving. I remember fighting with my brothers and sisters over the scraps of meat she brought back to us. (I lived, so obviously I won more often than I lost.) I never needed to be told how to fight, I knew to dig my claws and teeth into them. To rake my claws against vulnerable undersides. With practice I did improve though, and going for the gaps in between the scales became automatic, second-nature.
Many of the skills we needed as adults we just knew. Courtship rituals, nest-building, even flying. Once our wings become large enough and strong enough we would start testing them. We’d flex against one another to see who could stay airborne the longest or glide the farthest the earliest. (I’m almost certain I lost one of my sisters this way– from her leaping off a ledge before she was ready and falling to her death.)
When my wings were ready, I took flight and left. No good-byes necessary. All of us were rivals before, but now our clashes would be deadly. Every time another dragon would show up on the horizon it was either fight or flight.
These skills still have their uses. I exist within the headspace where flying and protecting one another are still necessities, but it isn’t the same as before. It’s one of the inconvenient parts to this “cluster-style” of living: explaining gut reactions and intentions to others. (And not being free to bite them if they don’t guess correctly.) The other members of the cluster use spoken language more than growls, chirps and roars. (We can share our emotions, but I didn’t trust so easily as to just pour those into others.) It’s taken effort to get used to communicating in this way with them and to learn how to trust.
- Cash
- Chase
- Inconvenient
- Fear
- Automatic
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Instincts are completely inseparable from my identity as a dragon. It’s woven too deep into the fibers of my species and to remove them would be the same as removing an important chapter of my story.
Dragons where I am from are solitary and ruthless. We don’t form great societies or have interest in associating with other species. When we’re born, we live with our mother as hatchlings as long as she will tolerate us. And, if we don’t kill one another first, we disperse far away from our other family members soon after our wings are sky-worthy.
The time spent with our mother was less about learning and being supported than it was surviving. I remember fighting with my brothers and sisters over the scraps of meat she brought back to us. (I lived, so obviously I won more often than I lost.) I never needed to be told how to fight, I knew to dig my claws and teeth into them. To rake my claws against vulnerable undersides. With practice I did improve though, and going for the gaps in between the scales became automatic, second-nature.
Many of the skills we needed as adults we just knew. Courtship rituals, nest-building, even flying. Once our wings become large enough and strong enough we would start testing them. We’d flex against one another to see who could stay airborne the longest or glide the farthest the earliest. (I’m almost certain I lost one of my sisters this way– from her leaping off a ledge before she was ready and falling to her death.)
When my wings were ready, I took flight and left. No good-byes necessary. All of us were rivals before, but now our clashes would be deadly. Every time another dragon would show up on the horizon it was either fight or flight.
These skills still have their uses. I exist within the headspace where flying and protecting one another are still necessities, but it isn’t the same as before. It’s one of the inconvenient parts to this “cluster-style” of living: explaining gut reactions and intentions to others. (And not being free to bite them if they don’t guess correctly.) The other members of the cluster use spoken language more than growls, chirps and roars. (We can share our emotions, but I didn’t trust so easily as to just pour those into others.) It’s taken effort to get used to communicating in this way with them and to learn how to trust.
- Cash