((This is one of two stories that have been on my mind as of late. I believe I have figured out how to start this one but the other one I'm still working on. Yes, it is a Snake x OC story and it's been on my mind for almost 1 year now. It hasn't gone away so I should probably put it down on the interwebs~.

I own nothing except for my OC. But I would cuddles Snake in a millisecond.))

Chapter 1: Meeting

The day I met him was the day my life gained a whole new meaning. No, this isn't some sappy teen romance where the girl couldn't possibly live without the boy in her life. It was just that I had been alone for so long that I actually forgot that there were other people outside of my forest.

Yes, that's right. My forest. I was in charge of it's care and surveilance until my people returned. I hadn't been given this duty but with no one else there, who would have?

Perhaps I should back up. My people are those who live in the forest, live with the forest. We have bound our souls to this earth and thereby gained abilities that many could only dream of. But with great power comes great responsibility. If the earth that we are connected with becomes injured in any way, we feel it's pain, get sick, gain scars. My mother was a very beautiful woman but her body had been riddled with scars due to her mistakes. She understood her duty but hadn't understood the ramifications of the world beyond the forest. And on the outskirts of our home, bad things had been happening.

But I digress. Hunters had entered our lands and many of our people were slaughtered by guns... bullets had blasted through our defenses of wood and vines. The only reason I had lived was by hiding. My mother told me that I was too young to fight. She was right. I was only a child. If my own mother couldn't defend herself against these invaders, what chance had I? So I waited until the warnings within the leaves died down from the winds. The scent of acrid gunpowder tickled my nose in a most unpleasant way. And I was alone to bury my fallen people and learn the lesson that was brutally taught. Guns were dangerous. I needed to get stronger with no teacher to help me.

But perhaps that was a good thing, ironically enough. My teacher before had limited me in what I learned. The forest taught me to thrive and learn my own limitations. This helped me learn how to stretch my stamina and I learned so many different things.

And then I met him.

A young man had wandered into my home. I knew the second he had stepped foot into my territory. I prepared for guns and warfare. I planned to take him down with swift efficiency and not give him the chance that the other humans had missed out on. I watched him from a safe spot and immediately noticed differences between this person and those from so long ago.

He walked with a grace that they did not have, didn't wear those clumping coverings over his feet. His chest was mostly bare and was as pale as the clouds in the sky. How odd that his hair was even whiter than that. But that wasn't the strangest thing.

He was travelling with snakes. A multitude of them on the ground, on his body.

I got closer, using the trees to move myself closer by becoming one with them and moving myself through the roots. Soon, I was downwind from him and I scented him on the air. He smelled of civilization and something wild. It was odd how such a terrible odor could seamlessly blend with one I was so very familiar with. I was close enough to see patches of scales on his flesh and gave a small gasp in surprise.

That sound was heard by his comrades and 3 of them hissed loudly, bearing their fangs. The young man stopped and looked in my direction. "Who's there? says Victor. Show yourself says Keets."

This person said things in an odd manner, changing his voice to match what I'm assuming Victor and Keets' voices sounded like. But those eyes, golden like flower pollen...I liked them. They drew me in, made me feel playful.

With a teasing smile that showed my teeth, I used the trees to move closer still, curious if his scaly friends could detect that movement now that they were aware of me. It didn't seem like it, so I spoke. "Silly person...why would I show myself to you? You could have a gun..." My voice lowered in distaste at having to speak about that terrible device of destruction.

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Snake spun around at the sound, his friend hissing out vulgarities due to being caught off guard. They disliked the implication that this person could have attacked at any moment. Despite being female in voice, he would take no chances. Beast had taught him how dangerous the other gender could be when angered or provoked.

"I have no guns says Wordsworth. Those things smell awful and make us feel quite ill says Emily."

His yellow eyes latched onto another pair within the trees, eyes the shade of clover in the sunlight. They were pretty to look at but unnerving when it came to being watched by faceless eyes.

"Come out, says Oscar, we won't hurt you."

A breath of hesitation came out slowly, so slowly that if it weren't for those visual orbs, he would have thought she left. And then, she stepped forward, bare feet that were encrusted with dirt lead the way into the sunlight, muscled legs that were equally as dirty followed and stretched all the way to what appeared to be a small skirt of leaves that contained wide hips. Vines made their way spiralling up her tiny mid-section to connect with a chest covering of more leaves. Small hands and slender arms, a chest that rivalled Beast's, and a face that belied her beauty in the wildest of fashions. Oscar hissed something that Emily scolded him for but Snake couldn't hear anything but the blood rushing to his ears as he looked at this mysterious creature.

Oscar, however, had other plans. He slipped off Snake's shoulder and to the ground. From there, he slithered up to the unknown woman and tilted his head at her. She looked down at him with those too-green eyes before slowly kneeling to the ground. Those pink lips opened, asking him what he wanted. Oscar hissed softly and she giggled.

Oh, that sound was bells to his ears and brought a blush to his cheeks as everything else came back into focus. The woman moved her hand down to pick the snake up and moved him closer to her, kissing the tip of his nose. Oscar had enough cheekiness to flick his tongue out at the last moment in a mock-kiss of sorts. But then the small snake fainted in his happiness, hissing something about seeing Nirvana.

She snickered before turning her eyes to Snake's and standing up. Brazenly approaching him, she handed the snake back to him, choosing to wrap Oscar around his neck. Taking a deep breath of his scent, she smiled. "No gunpowder... that's good..." She turned to walked back to the trees.

"Wait!"

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I stopped and turned my head to look back at the young man. It made no sense. Why did he speak for the other snakes when he had such a pleasing voice for himself? I only assume that that was his voice because he didn't say "says whoever" after telling her to stop.

"...wh-what is your name? This is Snake says Emily..." The young man seemed unsure after his initial outburst. "And where are you going? says Wordsworth..."

"Home... are you lost? It is unusual for someone else to be in these woods unless they are hunters. But with no instruments of destruction..."

"We are searching for food says Keets. Joker doesn't want us hunting animals in case the meat is tainted by venom says Don. Venom doesn't ruin the meat, it adds flavor says Victor. But humans can't eat poisoned flesh says Emily." It appeared that all the snakes had something to say on the matter.

"Hmm...I am called Eden. Come, I will give you food to take back with you."

I lead him to my home, my tree where I had spent most of my life. I'm sure I only did this because he was so good at conversing. The forest spoke to me but it was difficult with not being connected to one of flesh, even if he wasn't a forest child like me. I gave him the foods that I had smoked, yes, smoked. I wasn't like a bear, I didn't hibernate in the winter but the cold did make it difficult to move around a lot. While I could survive without heat, I couldn't without food. So I made certain I had food near me and that meant smoking or drying out meat and vegetation. I used the branches that the forest allowed me to have, I did ask for permission.

It was starting to get dark so I offered to escort him to the edge of the woods. As we walked, he told me about the circus and his friends whom were so kind to him. Well, Emily, Victor, Don, and Donne all contributed to the subject but it was interesting. And made the walk go much too short for my taste. It seemed like no time at all and we were at my boundary. I could see a red and white object that Snake had identified as their performance tent. There were many smaller, less colorful tents around it that had to be for housing the performers and equipment, food, and such.

"...I guess this is goodbye... to all of you..." I was stalling, why was I stalling? This made it that much more difficult to part ways. In the past, I would have scoffed at the idea of enjoying the company of another. He wasn't like me but he wasn't like non-forest people either. He was shy and spoke in other voices and talked for his snake friends and seemed too sweet to be real...

But it wasn't just me, he was stalling to. Nodding as he looked at the tents and then back at me. His snakes were hissing up a storm, apparently talking too fast for him to translate. Oscar had woken up by then and looked around. He moved himself off Snake's shoulders and dove...at me...and into my cleavage. I blushed softly, eyes wide. As sheltered as I had been and antisocial as I am now, even I knew that this wasn't exactly appropriate behavior. But it stopped all the hissing and had Snake staring at me with wide eyes. He must have been waiting for me to get upset. But I wasn't. I took it as an indicator that Oscar didn't want me to leave. Or that I felt warm and he was cold. That didn't matter.

Gold orbs met clover and a question was asked only on the wind. No words were necessary. He had my answer as the wind shifted for only that moment and he carefully took my hand. No words were spoken as he lead me to the circus camp and into a world that I knew next to nothing about. The only surity I had was that Snake would be by my side and I would never be alone again.