Hey, guys! Sorry it's been a while since my last post, but I've had a lot on my plate recently. Anyway, right into the fic.

The nation OCs in this chapter will not have names as this one is set really, REALLY far in the past, so you will have to infer what you may about them and I will mention in the notes what inspired this.

Trigger warning: Depictions and mentions of violence, prejudice, and (not explicit) non-consensual acts. Let us simply put it that life was not kind to nations (or humans) in the distant past any more than in modern day.

Cruel Necessity

Protect. Provide. Preserve.

It was the motto of any tribe that wanted to survive. It was what separated the strong from the weak. A tribe incapable of living up to it incurred doom, forfeited their people's lives, and lost the privilege of existing. That would not be his fate. No. He refused to let it happen. He would keep a hold on life as strong as stone.

By whatever means necessary.

Kill or be killed. Eat or be eaten. It was the way of the world. His neighbors knew it as much as he did and, if given half a chance, they would destroy him to ensure their own survival. It was simply the nature of beings like him. His humans considered him their patriarch and forefather, something divine and deserving of reverence. They didn't understand. Humans never understood.

They had no clue that his existence relied upon them, not the other way around.

And that was why he stood with them now. Sixty-seven men, the largest army this region had ever seen, all prepared to do what was necessary for the continuation of their people, their way of life, their home. It was cruel, what they were about to do, but there was no other way.

It was how things had always been and always would be.

He barely even noticed the screams as they descended upon the settlement. Men, women, and children scattered like rats before torchlight. One old man dropped as an arrow pierced his back. A little boy wailed as a warrior bashed his head in with a club. Women and girls were shrieking as they were dragged away.

Blood and bone and brain streaked the ground. A part of him wanted to retch at the sight.

It had to be done, he told himself. It's them or us. We are strong, so we must take what we want. Let my neighbors see this and be afraid. If they fear me and my people, they will not harm us.

He sensed it, then. The presence of one of his kind. He could almost smell the fear on them.

He moved to where a row of baskets was stacked and kicked it over, revealing a little boy. The child's face was streaming with tears and snot as he shrank away, eyes wide as he trembled. How absolutely pathetic. This boy's people were being slaughtered and here he was hiding like a coward. If the boy had been human, it could have been excusable. Not so with their kind. This…this was just disgustingly weak.

His head was swimming with the absurdity of someone so useless thinking they had any chance, any right, to live in these lands. Someone who would not even try to fight back. Although, considering how the child's people were fleeing rather than standing their ground, he shouldn't be so surprised. He had thought they would be more sensible than this. They'd already been raided before, many of the humans likely still had injuries from the last one, but they just refused to learn.

How could the world ever have a place for fools and weaklings like this? Did they think to survive on mere luck? Were they hoping some god would shield them while all around them stronger tribes such as he, himself, fought and bled and scraped and scavenged just to make it through another day?

Arrogance like that deserved to be stamped out.

He felt nothing as he grabbed the child by the hair and threw him onto the dirty ground. The small being gave a frightened yelp and then a scream as a sharp kick hit him in the ribs. Kick. Kick. And again a kick. It wasn't long before the boy was a patchwork of bruises and blood and mud. The little thing was crying again, begging for its life.

Another kick.

"Our kind does not beg," he said, tasting bile.

The smaller being kept crying helplessly, which only made the anger grow. Why did this useless thing believe it could live? What made it think it deserved to survive where others died? And now, on the verge of death, it cried and begged and pleaded for itself without a thought for the people that created it.

He felt his stomach churn.

He grabbed the small thing by its hair again and dragged it, struggling and screaming and begging, to the side of the settlement where a few of the men had dug a pit. They'd finished with the humans who had lived there. The men and boys were being dumped into the pit, along with a few women who had been killed in the heat of the battle. It was not glorious, but it was at least a better fate than leaving their bodies to be devoured by animals, or even by other humans. The women and girls who remained were huddled to one side, eyes hollow as they sobbed brokenly for their families and their stolen dignity. They would get over it; they would have to now that they belonged to stronger men than the ones messily piled up in the pit.

The little thing was still desperately trying to free itself, but he could already feel its life beginning to drain out of it.

A quick, clean death was more dignified than fading away. All it took was one quick slice of a stone knife and the small creature went limp. It went into the pit with everyone else, making a nauseating sound as it landed. He and his warriors hastily shoveled dirt on top of the pit. It was no true burial. There were no grave goods to see these people off. Frankly, they didn't deserve them. Let the gods of the underworld take these worthless souls if they wanted them.

The small being's lifeless eyes stared at him as the dirt fell over its face.

The war party let out a cheer of triumph for their victory and gathered their spoils. Sacks of grain, a flock of sheep, and a number of women and girls were distributed amongst the men. It would be a good year at last. Their people would finally have food to see them through until the next harvest, and there were now enough wives to go around. It had been the right decision to take down this weak and useless settlement. If they hadn't, their own village might have starved. And, if not that, then the population would surely have collapsed from how few women they had at home.

This had been the right course of action. It had been the only course of action. Because of this, his people would live and thrive.

That night, the small being's eyes haunted his dreams. When he woke, it was to the sounds of women sobbing as their new husbands took what was due to them. That churning in his stomach returned and he felt as if he might retch. He yelled for quiet, but the soft sound of crying lingered.

He told himself it would stop eventually, and that it did not even bother him that much as it was.

When he rose, he thought he saw eyes staring at him in the morning light. The sun was a reddish orange in color, bleeding across the sky as it ascended through the mist. She glowed darkly at him, her light giving him no warmth. An angry goddess turning her radiance away from a blasphemer.

It was necessary, he reminded himself. Cruel, but a necessity.

He would do it again, if he had to. It was his people who mattered. Not some weakling who hid and cowered or humans who ran from a fight rather than defend their home. He was strong and he would move past this and his people would be all the better for it. The time may come when he needed to do this again, and he would feel nothing about doing it. It would be easier the next time. And easier again the time after that. And again after that.

It was not as if he even did anything unnecessarily harsh. He was not like the lunatics who lurked in the southwest. He did not revel in torturing and brutalizing his enemies until they begged for death. And he certainly never ate the people he killed like some disgusting abomination. He did not commit obscene rites to appease those dark gods who demanded human blood or decorate his home with the skulls of women and children.

He only did what was necessary. He was not a monster.

The eyes continued to stare back at him when he shut his. Cold, accusing, judging. Those blank, empty, lifeless eyes that asked only one thing. Why?

Because he had to. There were no other options. Perhaps a day might come when this course of action was no longer needed, but it was not now. It would be a long time. A hundred years? A thousand? Ten thousand? He didn't know. He would not even live to see it, of that he was certain. Perhaps he would father other tribes who would know such a time, or maybe it would be their children. But not for him. For this time and this place and these people, it would remain what it had been and would be for as long as they lived.

A cruel necessity.

Author's Note: The Talheim Death Pit is the site of what could be one of the first instances of genocide. The site is located in Talheim, Germany and dates to around 5000 BC. Archaeological research has identified the settlement as belonging to the Linear Pottery Culture (Linearbandkeramik, in German). Sadly, this is not the only example of excessive violence in Neolithic-era Germany, as the sites of Herxheim (which revealed evidence of ritual cannibalism) and Schöneck-Kilianstädten (which revealed acts of mutilation and torture) are key examples of how bad it could get, and there is even a site at Schletz-Asparn in Austria that showed similar evidence of genocide. Both Talheim and Schletz-Asparn were villages that were slaughtered (though examination of the skeletons revealed that there was a strange absence of female remains, indicating that a possible motive for the attack was to acquire women), but the other two sites were possibly ritual sites.