SEALS
Chapter 12: Toothache
All of the Colosi had been strange, but the "paradise over the lake" was, perhaps, the strangest. It had taken Wander what felt like forever to find, with him getting lost in a strange dark patch of forest. He'd tried to shoot the doves that gathered beneath the trees in frustration without landing a shot. Normally, he'd never kill any meat he did not intend to eat or to give to others for food, but lately, the blood running through his veins had gotten colder. He was growing impatient.
The Colossus dripped as it rose from the waters. It had the horns of a metal bull and a green garden along its flattened back. It shot bolts of lightning that, though lightning, were muted by the lake-water. Getting to a place to start climbing it had been an exercise in endurance.
The hunter found that the top of its head (if it was, indeed, the creature's head) held teeth. The glowing mounds atop its crown proved to be very tooth-like when the young man got up close to them. They certainly could be of no function as teeth, at least not with the beast's anatomy as Wander saw it, but they had a dental look, nonetheless. They were glowing from cracks and fissures, which always had indicated sensitivity in the living statues, so Wander let fly with his sword.
The Colossus moved and moaned. It tried to oust the invader from its body in a slow, undulating landslide way. Wander winced every time he struck a "tooth." He had no true sympathy for his victim, but he remembered the keen sensation of toothache. He was reminded of a particular agony even as he tormented his earthen steed without mercy.
The young man had checked his jaw many times since coming to this forbidden country. He had not lost any teeth in any of his previous battles. This surprised him. Sooner or later, all the falling, stumbling to the tune of the roaring earth and the narrow avoidance of being stomped into the ground should have had the effect of knocking loose a few teeth, yet his mouth remained intact. It was sheer, blind luck, he'd concluded. The Dormin and their energies certainly hadn't protected him from bruising and pain. He'd nearly died and failed and he knew it. The fact that his bones and his teeth remained unbroken was something fairly miraculous.
Wander's first set of teeth weren't as lucky as his adult teeth had thus far been. When he was a little boy, he'd had a fight with another little boy in one of the paved streets in the center of his city. The older boy's gang had egged him on, shouting and spitting. Wander couldn't even remember what the fight had been about – over a stolen toy, or over who had the strongest father, probably. All he remembered was that he'd let fly with his small fists, hitting his mocker in the eye. After that, the boy had pushed him – hard, and he fell to the stone street. The fall had knocked loose a pair of his teeth. It had hurt - a lot.
They'd been soon to come out, anyway. As a boy, Wander had sort of looked forward to having a loose tooth. Being able to wiggle it around with his tongue had always been an interesting sensation. Having had teeth forced from him hadn't been pleasant at all.
Wander spent what he guessed would be "all morning" in this land in perpetual static daytime figuring out how to steer a giant by tormenting its ill-placed teeth. He made a heroic leap onto an ancient platform and taunted the Colossus into showing him its sealed heart, which he promptly put his sword through.
Some memories are unpleasant, such as a memory of pain inflicted by a bully in youth. They shape a life nonetheless. Some pieces of a soul are ugly, but are a part of it, even so. The hunter wouldn't have minded the loss of some memories if it were possible for him to be aware of their absence. However, having even that which he was going to lose anyway taken by force was always an injustice.
No matter how fast he ever ran or swam, the black threads always found him.