Days in the Hollow Earth differed from the nights only in the intensity and shade of light, which constantly illuminated the inverted world. The blazing orb of orange-yellow, ever-undulating energy that hung high up in the air, suspended inexplicably at the centre of the underground realm, lashed out periodically with tongues of molten world-blood. A vast array of glittering detritus enveloped it like a wreath of multi-colored stars, forever locked in an ever shifting dance that brought them away from the orb, then back towards it, at regular, day long intervals that mimicked the cycle of the surface world. They tinted the rays of light yellow-white, as they dispersed, then purple-blue as they coalesced into a tighter packed formation orbiting the quasi-sun.
Zilla rather preferred what passed for night in this place. The otherworldly hues bathed this land of rocky plateaus, verdant jungles and interlocking clusters of lakes in a purple glow, which triggered a kind of biological response from the living beings contained within them, that saw the entirety of the land below the enshrouded inner sun mimic its illuminated glory. At such times, he often found himself floating in lazy circles beneath the surface of the largest from the group of pools which he called home, surrounded by blinking spots of purplish light that lit up the cavernous depths like a billion fallen stars. As he drifted through the swirling shoals of purple, some of the specks stuck to his frame, remaining plastered to his flanks and scutes even as he emerged from below the waves to assume his usual vantage point upon a rocky outcropping that overlooked the main basin. It was a silly, somewhat juvenile belief, he supposed, transfixed by the purple glow adorning his usually drab, grey scales that joined in the bioluminescent harmony of the world around him. But it still made him feel like he belonged here.
The pain of awakening within the remnants of the hibernation nest, glaringly empty and bitterly cold, then clawing through hundreds of meters of bedrock only to emerge into a world nothing at all like the one he remembered leaving, had been largely dulled by time. Yet it persevered, never quite going away, always in the back of his mind, poised like claws ready to stab into him at the slightest hint of weakness. Usually, he was rather adept at warding it off, having spent countless early nights following his awakening curled into a ball and tucked away in some distant cavern, relieving the blinding pain of his mind in the only way that he knew how. Only when his mind had mended, reconciled with the loss of all those he had once held dear, did he allow his body the same mercy. But now, as he stared helplessly at the plated back of the only being that he had managed to communicate with since his awakening, in a manner exceeding simple growls and threat displays, Zilla felt those same claws reaching deep into his chest and digging into his fluttering heart. Subconsciously, his hands twitched, shifted, the sickle-like claws adorning the tips of his digits sinking easily into the scaled flesh of his forearms, already marred with older scars of similar nature. Blood spurted out, staining his chest and dripping onto rock.
A sudden, pressing urge to flee blossomed within his mind, emerging from a sea of white noise of an unrequited, still open mental link and frantic, ear-pounding heartbeats, that rendered all other thoughts an incomprehensible jumble. Zilla jerked, backpedalling away from the retreating Titan, tail lashing out in anxious swipes. He must've done something wrong, something to offend this Godzilla and cause him to scorn his presence.
Fool, Zilla hissed to himself venomously, abruptly leaned forth, lashed outward with his hands to support himself against the rock. The deep maroon smeared across the dirt-brown of stone and grey of scale went entirely unnoticed by him, even as thick rivulets of it streamed down his quaking forearms.
Too eager, too obtrusive, too desperate, too pathetic.
He whirled around, meal forgotten, and took off in a mad dash straight ahead, occasionally forced to scramble forwards on all fours when the breakneck momentum of his sprint proved to be too much for just his legs to bear.
As tempting as it was to glance over his shoulder to check if the other Titan was still watching him, Godzilla had grown accustomed to reigning in such desires. So instead he pressed forward, away from the pool cluster and further into the vast expanse of Terra Prima that stretched out before him. Though at first glance so very similar to the world Godzilla was used to traversing, this land exhumed a certain aura that seemed to have been absent from the King's surface domain ever since the coming of the humans. The waters were clear, the tree crowns shimmered the brightest shades of green imaginable, the air itself smelled sweeter, teeming with a primal sort of energy. Godzilla could taste it on the roof of his maw, a welcome change from the acrid, throat-scratching smog permeating the surface realm.
It felt surreal, engaging in an activity so mundane as a stroll. Godzilla didn't stroll, he patrolled; ever vigilant of potential threats, he never allowed himself the luxury of observing the beauty of the world that surrounded him. There had never been any time for that, no reason to allow himself to wonder around aimlessly. Yet now as the billion sand-like grains of coloured rock spun above him, sparkling akin to rays of sunlight dancing across an ocean's surface, Godzilla thought to himself that perhaps Mothra had had a point. She had often chastised him for his habit of painting a bleak, joyless image of the world – his world – in his mind. Perhaps if he had noticed, appreciated the growth of life, its tenacity and determination to flourish, rather than only focusing on scenes of its decimation, he might not have grown so resentful towards the realm he had been tasked with protecting.
But Primal Earth was not the Surface. It had never been marred by mankind, spared the horrors of their weapons and machines that razed the earth and poisoned the waters. Godzilla paused in his trek for a moment, a low growl emanating from his cavernous chest; the strange sensation washing over him, prompting feelings of calm and in turn inviting such musings, vexed him. It brought to the forefront of his mind memories long lost to the merciless passage of time, memories so alien he struggled to accept the fact that they really were his: charcoal-grey, backlit walls surrounding him; viscous slime clinging to his scales, chilling skin when a breeze wafted across his tiny frame; the inner sun glinting merrily, suspended even further above him, suddenly obscured by twin shadows that engulfed him completely. Dizzy from the sudden tide of foggy images flashing before his eyes, Godzilla shook his head, as though that would be enough to dislodge the thoughts swarming in his minds like insects.
Yet the inborn instinct to treat all manifestations of perceived weakness as a very direct threat that needed to be dealt with immediately, now seemed dulled somehow, smothered as it was by another feeling altogether. Melancholy; it wormed its way into Godzilla's mind, alongside the brief flashes of sights and sensations, weaving through them like a connecting cord to carry forth a meaning that his brain struggled to comprehend, yet his heart inherently knew to be true.
He had hatched here. In another age; another lifetime, it felt. Yet he could still remember it, those oldest memories stirred to the surface of his psyche and amplified by the strange energy reverberating through the very air of Hollow Earth. All Titans had been born here, Godzilla knew that he was no exception. The fact was not a revelation to the saurian, yet once again it was the feeling accompanying it that caught his attention. A sensation that had been all but absent from his kingly tenure.
Happiness. He had been happy here.
The shoal of light continued in its slow, eternal dance above him; the breeze gently buffeted his frame, rustling in the crowns of trees that blanketed the hill upon which he stood and carrying with it the sound of far off waterfalls. And Godzilla, he stood as if transfixed, staring out into some distant point on the mirror-like horizon, allowing himself to be lost in thought for what felt like the first time in his life. An idea blossomed within his mind as he ruminated, a sudden urge, a pull, one that felt terribly selfish and pointlessly sentimental.
He turned his massive, thickly armored head, surveying his surroundings, nostrils flaring as he scented the air. There it was; faint on the breeze, diluted by distance and faded by time, yet still potent and familiar enough for him to recognize. It had often filled his nostrils in the chaos of combat, then permeated the air, pungent, in the quiet lulls that followed the fighting. The bone-keratin tissue that formed the irregular row of massive scutes adorning his back, when superheated through the patchwork of veins crossing them by the supernova-like bonfire of azure raging within his chest, gave off a very particular, heady scent that was impossible to mistake for anything else. And now it was wafting towards him from beyond the expanse of tree-coated valleys he was overlooking, from where the flat, gravel-filled plains stretched out at a higher elevation.
Zilla wasn't sure for how long he had run, only that when he finally came to a stop, hunched over, panting and quaking from something other than exhaustion, he realized he had no idea where he was. The trees in this place rose high above him, their branches, thicker than his body was long, intertwined miles above his head into a thickly weaved canopy that cast the surrounding landscape of gnarled roots and grassy earth in deep shadows. He hated it.
Despite the enormous height of the vegetation, the space felt too cluttered to him, stifling, pressing down on him from all sides like the collapsing tunnels he had dug out of to emerge into this world. His breath came in too short, too shallow gasps, chest spasming in tandem with every ragged wheeze that did nothing to fill his rapidly constricting lungs. He was suddenly, painfully, aware of just how alone he was. Screwing his eyes shut tightly, Zilla let out a choked whimper, violently dragging his snout along the moist ground as if to physically peel away the dark thoughts poisoning his mind. It proved to be of little use, they clung still to his psyche like parasites, ever drawing blood with serrated claws.
What a foolish sentiment to think he would ever be anything without Pack, that he could live without Pack. Without Pack, a Jira was nothing. Weak of flesh and mind, uncoordinated in the hunt, clumsy in the chase. They were meant to travel in groups, never alone. In Pack every member had a role, a function, a purpose. When alone, his life held no meaning. Like this, he had no purpose, as no one remained now to give him one. A low keening sound escaped him, desperate and pathetic, even muffled as it was by his bent over form. Even this very world rejected him, all at once too dizzyingly spacious and too oppressively narrow, too alien for him: a relic of a bygone time that didn't belong in this age, where creatures like him lived in silent solitude, and never would.
A hiss, sharp and abrupt, disrupted the torrent of tormenting thoughts; one that, he realized with a start, came from his own maw. Claws caught on bone, scratched it with an irksome sound. A smell, ripe and heady, hit his nostrils like a physical blow; the stench of blood freshly spilled. Confused, he looked down and jerked in repulsion, slowly removing his clawed, trembling fingers from the patchwork of deep, bloodied furrows that wrapped around his mangled arms. Miraculously, he must've missed all of the vital tendons and arteries; the flow of blood was steady and rapid but not gushing and he could still fully control all of his digits. Crimson dripped down his limbs in a multitude of rivulets, tracing convoluted patterns over exposed flesh and yet unmarred scales, gathering into an ever-expanding puddle upon the ground below. His eyes were glued to the sight, unable to glance away, body frozen, mind empty but for a strange, thought-numbing buzz that steadily rose in pitch.
Perhaps he should remedy that, something whispered in his head. Fingers twitched of their own volition, as if itching to resume their deadly work.
You should've allowed the rock and dirt to bury all the memory of you, the whispering returned with force, pouncing like a starved predator upon an unsuspecting prey. Venomous, brimming with malice and a sick, twisted sort of glee at the very prospect of bringing him further pain. Let us fix that error, no?
"No," Zilla growled out loud, teeth gnashing, eyes tightly closed in concentration. His breaths, though yet labored, began to slowly even out. Once his heart had stopped hammering against his ribs and his vision refocused from the blurred, swimming mess it had devolved into, he gingerly opened his eyes. He lay curled up into an embryotic position, braced on his knees with the flat top of his head pressed flush against the fragrant earth, arms cradled to his chest. The phantom buzz in his ears hadn't yet fully subsided, dark spots danced along the very edges of his vision and lungs still shuddered with each full breath. So he took a moment to anchor himself in reality, as he had learned to do during his previous breakdowns.
He focused on what his nose told him, what his ears picked up, what his body felt; only his sight had a habit of betraying him at times, so he learned to rely instead on the stimuli his remaining senses provided him. A myriad of scents permeated the air; the earth he pressed against was damp and fertile, multicolored vegetation growing from it in dense patches surrounding the massive tree trunks, each a different stroke upon the canvas of smells that coalesced into a single harmonic scent that Zilla considered to be the scent of life itself. A faint moisture wafted over him, likely sprayed up into the air by some waterfall in the vicinity and carried on the wind, its familiar feeling upon his scales like a balm for frayed nerves. That same breeze rustled among the treetops, whistled between his dorsal scutes in gentle caresses that allowed for tensed muscles to hesitantly relax, joining in the chorus of sounds that the forest seemed to be singing out. Arms uncurled from where they had been pinned to a now evenly rising and falling chest, palms pressed flat against the supple ground, the shrub-coated earth squeezing between the digits of his front limbs. Slowly, his body unwound from its tensed up position. Tail uncoiled, legs stretched out into a more comfortable, relaxed crouch.
With one final deep exhale, Zilla again felt like his body belonged to him and him alone. The voices would return, of that he had no doubt, but next time he would be ready for them. This time he had been caught off guard, before he could have employed what tactics he had learned to combat the mental assault. It would not happen again.
Glancing down, Zilla winced at the sight of his arms, now caked in a mixture of dirt and drying blood. The gashes marring his forearms were beginning to scab over already, but he still felt compelled to clean away some of the dirt, so as to not let it fuse with the developing scar tissue. Focusing solely on that simple activity allowed him to reconsider his position. Zilla had no clue where he was exactly. He rarely left the immediate surroundings of the pool cluster he had declared his home, certainly he had never travelled this far away inland. Though the thought left him a bit hesitant, he knew he would have to return there soon.
The other Titan – Godzilla, as he had called himself – could still be there, all armored scales, impassive stares and cold light. Zilla paused his ministrations for a moment, considering. If he was still there, then he would leave as soon as he saw Zilla. Something told him the other saurian wouldn't be interested in remaining in the same place as him for any extended period of time. The realization stabbed uncomfortably into Zilla's heart, but he resigned himself to ignoring that particular sensation. Nothing could be done about that, he had already made enough of a fool of himself in front of this Godzilla. To attempt communication again would be pointless.
He was just about to resume the cleaning process when something caught his attention, a series of snaps and rustles somewhere above him and to the right. Instinctively, his muscles bunched up in anticipation, entire body tensed, aware even before the conscious part of his brain recognized and categorized the sounds as a potential threat. He leapt away just as whatever had made those noises jumped down. If only he had been a fraction of a second swifter.
Something slammed into him bodily, sending him sprawling onto his side with an enraged screech. It straddled him even as he bucked and writhed for freedom, though his kicks managed only to send showers of upturned earth flying in all directions, given his awkward position. Long, segmented legs zipped across Zilla's vision, flailing desperately in an attempt to hold him down. When one of the overlong limbs dallied a tad too long near his jaws, he lunged forward, clamping down upon the leg and easily crushing it to a crunch of shattered chitin. Just as he did, he felt a pair of razor sharp prongs pierce the thinner scales of his torso, right below the ribs. Zilla hissed, half enraged, half panicked, as he felt a tingling sensation beginning to spread from where his skin had been stabbed through. Numbness followed soon in its wake, searing through his veins like poison, hastened all the more by the frantic beats of his heart; he could already feel his bucking legs turn slow and sluggish. He knew he had to be quick.
With a furious bellow, Zilla braced his hands against the ground and heaved with all his might, catching his assailant by surprise and flipping himself onto his back. A dark, multi-limbed shape loomed above him, wholly unfamiliar to the saurian. Instead of wasting time he didn't have to study it more closely, Zilla immediately lashed out with both feet. This time, with his foe directly in front of him, his aim was impeccable. With a wet, fleshy crunch the strike met its mark, coaxing a chittering screech of agony from his enemy. Its force was great enough to send it flying off him and landing in a heap several body lengths away. Taking advantage of their momentary separation, Zilla tried to quickly get to his feet, but found his movements somewhat more listless than normal. The poison coursing through his bloodstream slowed limbs, blurred his vision, caused his mind to spin in hazy circles.
Despite the fog that settled over his senses, he could still see his attacker clearly enough. It was some manner of an insectoid creature, as big as him and not unlike the ones Zilla had contended with in the ancient past, whenever Pack had ventured into already occupied cave systems. Its body was separated into two parts: a smaller elliptical torso from which four pairs of long, thin legs with multiple joints sprouted, and a large, bulbous hindquarters affixed to the torso's backside. Rows of lidless, unblinking black eyes glistened up at him, some bleeding a sickly green liquid from where his kick had shattered them. At the front of the head-torso a set of mandibles hanged limply, similarly broken and oozing drops of yellow-white venom that sizzled when it made contact with the underbrush. With the initial element of surprise gone, the insect didn't appear to be overly eager to fight. Though its emotionless eyes lacked the ability to emote in any capacity, Zilla fancied its hesitance to attack was a sign of fear.
He wouldn't hesitate. A challenging roar tore its way out of his throat as he lunged into a full charge towards the insect. His laser focus upon the eight-legged creature allowed him to remain concentrated enough to maintain full control over his body, even as the world around him flipped and spun in impossible ways. It jerked, surprised at the saurian Titan's sudden attack and made a pitiful attempt at defending itself, the front four of its limbs raised and poised to strike the oncoming foe. It would never have that chance. Now mere meters away, Zilla's eyes flashed emerald for a split second and then his maw opened, disgorging a torrent of jade-hued flames directly into what passed for the insect's face. An agonized screech shattered the forest's ambience, though it was soon overpowered by the crackling of flames as they hungrily consumed the convulsing body. The flames twinkled merrily, reflecting in the amber-colored eyes of the saurian, who gazed upon his kill with something akin to silent awe.
It had only just occurred to him that he had not been in a proper fight since before the prolonged hibernation. Hunting water bound prey didn't constitute for a fight, not like those had ever been particularly challenging in the first place. None of the other inhabitants of this underground world had ever challenged him, neither the frilled fliers with serpentine bodies, nor the stout, quadruped reptilian beasts stalking the drier plains; they had only ever limited themselves to threatening violence, rather than engaging in it outright. This insect had likely seen Zilla's breakdown and deemed him easy prey, a lone Titan already fallen victim to the predators that lurked within his mind. But despite that he had prevailed. Alone. Without any aid from Pack. He had done this alone.
Something bubbled up in his chest, just as warm as the previous flames but considerably less destructive. The hissing voice in the back of his head was quiet now, nary a trace of it left. Perhaps there was purpose for his continued existence yet. Not to protect Pack with his life, but to honor it. So long as he lived, so too would the memory of all those who had once walked alongside him. And the logical part of Zilla's brain knew that they would not wish for him to join them too soon.
Zilla threw his head back and roared towards the tree canopy, the triumphant call echoing between trunks and branches, its reverberations making the ground beneath his feet quake… only for it to abruptly cut off as something vile and acrid rose up in his gullet. His head dropped, body shaking. A low, pained groan slipped past his jaws, followed soon after by a wave of bile and partly digested fish meat that spilled across the ground. He retched and gagged, struggling to gasp in a lungful of air, until his clenching stomach could purge itself no more. Swaying unsteadily, he took a few steps away from the dying bonfire he had turned the insect's corpse into and was pleased to find his vision much less distorted than it had previously been. It seemed as though his body was already cleansing itself of the venom's effects, albeit in a decidedly disgusting manner. The stench of burnt flesh and chitin slowly permeated the air around him, not helping his yet unsettled stomach. All he wanted now was to curl up on the rocky outcrop he had frequented and sleep off the rest of the haziness and nausea.
Turning away from the scene of his victory, he stared at the uniform wall of trees surrounding him. For a moment doubt filled his mind; could he even make it back? He had bolted blindly in a random direction away from the pools and ended up in a place he had never been in before, with little to no knowledge of how to find his way back home. But then something caught his eye: a stain of dark crimson upon the foliage, stark against the medley of greens and browns surrounding him; and he chuffed, somewhat amused. It seemed that he had, inadvertently, left a trail for himself to follow.
It had been quite a while since Godzilla last trekked anywhere on foot for a prolonged amount of time. Though still perfectly capable of traversing the land, he had long since taken a liking to utilizing the underwater form of travel instead, as it was both faster and less troublesome for someone of his stature. Alas no water pathway led to where he was going and so he was forced to remain earthbound for his journey, however infuriatingly slow it was proving to be.
The valleys he crossed through undulated a lot like the waves that dotted the oceans of the Surface. Their gentle slopes were awash with all manner of vegetation, tree clumps dotted with shrubs aplenty; all of it familiarly miniscule to the Surface-faring Titan. A multitude of tiny, leaf-winged fliers made their home in the tree crowns; they all took to the skies with a chorus of discordant squeaks and cries as Godzilla trampled their nesting grounds underfoot. He chuffed in slight annoyance at the cacophony but didn't break his stride, leaving a trail of flattened foliage in his wake.
Eventually ground began to peak from beneath the cover of green-brown with increasing frequency as the treeline dispersed, replaced instead with a sharper, steadily rising incline. Gravel and loose stone crunched underneath his feet, stirred into an avalanche. The slope he was climbing kept increasing in steepness, seamlessly morphing from dust and rubble coated foothills into a barren landscape of jagged rocks that led upwards to the plateau proper, akin to the mountains Godzilla had often avoided. The verticality of the acclivity forced him to slow his gait even further and, not soon after, lean his massive body forward to keep himself balanced during the ascent. Rocks crumpled and shifted under his weight, the unexpected fluidity of the terrain making him sway unsteadily, to the point where he was practically clambering up the plateau's side on all fours or risk tumbling all the way back down. Thick, sharp-tipped claws dug into the rock, piercing through the topmost layering of slag to find firm purchase in the sturdy bedrock beneath and Godzilla began to heave his bulky frame up the slope, relying mostly on the deftness of his hands while his feet scrabbled for proper holds to support his weight.
With an irritated snort, twin columns of rocky detritus were sent shooting outward of his nostrils. This was demeaning, the Alpha thought to himself. He had barely made it halfway up the slope before the muscles of his forelimbs, entirely unused to this kind of exertion they weren't meant for, began to ache and burn. A ridiculous notion that, those same arms with which he had broken apart jaws and torn off limbs of his foes with ease, now struggled to uphold his bulk. Godzilla could feel a growl building in the depths of his chest, rippling his scaly lips into a teeth-baring snarl; he would sooner tear off his own arms than admit he had difficulties scaling something as laughable as a plateau's slope. Rage, white-hot and sizzling, flooded through his veins, settled over his eyes like a reddish sheen, pumped into muscles that bunched and tensed once more, and suddenly his claws weren't clinging to ashen-grey, crumbling rock, but tearing through golden scales and wing membrane. Ozone-tinged wind wafted around him, the heady lightning-sharp stench scratched at the back of his throat, acrid blood coated his tongue, the rising hum of his dorsal plates steadily igniting buzzed in his ears.
And then, before he realized what was happening, his torso crested over the lip of the incline, as though breaching a wave on a stormy sea, and slammed down against the flat, detritus rich surface of the plateau. For a moment, Godzilla thrashed about in the final throes of rage, mind yet supplying visions of enormous wings and three slithering heads snaking about him. Another blink and the Golden Demise was gone, leaving the saurian sprawled out haphazardly on his front, with the bottom half of his body dangling over the edge still, feet kicking for purchase. Growling at his yet another lapse in control, teeth gnashing viciously, Godzilla crawled forwards on all fours, then, not without some difficulty, pushed his body up into a fully upright position. Even dead, Ghidorah would not cease haunting him.
This high up the scent that had lured him to this space became all the more pronounced, carried on the breeze that was now blowing directly into his snout. His nostrils flared instinctively, allowing the familiar smell to chase off the less than favorable thoughts. In stark contrast to the environs he had just trekked through, the landscape atop the acclivity was entirely barren and cast in shadows. The land-sky that hung unerringly above his head appeared to be lower here, close enough for Godzilla to catch a glimpse of a pack of reptilian creatures scuffling over a half-eaten carcass of a Warbat. It was also much warmer here; the very earth beneath his feet, that cracked and shattered with each of his lumbering footsteps, seemed to be nearly boiling. Nothing grew in this place. A sea of grey rock and slag stretched out as far as the eye could see, its uniformity broken up only by smatterings of bleached bones jutting out from the crannied surface. Unbidden, Godzilla's gait slowed, steps more measured and careful to avoid desecrating the last remnants of Titans long passed. A place of eternal rest such as this deserved his respect.
Mindful of not disrupting the veritable boneyard, Godzilla bypassed the largest of the bone clusters. None of them appeared familiar to him, the chipped horns and various swaths of bone plating protruding from the windswept dunes of volcanic gravel were all the wrong size, the wrong shape. Though the scent had intensified, its source appeared to be some ways off yet. These desiccated skeletons smelled of nothing but heat-dried death, a scent that also increased in intensity the further forwards he went, its magnitude threatening to overwhelm the one that had originally driven him to this place.
For how long have Titans been coming here to die?
The question bubbled up unbidden in his mind, rippling along its hitherto undisturbed surface. Usually remaining laser focused on his goal and nothing else, was enough to carry Godzilla through millennia worth of obligations without prompting so much as a passing hesitation. But once again on this day, old tactics had proven to be insufficient. The saurian's gait slowed, tail thumping irritably against the ground and sending a spray of grey dust shooting up into the air. His gaze roamed across the wasteland, tracing the outlines of twisted spinal cords and gravel-clogged ribcages dotting it. There were so many, hundreds of skeletons, thousands maybe, stretching out in all directions. Sightless gazes of empty eye sockets bored into him from all around, he could feel their dead glares like a physical weight crushing him.
More Titans had died here than he had seen throughout his entire life.
The realization made Godzilla's skin crawl in an unfamiliar way. A low whine of his internal flame slowly igniting filled the otherwise dead silent air and he realized his body was reacting on instinct without a conscious effort on his part. But a threat display wouldn't be able to fend off his own thoughts.
He felt small, insignificant. What was he, a lone Titan, compared to all those who had lived and perished, their bones now half buried in a forgotten corner of Hollow Earth. Entire eons-long lives reduced to naught but skeletons, picked clean by scavengers and biting winds, all memory of them diminished to dust much like their bodies. This would happen to him too, almost happened not a day ago. Had Mothra not been there, had she not suffused his bleeding, battered body with her own life essence, his own bones would have remained in the ruins of the human nest-cluster. In time, they would have built over them, cleared them out, buried them beneath a tomb of their scentless rock and the world would continue on, unbothered. Another ancient being joining its brethren in oblivion, all deeds rendered meaningless.
Godzilla hadn't even realized his feet were moving all this time, carrying him forward even when his mind wandered, eyes staring out towards the horizon but not truly seeing anything. Through the haze of stifling thoughts, a familiar scent pierced, bringing him out of the dark depths and back to the surface. He blinked owlishly, glazed over eyes focusing once again, pupils dilating.
The skeleton that stretched out before him was incomplete. Individual ribs and the entirety of the bottom jaw were missing; a lot of the scutes had been torn off in full, while some had been shattered into jagged stumps. Yet there was no mistaking what this being had been in life. A small sound left Godzilla then, soft and unsure. Slowly, he lowered himself to an all fours position, bringing his head closer to the bones. Whether this had been one of his parents, he couldn't tell. It didn't matter, not really, it had been a member of his species all the same. The dorsal plates were dark and lifeless, not a spark of the azure inferno to be seen, and yet they gave off a scent as though they had just finished charging in preparation for unleashing the coming torrent. For the briefest of moments, Godzilla allowed his eyes to slide closed, nostrils flaring out to drink in the smell, comforting in a subtle undertone that differentiated it from his own. He could almost imagine another Godzilla standing nearby, scutes aglow, eyes aflame, ready for combat like it had been in an age long passed, where he was just a hatchling observing from the safety of the nest how his parents dispatched of invaders of their territory.
But then his eyes opened again and the vision was gone, the illusion shattered. Dry wind whistled with renewed fervor, through hollowed out eye sockets, between jutting ribs like bared fangs, slowly dissipating the scent and blowing gravel into his nose and across his scaly hide. Reminding him with stark, brutal clarity of a simple, unchanging truth.
He was alone.
Now that he wasn't sprinting the entire time, the way back to his pool took Zilla the rest of the day. By the time he reached his designated home what passed for night in this place had settled over the landscape. Tree trunks and sinewy branches glowed softly with a myriad of colors, mimicking the purple-cyan shoal enshrouding the now dimmed inner sun. The gashes in his forearms had long since stopped bleeding, though scabbed wounds yet remained, bright crimson against grey scales. He would need to wash them off at some point. Right now, all he wanted to do was curl up and sleep through the entire day. The worst of the poison had worn off over the duration of his trek, though some of it yet circled throughout his bloodstream, clouding his brain with a fog of grogginess that made his limbs heavy and his feet drag.
The smooth-edged crags extended far above his head on either side of the ravine he was padding through, casting it in deep shadow. The path snaked below outcropping ridges, their upward facing, mineral-studded fronts glimmered faintly with reflected light like fallen stars. Its walls intermittently narrowed and expanded, in some places just wide enough to allow his lithe frame to squeeze through. As far as he knew no one else was aware of this particular pathway; only tracks visible along its sandstone walls were his own clawmarks left in the wake of his previous, infrequent excursions. One final bend that he had to duck to fit through, forced to drag his belly along the smoothed out rock and scraping the low-dipping overhang with his scutes, and at last he emerged into the basin.
Unsurprisingly, it was entirely deserted. Even in his absence, the immediate surroundings of his favorite napping spot had become sufficiently suffused with his smell to ward off any enterprising beasts looking for a place to claim as their own.
A small, tired sigh escaped him. The water of the pool rippled merrily, the bioluminescent algae contained in it illuminating it from within with vibrant greens and blues that cast undulating impressions along the circumference of the basin. Normally he would've found the display eye-catchingly dazzling, but today his gaze was glued firmly to the pale-yellow rock of a thin trail that led up to his usual perch. The fish he had left there during his mad scramble hours prior, was gone. So some scavenger did test their luck and snagged his dinner; Zilla didn't feel particularly in a mood to get upset over that. Instead, he sprawled out on the wedge-shaped outcrop, chin propped on its very tip, head tilted at an angle that allowed him to gaze into the swirling vortex of colors below.
Usually, he'd sleep in a somewhat cramped cave below the cliff, which he had carved out himself in the easily malleable sandstone, early on into his stay here. The tight space filled with his body heat quickly, growing downright stifling in moments, but the close proximity of the walls and the warmth reminded him of how Pack used to sleep: piled up, bodies coiled around one another to conserve heat. When he closed his eyes he could pretend that he was surrounded by the bodies of his packmates instead of cave walls. But a comforting illusion could only last so long.
Here, on the overlook, it was much colder. The wind blew fiercely, buffeting his flanks with the force of rogue waves on an open sea and offering little in terms of comfort. In its absence, came clarity. He had spent all this time, countless days and nights since his reawakening, on wallowing in self-pity, on bemoaning his loss, on eating just enough to prevent his stomach from digesting itself, on lying stock still on this very slab of rock and staring, unseeing, into nothing. Surviving rather than living, ever vigilant in his wait. For what exactly he had been waiting for, he had no idea. Pack would not return, basic instinct prevented death from claiming him, the world would not end. He remained in this alien realm, on his own; a final relic of a bygone age, that had refused to be buried along with its other remains.
What would Pack think, if they were able to see him like this? Zilla somewhat doubted they would've been pleased to see him slowly waste away in the pointless monotony of his daily routine.
A Jira with no Pack, was nothing. A Jira's singular goal in life was to do everything to the benefit of Pack and all of its members. But being on his own didn't necessarily mean he had no Pack, as he had initially assumed. All it meant was that his Pack had now narrowed down to a singular member, upon the wellness of whom he now had to focus. And in retrospect he had been doing a terrible job of ensuring the welfare of Pack: hiding away, hunting only when necessary, allowing thoughts of inadequacy to poison his mind. To flourish Pack needed to live, learn and adapt, not simply survive, sequestered away in small caverns.
A low hum began to reverberate throughout the basin, its lilting cadence echoing off of hollowed out sandstone walls. Zilla could feel it sending faint tremors through the rocky outcropping upon which he lied, a familiar resonance subtly rattling his bones, washing over his heart like a balm. The reason for the familiarity became evident when he realized the sound was, in fact, being produced by him: a series of soft trills, punctuated by the occasional barking intonation. He paused, mid-trill, when he realized what he had subconsciously been doing. It had been so long since he last heard this tune, a manner of lullaby Pack would intone after a successful hunt, when all packmates lied safe and full-bellied in their nest. With numbers advantage and an entirely unique way of communicating they had had little to fear from potential predators lurking around, their voices carrying loud and far across the dug out pathways of their underground nesting sites. But now he was above ground, alone…
Before Zilla could even finish that thought, he was already dragging himself up to sit on his haunches, forelimbs braced against the ground, previous exhaustion all but forgotten. A fire burned within his aureate orbs, one that had, up until this point, been entirely absent from them, as Zilla threw his head upwards, snout pointed in the direction of the inner sun enclosed within a cocoon of shimmering violet-cyan. His call came out louder now, more determined, though scratchy still, vocal chords yet unable to accurately produce the sounds needed after millennia of disuse. At first his own voice sounded off in his ears, uncharacteristically singular in a tune meant to be sang by a chorus of eager voices, responding to each other in musical harmony. Undeterred, he continued, the song growing stronger with each trilling note, every barking cough accentuated with a hard slam of his tail, echoing now all throughout the pool cluster. Simultaneously joyous and melancholic, triumphant and sorrowful, it felt like a goodbye and a promise all at once. A final tribute to the departed by the one left behind, an oath to remember and persevere.
Zilla would've likely continued in this manner until the shoal of sparkling minerals around the faux-sun dispersed and brightened once again, so caught up he was in it all. But something cracked, splashed into the water of the pool. Somewhere below and to the right, the rock groaned and slid. He broke the song off with a loud snap of his jaws, angular head darting towards the source of the sound, body hunching over in preparation for a leap. Golden orbs met orange and Zilla froze, wide-eyed and staring in mute shock. And Godzilla stared right back at him, his expression mimicking Zilla's own, from the place where he had, less than gracefully, slid down the lip of the basin in an avalanche of dislodged rock and crumbled dirt.
It felt wrong to leave the skeleton exposed to the elements. The notion might've been foolish: it had remained like this for eons before Godzilla ever found it, but logic really wasn't something he was prone to considering at this time. Pulling back with a snorting exhale, muzzle scrunching with a mixture of emotions, the Alpha Titan reached forwards with his forelimbs and began to heap handfuls of dirt over the heat-dried bones, burying them below a mountain of ashen detritus. The scent was gone, smothered beneath a mound of gravel. Satisfied, Godzilla began to haul himself upwards, back to standing. He winced, the action pulling at his yet aching body, flaring up bruises that hadn't had the time to properly heal. A wave of exhaustion descended upon him, as he put his back towards the freshly created grave and began to trudge back the way he had come; his footprints had already been half filled by wind-carried dust, a few more moments spent contemplating above the skeleton and they would've disappeared entirely. Dirt would cover his bones and his tracks and his entire being as well, one day.
Godzilla's gait quickened at the thought, yet no rage followed in the wake of such thoughts. He felt too spent, too numb to muster up any useful anger. In this primal earth, none were around to witness his mask slipping away, revealing the exhausted, hurting warrior beneath it. There was no need to put up the Alpha front down here, not like Warbats or Leafwings particularly cared about his standing; he could eradicate them all the same.
Darkness, purple-hued, descended over the underground realm, as he journeyed forth, back towards the pool cluster through which he had entered this place. Remaining in Hollow Earth seemed terribly unappealing all of a sudden, the atmosphere here prompted him to fall victim to flights of melancholy and introspection at an alarming frequency. All these things he would rather not think about, now crowded his thoughts like buzzing insects. He would return back to the Surface, a domain he had become all too familiar with over his eons of stewardship, with its buzzing, man-made nest-hives and their sea-faring metal beasts. At least those things he was familiar with, knew what to expect of and how to respond to. He had grown ever so tired of how Primal Earth seemed to relish in making him question himself, insomuch as a place could relish in anything. It was best to put it behind him, to file this excursion away in the deepest recesses of his memory and never return to it, lest it dig its claws into him further.
The song reached him as he was cresting over the final hill range that concealed the pool cluster from his eyes. He paused, surprised and confused, tail flicking out wearily. Similarly to much of what he had experienced here so far, the tune seemed entirely alien in concept, its purpose unclear to him. Perhaps it was meant as a deterrent, whatever creature was producing these noises must've sensed his arrival and was attempting to intimidate him into backing off. Why else would another being announce its presence so loudly and unabashedly. Yet the call scarcely carried with it any aggressive or hostile intent, its cadence striking a wholly different chord within Godzilla. It reminded him of Mothra's song, the ethereal notes of it heralding her coming with a sort of primal, everlasting beauty. This one rose and fell in similar, undulating patterns, akin to an ocean's ebb and flow, less a call to war and more a heartfelt lament. Head cocked, curious, Godzilla advanced further, steps measured, as though he didn't want to interrupt the melody with his approach.
An inkling as to the identity of the melody's author sprouted in his mind, emboldened still by the sensation of that same presence he had felt when communicating with the strange Titan that had seemingly claimed this area as his home. Where before it had been like a calm ocean murmuring at the very edges of Godzilla's consciousness, mindful of keeping a respectful distance, now it roiled uncontrollably, wild and untamed like a storm, broadcasting jumbled thoughts with the intensity of a maelstrom. Images flashed through Godzilla's mind, washing over his mindscape like tsunami waves, leaving behind afterimages seared into his eyelids. A cave; illuminated with jade flames, dozens of scaly bodies pressed together, a multitude of voices carrying that same tune now reverberating throughout the air. Ocean depths; painted pale green with glowing eyes and pulsating scutes, lithe reptilian frames cutting through calm waters, twisting and twirling in an intricate, elegant dance, the song ever present even below the waves. Another cave; small, cramped, a lone body curled in on itself in the confined space, claws dug deep into scaled flesh, warmth and misery and lung-crashing, all-encompassing loneliness and the scent of blood permeating the air in a dizzying concoction. A rocky outcrop, overlooking a pool of shimmering waters, that same lone figure now unfurled, snout pointed towards the darkened faux-sky, carrying a song meant for a multitude of throats, alone, equal parts grieving and determined.
The mental barrage was dizzying, causing a steady, painful pressure to build behind Godzilla's eyes from its magnitude. Such was its force that it quite literally blinded him for the briefest of moments, before he had had the time to steel his mind and properly repel the onslaught. A moment was all it took for him to take a wrong step; he had wandered too close to the basin's lip where the sandstone was flimsier and, under his substantial weight, it crumbled instantly. With a less than dignified shriek, Godzilla found himself plummeting downwards, gliding along the concave wall as though it were a monstrously sized slide and abruptly coming to a halt at the very bottom. Half-submerged in water, half-buried in an avalanche of sandstone detritus, dorsal plates stuck in the slope practically all the way to the hilt, angrily snorting out rubble and dust, he realized that the mental tempest buffeting his brain had ceased. In its wake, only a slight ringing remained, like a concussive blast had gone off directly into his eardrums.
Instinctively shaking his head, as though to dislodge the persistent buzzing, he glanced up only to find wide, golden-hued eyes staring right back at him. Zilla had perched on the very edge of the outcropping, poised as though to strike, belly pressed against the rock, leg muscles bunching under grey scales. His mental presence had receded entirely, a stark contrast to even their initial interaction; Godzilla couldn't sense the other Titan's telepathic link at all when previously it had been just a scale's length away from his own mindscape. The silent emptiness was eerie, somehow.
For a moment they simply stared at each other, mirrored looks of shock and borderline embarrassment playing along both of their muzzles. And then Godzilla broke the eye contact, twisting sideways in an effort to wrench his scutes out of the rock they had become lodged in, but the awkward position he found himself in made that difficult. The water roiled, foamy waves batting all around the circumference of the pool from the force of his thrashing. After a few more yanks, he paused, snarling in indignant rage, eyes alighting with azure. A low trill prevented him from blowing a brand new hole in the cluster and the building hum of his pulsating scutes died down.
Godzilla's head swung back towards the other saurian, teeth yet bared. Zilla seemed to shrink into himself the slightest bit at the sight, expression blank, and he gestured with his angular snout towards Godzilla, then mimed digging with his forelimbs. The Alpha's eyeridges furrowed at the display. Surely this Jira hadn't suddenly gone telepathically impotent. He had already displayed great expertise in utilizing that manner of communication during their first encounter, why would he choose to feign muteness now.
Because last time he spoke to you, you shut him off and left.
In an instant, his snarl dropped away. He ever so hated that small voice in the back of his head that made itself known at the most inopportune of times; after all winning an argument was rather difficult when one was arguing with oneself.
He met Zilla's eyes again. The saurian hadn't moved, patiently waiting for his response. On any other day, in any other situation, Godzilla would've undoubtedly gotten enraged at the very implication that he might require aid. But the ever-smoldering embers of fury which resided in his chest had cooled off. He couldn't find it within himself to get angry. All things considered, it was nice of Zilla to even offer; Godzilla hadn't exactly come off as friendly during their initial meeting. Not for the first time today, he found himself questioning the other Titan's motives, the reason for why he would offer aid in the first place. And then one of the images – memories – he had experienced mere moments ago, once again flashed across his vision: body contorted to fit inside a cramped cave, claws piercing scales, the heady scent of freshly spilled blood. Suddenly, the answer seemed all too obvious.
Godzilla gave a small nod, immediately glancing off to the side, unable to hold the other Titan's gaze any longer. Out of the corner of his eye he could spot Zilla's wide eyes blink once, twice. Clearly he hadn't expected his offer to be accepted. Without much hesitation, he dove forward, sinuous body straightening out in the brief moment of flight, then cut through the water's surface with nary a splash. Godzilla suddenly developed a vested interest in the glittering specks of azure-jade – strange, he could've sworn they had been purely azure a moment ago – that swirled in complex patterns in the depths below him, when his fellow saurian resurfaced right beside him. Unable to properly dig his claws into the rock from his current position, Zilla was forced to climb up the largely crumbled slope, carefully maneuvering himself into a better vantage point above Godzilla. Deft digits curled into the rubble, their owner balanced expertly to prevent any further disruptions to the unstable surface and, with one free arm, began to expand the deep furrows created by Godzilla's tumble.
As Zilla worked, his arm passed progressively more often above Godzilla's head, splashing water all over the King's snout. While vaguely annoying, Godzilla was more than willing to disregard it completely in favor of not looking in Zilla's direction whatsoever, lest it further substantialize what was presently happening, until some of the water dribbled past his lips and pooled on the tip of his tongue. Something about it tasted off, metallic, familiar. Despite himself, Godzilla glanced up with the subtlest uptilt of his head he could manage. Zilla's forelimb, moving into and back out of his field of vision in steady, measured strokes, was covered in scabbed over claw marks. By all accounts, they appeared fresh, and a mixture of water and exertion had seemingly caused them to crack in places and ooze fresh ichor in thin, pale-pink rivulets all the way down to Zilla's elbow. If the saurian had noticed, he didn't seem bothered by that fact. Something unpleasant stirred within Godzilla's breast at the sight, blinking forcefully as more droplets were flung into his eyes from another pass of Zilla's arm. Neither the sight nor the taste of blood bothered him. He had seen, dealt and nursed wounds aplenty over the millennia, but they had only ever been wounds sustained in battle, the most natural of places for such a harm to occur. The ones marring the other Titan's front limbs were decidedly not battle-earned, he would've been able to tell that much even without the foreign memory unfurling unbidden before his eyes, and he realized with a start that the stinging vice currently ensnaring his heart might've very well been guilt.
Zilla was alone.
The many-voiced Pack from hazy memories was gone, no longer with him, and in its absence, only he remained. Never again would he be able to share the warmth of scaled bodies in the night. Never again would he be able to savor a fresh catch amidst triumphant trills and playful nibbles. Never again would he roam the waters, their inky depths colored pale jade from a multitude of pulsating scutes.
Zilla was alone.
Just like Godzilla was alone.
The silence between them felt all at once deafening. It wasn't just the lack of a mental connection the other Titan seemed most comfortable communicating through, that bothered Godzilla. Zilla seemed to be taking particular care to not even touch him, however briefly or accidentally. Not out of any aversion towards him, Godzilla was fairly sure, why would he have offered aid otherwise. Was he afraid of doing something wrong, projecting the wrong thing, probing with too little delicacy? Was he truly so wary of angering the King again that he would lock himself within his own mind, render himself mute entirely just to save himself from having to suffer another cold rebuff?
A series of cracks broke the otherwise complete silence, rubble pelted down against Godzilla's back and dorsal plates, coating his hide with a fine layer of sandy dust, as the last vestiges of his prison crumbled away, and he was free once more. He slipped into the pool, shaking out his bulk to clear it of any offending detritus and swiftly turning to face his rescuer, who had already climbed almost entirely out of the basin without so much as a glance back.
Perhaps it was the exhaustion, momentarily stifled by the day's excitement but not yet fully vanquished, that allowed his thoughts to stray freely. Perhaps it was the longing, magnified and steadily rising in force ever since the skeleton's discovery, that briefly overpowered his Alpha instincts. Perhaps it was empathy, the one thing Mothra had never ceased to insist on him possessing, that made him capable of relating to the other Titan's plight, so very similar to his own, and shaped his thoughts and pushed them to the very forefront of his mindscape. Or perhaps it was sheer pettiness at being ignored in such a blatant matter, that prevented him from allowing Zilla to simply slink away into the night. Godzilla himself wasn't able to tell and, before he could stop and chastise himself over the stupidity of his own actions, the mental call was shaped and presented in the most readily available manner he could possibly muster.
Hear?
Zilla stopped dead in his tracks, hooked claws of one dextrous hand curled over the edge of the basin. Even his tail, swaying sideways to maintain balance during the climb, stiffened. Hesitantly, the grey-scaled saurian glanced back over his shoulder. Pools of honey-gold bored into fire-orange, seeking, glimmering with reflected light from the pool's swirling surface and a fragile sort of hope. Slowly, carefully, something unfurled in the incorporeal darkness beyond the border of Godzilla's mindscape, akin to an ocean's rising tide washing again over swaths of exposed seafloor. It reached out, reluctant, brushed along the edges of Godzilla's consciousness, gently plucked out the message intended for it and retreated to analyze it, as though a predator who had just claimed its prey. Yet it lingered, not disappearing completely like Godzilla had feared it might. Zilla's head jerked in surprise the tiniest bit, the motion not escaping the Alpha's notice and a vaguely smug expression softened the perpetually hardened lines of his snout; he was capable of causing surprises too.
Hear.
The response eased itself into Godzilla's mind, light and happy and relieved all at once. Godzilla hummed, chuffing out air in satisfaction. Anxious silence didn't match Zilla well at all, in his mind; though why exactly he'd think that, he wasn't quite sure. Before he could scrutinize that particular line of thought, a mighty yawn tore through his entire being, the joints of his jaws cracking from its force, eyes filling with moisture. The excitement of all that had transpired so far had made him forget his previous, battle-worn exhaustion, but it seemed even the Alpha of Titans had his limits.
Shaking his head to dislodge the blurriness distorting his vision, Godzilla paddled forward to the shore, hauling his gargantuan frame back onto solid land. The once unblemished wall of rock spanning the circumference of the basin, had dissolved into a largely flattened area buried under an avalanche of sandstone detritus. It would serve as an acceptable napping spot, Godzilla decided. Leaning forward he set to clearing out some of the most offensively protruding chunks of rubble from his bed-to-be. Afterwards, more or less satisfied, his dorsal plates and eyes glowed briefly with an azure flame and he exhaled super-heated, blue-tinged air over the rocks, warming and melting them into a more uniform shape. His yet sizzling sleeping space now finished, Godzilla crawled over it, fussing around for a moment to find the most perfectly heated spot, before curling up, tail tip tucked under his chin, eyelids slipping closed of their own accord and a bone-deep sigh rattling forth from the depths of his cavernous chest.
He was aware of Zilla lingering in the vicinity, perched atop the ledge of the concavity and observing him curiously. Every instinct in Godzilla's body not yet lulled to sleep growled at him how dangerous and stupid it was to expose your back to another Titan in this manner, let alone fall asleep in front of them. Yet Godzilla paid them little attention. He knew Zilla posed no immediate threat and the likelihood of him getting attacked in his sleep by the other saurian was essentially nonexistent, and if some other threat did make itself known, then Zilla's reaction would warn him of its coming. So his confidence came entirely from his own experience and logical reasoning, and certainly not because he felt safe in the presence of the telepathic Titan. Not even remotely. Because now that would be foolish indeed. He was Godzilla after all, he always felt safe only in his own presence no matter the company in which he found himself.
Light shuffling could be heard from above him; Zilla was likely on his way to assume his previous position atop the outcropping. Another spontaneous thought pierced through the thickening fog of sleep slowly but surely enveloping his brain, and again Godzilla moved to act on it with little forethought. Zilla's mental presence was now once again nestled comfortably right beside his own in the mental tapestry of their joint mindspace, making no effort to intrude upon Godzilla's thoughts during his rest, but simultaneously easily accessible should Godzilla himself wish to initiate contact. And initiate contact was exactly what he did; the image of Zilla perched atop the cliff, head thrown back, in the midst of his melodic call, molded into a question bobbed along the border between their consciousness for the other Titan to pick up on.
Continue?
A second time now, Godzilla's mental inquiry made Zilla freeze in place and struggle to comprehend if he had grasped its meaning correctly. Godzilla chuffed in light amusement at that, one eyelid lifting enough to glimpse the grey figure crouched at the edge of the overhang suspended above the pool. Zilla stared right back, head downturned somewhat bashfully and honey-gold eyes wide in surprise; they were really rather big, even from this far away. A tentative query coalesced in Godzilla's thoughts, passing along their rapidly forming mental link, a tether increasing in stability with every new message ferried across its length; small and unsure, not quite ready to believe.
Certain?
Godzilla's eye shut again, a low rumble quaking the rock beneath him.
Certain.
For a moment, Zilla floundered and the link between their minds flooded with a mixture of emotions, chief among them pure elation, before the other Titan could once again reign his thoughts back in. Such innocence, Godzilla mused, beyond anything he had ever encountered in a Titan before. Unlike others he had dealt with in the past, Zilla made no effort to conceal his feelings, once it had been established that their sharing was acceptable. It was endearing, in a way; here was a being who had suffered in solitude for so long, still capable of experiencing true joy. The tiniest spark of hope sputtered to life in the depths of Godzilla's thoughts, yet directionless and starved for further fuel, but shining determinedly nonetheless.
And as Zilla's voice once again began to resound across the basin in which they sat and its neighbouring pools, emboldened by the presence of an eager audience, and as Godzilla eagerly succumbed to the siren song of sleep, memories of warm nights spent under starry skies and a multitude of lithe, scaled frames traversing the expanse of red-tinted plains in playful pursuit of one another, began to wash across his mind in gentle waves, no longer a violent tempest that it had been prior. Viewing those images, most likely from a time before his hatching – as unthinkable as that yet was, through Zilla's eyes almost made it seem like Godzilla himself was a part of this pack, responding to their eager trills with rumbles of his own. A soft huff escaped him, one last thought circling in his mind before sleep fully overtook it.
Perhaps neither of them had to be alone anymore.