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Act II: The New Order

The first land I came across was a small island, or large mountain, depending on one's perspective. It was covered with the green of trees and I could feel the density of life on it, bathed in the warmth of the sun. I was eager to taste of its abundance. However, as I approached the shore, I encountered a small problem. My belly began to drag against the bottom of the beach well before I had any sort of grip on the land. As I allowed the surf to push me bit by bit up onto the beach, my weight realized itself more and more forcefully. I could just touch the land with my feet beyond the girth of my torso and my flanks spread wide with bountiful flesh, all adorned in brown scales. I waved my thick tail in the water, but it was only able to get me so far. Finally, a large wave pushed me onto land and with a large effort, I rolled my heavy body onto my wide belly. I rested hugely on the sand, sinking a vast depression into the beach. With annoyance at this effect of treacherous gravity, I clawed my way up the beach, but I made only a little more headway than a beached whale and my girth was such to account for more than one whale to be honest.

Belly full of whale meat and stuffed with accumulated fatty tissue, I finally gave up, exhausted. The tide went out behind me and my skin dried, salt crystals collecting between the scales. Despite having risen from the deeps and despite being blanketed with a thick layer of fat, I had no trouble breathing, not that I really needed to if it came to that. But my body was not of proportions suited to moving on land, that was clear by now. I reflected sadly on the fact that I was going to need to shed a lot of this needless flesh. It was sad because I'd gotten rather used to it all being there and readily available if needed. I decided to hang on to as much of it as I could.

Months past as I lay on the beach, my new daughters growing inside my vast midsection. The reservoirs of chemical energy I'd stored were titanic and more than adequate to sustain myself and the formation of many new bodies. I changed them as they grew. At first I had intended for them to be giants similar to myself, but with the revelation of the hindrances of my size, I decided to see to my own needs first. I needed smaller, faster bodies. Hunters to catch and taste the small quick things on the island. For myself, I planned on devouring the trees which could not escape me. It was with slow burning anticipation that I waited the long months. In that time, I was able to claw my way up the beach only a little. I slowly dissipated my mass, even though my daughters were converting fat into flesh at an alarming rate inside of me. But even so, my wide flanks sank into the sand with the tremendous weight. Even crawling was difficult when I had caught myself into a deep cup in the sand.

I was a feature of the beach for a long while. The sand crabs made their burrows close to my skin and birds landed on me, thinking me some sort of edifice. When I was very lucky, I could catch one, but the birds had gotten very fast and my neck was large and clumsy by comparison. I steeled myself against the intense hunger and waited, instead seeding more daughters inside my generous womb to accelerate my wasting.

The long awaited pains came like a sigh of relief, my daughters' thoughts telling me that they were ready to leave the warm confines of my body. The relief of their parting was intense as the density of essences inside of me was still far too great for my size. The departure of even a small part that my first clutch of daughters represented was palpable. Aside from the convulsions, there was no physical pain of their passing. My canal had grown along with my body and the bodies of my new daughters were tiny in comparison.

Twelve shapes shook off the effluent of their delivery and their thoughts were joyous with release and new independence. Also, their departure and the fluids involved reduced my mass by a couple hundred much needed pounds. They were all of the winged variety I'd come to like and their torsos and tails were shorter than my own. Their breasts were large with flight muscles waiting to be tested. They needed no childhood, they were ready to hunt and devour now. With foresight, I delivered them at about an eighth of their final size, so each daughter would be able to return to me with eight times the flesh I had given them to start with.

They surrounded my leviathan form, minds alert and tense with excitement. "You know your calling, young daughters. Feast and get to know the land, catch the small creatures and graze on the small grass. The large things all belong to me."

they smiled knowingly and set off with a great gust of wind. I could feel their joy vicariously, even if as yet, I remained largely immobile. I quickened more daughters to past the time as the swelling in my groin decreased. I dreamed of the shapes they would take and which would be the most useful.

My flanks decreased in size and clutch after clutch of daughters was brought forth. At first, I concentrated on flyers, but I realized that they were not quite as useful as I had initially hoped. The main problem lay in my primordial design. My daughters could not keep up with the flying birds native to the land. Rather than catching the swift things of the island, they mostly resorted to scrounging in the dirt for insects and eating fruit from the trees. I was disappointed in myself for bringing them forth ill designed. I resolved myself to redouble my efforts and craft new, stronger and more adept designs.

I had to reunite with 72 daughters, none of whom were carrying the optimum amount of flesh. But that was alright. I needed to dispose of the adipose tissue flooding my body anyways. I had finally lost enough of it to enable me to drag my belly over the sand, out of my depression and uphill to the tree line. It was weeks of effort, but I was rewarded with long slow bites out of hard wood trees, the wood going down gritty, but satisfying. At last, I could satisfy my hunger again.

But with the consumption of my daughter's flesh they brought with them important new essences who could advice me on the new way of doing things since the world had shed itself of ice. Just to err on the safe side, I developed a class of dragon daughter who would dine on the crustaceans in the sand and the long grass on the beach. I also intended them to scour my hide which had grown disgusting with filth, insects housing between and under the scales and other parasites. These I could birth by the hundred. Next, a new generation of flyer. I took from them their forelegs, but feathered them and made them streamlined. Long sharp talons they would have and a mouth filled with tiny teeth. I imagined also semi-aquatic dragons who might bring me the bounty of the waters for I imagined I would tire of the taste of wood after a while. These had a handy pouch for storing uneaten food, a craw which which they could bring me a steady stream of morsels. And other daughters whose shapes would benefit me I thought of. My womb grew to be studded with eggs and growing cells all along its surface and the demand on my body's reserves was horrendous. Even as I ate my poor diet of wood and roots, I continued to diminish, but it was no tragedy. It was simply easier and easier to move myself to the next tree.

The months crawled by and the number of my daughters grew from dozens to hundreds to over a thousand. I grew content with the new environment. I kept myself constantly growing new daughters and I kept myself fed on a diverse diet of plentiful wood, gifts of fish and intelligent daughter meat. Scarcely had they grown to their full size than they were throwing themselves at my mouth, eager to rejoin and share what they had tasted and learned. I might have over done things because the animal population dropped swiftly on the island and my daughters were reduced to eating grass and wood as I did. But I wasn't too concerned. The whole island itself was a single note in the song of the world, after all. My flyers were soon all eaten and replaced with grazers and wood eaters. I ate the island with a thousand hungry mouths until only a small patch of green remained in one corner.

For all the effort at reproduction, I could now support my weight off the ground again, as long as it wasn't too long. My belly was still round and vast, the fatty blanket feet deep in most places along my body under the scales. My daughters wanted to clean the island, but I stopped them. "The times not come for that, younglings." I called to them. "We must allow this place to rest and recover. We shall visit again."

By that time, I had walked a meandering path to the far side of the island. From the beach, I could see more land at the horizon's edge. "Let's go." I said to my family who was also an extension of myself. "I feel a great hunger."

It was a relief to slip into the water again. Many of my daughters, however could not hope to complete the migration to the other island. I spent several days swallowing them one by one, resting to digest their welcome flesh and add it to my own. In the water, I did not have to watch my weight and that was a powerful relief in itself. In the years I'd spent devouring the island, I'd grown yet more. From memories of thoughts of the whale essence, I knew that I was as large now as the largest of whales, and not a small amount heavier for the generous flesh I sported. I was content with the accomplishment. This was how things should be. If my daughters still might be eaten in the future, I would never be again. I was the devourer of all things. That was the way of the world.

My gullet able to accommodate even the largest of the daughters I'd created whole, it didn't take too long to usher them into my welcoming stomach. Daughter-flesh knew whence it came and so was more easily incorporated into my magnificent whole. By the time I was finished culling the last of the useless daughters, I found I'd recouped nearly all of my former vastness, but now spread on a much larger frame. My volume had increased by a factor of 20 from what it had been when I'd risen from the depths. The biomass of the island was not all contained within me - a lot of it had been expelled as exhaust from the processes of living and a lot more had been wasted in recycling poor daughter designs - but it had fueled a tremendous increase in size and for that I was thankful. A chorus went up inside of me, the many new essences which now were housed inside my enormous round body, the riches of the depleted island and its legacy. The volume of the island chorus inside of me was astounding, nearly an eighth part of all my essences which I sheltered and shared my flesh with. Sure the island did not account for nearly as much mass as I'd passed through my body over the course of millennia of millennia, but the beings on the island were, by and large, far more developed and conscious than those of their primordial counterparts. The voices of hundreds of rats, boars, ground fowl and thousands of tropical birds sang loud inside my depths, far outshining the many fold ferns, trees and bugs that had come before.

I luxuriated in them all as I swam languidly to new land. My womb swelled with large daughters as I paddled a months long journey. But despite their great size, my abdomen hardly noticed the change, the skin was tight and round over riches of flesh, the rarified treasure of the nameless island. I must have proven a tantalizing prize as I moved clumsily through the water, my huge self floating along placidly with my tail as my only real means of propulsion. Cartilaginous fish with sharp teeth came to test my defenses, nibbling with curiosity at my flanks. However, they found my scales were more than a match for them. When they inevitably swam too close to my fore or aft, I clutched them in teeth or claws, their wriggling bodies and merciless, fearful thoughts singing in my mind. I bit them in half, two gulps each and was satisfied for a short time.

My new daughters grew inside of me, two of them of as great a size as I could safely pass. I birthed them in the water, and it was painful. But they emerged whole, nearly adult in size and were marvelous to behold. Azure dragons they were, with leather for skin. No arms or legs to slow them in the water and great serpentine bodies that unwound to great length after they were free of me. Their heads were smooth and their teeth sharp. At the end of their body was a great silken fan like a paddle. Inside their heads were large brains for independence and critical thinking. Unlike those on the island, I intended these daughters to remain at me for a long time. "Go forth and hunt the waters, my daughters. Feast and share with me your catch. Tell me of things that swim in the great oceans."

And they did so without question. I had four such sea serpents accompanying me by the time I made it just off the coast of the new country. It was a big place, much bigger than the previous island. In fact, I was not sure at all if this place was indeed an island or not. When the few flying daughters I had left returned from scouting, I slid them down my gullet and learned that the land went on for miles and miles past the coast with no end in sight. Indeed, I'd reached the edge of a continent. Excellent.

I did not attempt the folly of dragging myself ashore this time. I remained comfortably adrift in the waves off the beach as I formed the hungry mouths of daughters inside me to reap the bounty of the new land. Idly I drifted closer, now farther from the beach, letting the enormous curve of my belly sweep the warm sand in the surf now and again. I didn't even bother using my legs. My sea serpents fed themselves and brought me tribute, but of course it wasn't enough to meet the demands of my bulk let along the dozens of hungry, developing bodies nestled inside. My lack of exertion did help of course. To pass the time, I communed with the new essences I'd reaped from the island and also reached out my thoughts to the mainland as far as I could. I saw many bright points in the distance and wondered what they were to shine so brightly. My mouth would salivate just thinking of these mysterious lifeforms.

Hundreds more daughters came forth in clutches large and small. My body fueled its continual growth on its reserves, fat wonderfully converting itself into bone, muscle, and organ. I became leaner, longer and broader, the weight falling away by thousands of pounds as I subdivided the glowing net inside of me again and again. I had daughters for everything, every possible niche and source of sustenance.

I had my favorite flyers of course, and larger wingless dragons to graze and knock down trees. I had nimble hunters for creatures who lived in the thick forests which where difficult to navigate and tiny dragons for climbing trees and living within the canopy. Running dragons weren't needed where flying was possible, but I needed long legged dragons for clearing the grass and keeping away from predators. I discovered the hard way that daughters did not share my immortality and resilience to being eaten. An eco-system of bio-communication sprung up around me again, a vast web at which I was the center, except this time it was far larger than the island had been able to support.

Steadily, I migrated down the coast and the land became bare where I was sending my offspring. After having dropped more than half of my former weight, I was sure that I could manage myself on land again, but I had no particular interest in it. I had daughter to do all of the work for me, all I had to do was float on placidly while everything I needed was brought to me without bidding.

There came a time when my sea serpents came to me and I saw that they were tired. Their bodies ached and decayed from within. They were not ageless as I'd hoped. With gratitude and satisfaction, I ate of their flesh, my jaws breaking down the long lengths of their bodies, where they eventually coiled inside of my waiting stomach, much as they'd been coiled inside of my womb. Two lifetimes of experience and the essences of all the lives they'd taken exploded inside of me, their former minds merging with mine. Never apart could we have shared like this. Mind-speak was one thing, but to blend, their flesh had to become mine once more. And so it was with even the greatest of my daughters. None lasted forever and though separate minds created a sort of faux novelty and sense of companionship, even the most independent daughters longed for reunion at the end.

So it was for a long time, I drifted down the coast, my daughters raiding the land, sea and sky for all moving and growing things. We left just enough life left as we past to allow for recovery in the decades and centuries to come. I did have to develop new breeds of daughter dragon, particularly fast flying ones. The wildlife inland seemed to grow to sense the doom they perceived in us. Misguidedly they fled the area. In order to taste all the forms of life, I had to send flyers beyond our territories to catch the fleet of paw and wing. Still faster dragons were needed after that. I understood at last the feel of the arms race life had been under going in my long absence from the surface world.

But the pace was impossible to keep up, My biomass was spread over several thousand bodies large and small, but I had only so much essence to give. I had to keep a large hive to myself to keep the net within strong. I did not know what would happen if I dispersed it too much, but I felt empty and sort of stretched without the many voices clamoring inside of me. There was only my flesh and the far flung thoughts of daughters to keep me company along with a few strong voices I'd kept to myself a mere spirit constellation now, rather than a dense multifold fabric. I had hoped to create one or two large daughters to sent to distant lands along with families of supporting flyers and swimmers, but alas, I was too small as of yet.

Then, something utterly unexpected happened. I'd known waves and foul weather before, but the storm that came to the coast that day was something entirely new. The globe was on another cooling trend, so I expected bad weather. Normally, I simply retreated to the depths to wait it out. But this time, the storm came on me so suddenly I had no time to react. Before I knew it, winds assaulted me, tearing the skin away from the sea. I swam under the surface, but looking down, I saw the sand far below what I'd expected and falling rapidly away. I was caught up in a massive wave. I swam, but it was useless. The wall of water plunged inland and below I saw the tops of trees waving and uprooting in the current. Then the forest gave way to an underwater plain and even a small mountain. The experience was surreal. Then, the strength of the wave gave out as suddenly as it had come upon me. I washed up on a strange land far away from any of my daughters and unsure of their fates.

I worried dreadfully for them as one worries for oneself and for precious loved ones all at once. Not only did my daughters represent precious biomass, collectively they held the bulk of all the essences I'd lovingly devoured over millions of years. It was an irreplaceable treasure that would be lost if even a single life was lost.

But my other selfs were hardier than I gave them credit for. The flyers had all survived with ease, though many had been blown far away and their voices were faint. But even the land-bound of my daughters were able to survive for none required the breath of air to live. However, many were battered to the point of severe injury and incapacitation. In the extreme cases, I had to organize the winged daughters who were still healthy and nearby to prey on injured daughters before they could expire from injury. Only by consuming the flesh might the precious essences inside be spared oblivion and returned to me. Over the course of many days, heavy bodied flyers returned stiffly to me and I swallowed their rotund bodies dutifully. Daughters weren't meant to consume other daughters, the doubling of their essence was too much of a burden for most.

Only after the crisis was averted could I turn my thoughts to where it was that I had wound up. Of course, I already knew the lay of the land because my daughters were aware of this place. But that wasn't the same thing as truly knowing where I was at and further from knowing what I was going to do now.

Truthfully, I saw this even as a sign. I was not built to lounge forever in the sea. I had legs and they were meant for walking, My long holiday was at an end. When I stretched myself upon the land, twisting this way and that reacquainting myself with the feel of the ground and my own weight, I found that I was quite able bodied.

I was lean again, my reserves having tapered down to a modest lining which smoothed my skin over the angles of my hips and rib cage. The muscles displayed themselves densely at my shoulders, the knots far thicker than the roots of trees. My thick tail extended at great length behind me and I found it strong, very strong. While I felt some disappointment at having lost so much flesh and no longer having unlimited reserves at my disposal, given the circumstances, I supposed this condition was most appropriate. Using my tail as a prop, I drew myself to my full height, the arch of my back clearing the tops of most of the trees around me. With my legs under me, I felt the strength within them eager and waiting despite the long time I had gone without needing them.

At first I moved very cautiously. The feel of walking felt alien after so long a time, but the memory of it flooded back quickly, several strong voices giving me confidence. I stepped gingerly, knowing that a fall would hurt a lot with my prodigious size. My claws often sank into the ground under the weight, but my paws were wide and tough and I found stable ground again and again. Slowly, I built up my confidence. This was not so awful after all.

I had plenty of space to move about. The tidal wave had cleared the land of all but the most strongly rooted and tenacious trees. The area I had washed up was a plain. Right now, it had become a salt water marsh, though the water was quickly receding. Behind me, the small mountain rose in the distance, in the direction of the sea which was far out of sight. I heard the voices of many daughters in that direction. But I turned my head away from there, instead looking forward. Many daughters were still injured, if not mortally, but there were fair quantities who were able bodied. These I called to me and to make haste. The parts of myself who lay still and hurting I bid to rest and join me when they could. Those far flung winged daughters had the longest journey to make to rejoin the whole. But such was mere inconvenience. I had all the time in the world.

I sated myself on the still living wood of upturned trees to start with. Their essences lingered though the wounds were mortal. I could hear their calls to me to save them from death, but I could not hope to save them all. The damage the tidal wave had wrought was great. But greater still was the poison of salt that was left behind in its wake. The grass and the trees, though they had survived great hardship were still doomed to die in coming years. The land would waste for a time, until the rains could wash away the taint and cleanse the soil.

I walked slowly over the plains, swinging my tail gracefully to balance each plodding step. I did not hurry, my gait included three feet on the ground at all times, a stable platform for my three-hundred thousand of pounds of glorious self. I left deep tracks in the mud, so deep they would become ponds and pools in later times. I could not sate myself on grass any longer, not without pulling drifts of unneeded earth into my body. I contented myself with choosing the greatest of the trees I could find, those most eager and with the most potential of spirit.

It took a long while to escape the desolation left by the wave. I traveled uphill and away from the sea, hoping to come to lands where I would not be such a burden. With the new essences I'd retrieved from my lost daughters, I made myself gravid with little grazers, but I could not afford very many because I did not have flesh to spare. A diet of wood was just enough to sustain the fire of life and my continuing growth, but not enough to set aside for others. I grew leaner still. One by one, my winged daughters returned, perching their tired bodies on the broad edifice of my back as I walked ever onward. How they longed to hunt and feed me tribute, for they saw that I was greatly diminished. But this I could not allow.

The lives of animals were few in the wake of the wave. They needed their lives to refill the land. My only hope lay in haste. Only my huge body resisted haste, especially heading uphill and ever upward the land seemed to go, until my shoulders burned with dull fire like the heat of the earth. At last the traces of destruction ended, but my turmoil only increased.

I was in a high, dry place now and the wind blew cold even during the day. There was very little life here and I despaired. The waste seemed endless and the terrain was rocky and difficult. I wandered for a long time, frequently having to back track because the way became too treacherous for my slow plodding feet or the ground would crumble under my weight. How I longed for a pair of solid wings like my daughters then, but I could only shape my offspring, not myself.

And anyways, I soon had no flyers left. My huntresses were of little use with their small, angled wings. I swallowed them by the dozen to feed the fire inside of me. My growth was a burden then, a metabolic cost which was a hundred fold more expensive than the cost of maintaining my existing flesh, but it had to continue and my daughters were more than happy to end their idleness and rejoin with me. In their place, I designed large winged flyers to fly far a field and study the land for me me to pick my way to happier land.

Only the migration of lost daughters enabled me to continue without abject grief. Their flesh sustained me. The hundreds of pounds of rich biomass I needed daily to sustain myself was simply not to be found in this desert. I was practically gaunt by the time I found a suitable pass back into the lowlands far to the west.

I had only four daughters left. They soared with long wings tirelessly on the wind and with happy voices they urged me onward. Inside my body, my golden cloth was unpleasantly thick and folded over and crumpled in every which way that could be imagined. A billion, billion voices rioted, my paltry flesh was not enough for them. I had to shut them all from my mind, their wisdom was lost in cacophony. I'd tired of them and their selfish demands long ago. I so longed to gorge myself and make new daughters who could share the burden of my appetite. I did not think that I could last for very much longer, not without wasting myself utterly. All the luscious fat was gone from me so that it hurt to lay upon the ground. It was a very sad time in my life.

Deliverance came as I paced myself down a long mountain pass. Trees! delicious conscious trees who I knew nothing of at last sprouted in the highlands. I ate of all I could reach on my path down. Ashamedly, I clearly the land utterly, leaving nothing out of reach behind. Only my eagerness to come down from the mountains left any to spare.

The only animal flesh I was able to taste were tiny creatures who lived in the boughs or among the roots of the trees I uprooted and devoured. Fleet creatures all had long since given me and my clumsy girth a wide berth. But it did not matter so much. I was so large now that I did not have to chew endlessly at the hulk of a single tree trunk. I could fit the trunk squarely in my mouth now. These prickly trees were four or five bites. The knot of roots at the end made my neck bulge, but they were just able to fit inside the area afforded by my jaw. Fortunately I did not have to breath in the time it took swallow. Wood and the small creatures which clung to them was still a poor diet, but it was not long before the trees became plentiful enough to fill my belly within a reasonable time. Three or four trees were needed to be comfortable, but I pushed myself to devour more because I had made myself again gravid with many daughters.

Small flyers I birthed again to hunter the fleet creatures of the snowy forest. They were quite small, able to flit in-between the trees. Long legged hunters with wide paws who burned with an inner fire came forth next to fetch for me the big prey and predators who lived here. And the evergreen forest grew to such marvelous thickness. Oftentimes, I would have to devour three or four trees simply to proceed a neck length forward. But plenty was nothing to be annoyed at. I no longer had need of haste. I needed only to sate my hunger.

More and more happy mouths surrounded me as I grew my entourage again. Slower than I had before as a carrier off the coast, but more strategically. I had learned much since I'd landed ashore about the nature of land going creatures in the new world.

Mammals had become the dominant order of thing. All sorts of warm blooded, furred creatures I found. My daughters seemed quite out of place now among them, but perhaps that was right and proper because they weren't animals of the earth as they knew each other. They were merely extensions of myself. But I learned from the mammals. In the new cold clime, it was necessary to learn the secrets of warm-bloodedness. I experimented with fur for a time, but it clashed and I eventually dropped the idea. Milk secretion was an interesting idea, but my daughters did not have need of it and I could not nurse anything myself.

In lea of fur, I made my daughter burn warmly to stave off cold. Thick coats of blubber were too expensive for me, I struggled to accumulate even enough to cushion my body against the ground. I was forced to be innovative to try new things. These hot blooded daughters weren't capable for living for extended periods, but it wasn't truly necessary for them to do so. I tried other schemes as well, but many did not succeed. Many hundreds of daughters failed inside of the womb before birth. I was lucky that I was able to test their minds and bodies whilst they still resided inside of me. Failures could be reabsorbed at minimal cost to myself and I could try again.

Ah, months, I would lay on the ground, dreaming and designing the flesh while inside of my belly a manufactory raged at top speed. It took a long time for the pine forest to give way to anything like a different climate. Deciduous trees began to mingle with the pines as the land dropped lower and the air warmed. I found these to be slightly softer and easier to digest than the hardy pines. There were more and larger animals to be found as well, though gone were the mammoth creatures of old. These animals whole were mere morsels to me now. It became far easier to have have daughters grow fat on animal flesh and then return to me where I could then swallow them at my leisure. Hot Blooded daughters were eager for the task and energized for constant hunting. Typically they only needed an hour of sleep or so every night. I birthed them small, but complete of body and mind and they returned to me with twenty or thirty times the amount of flesh I'd given them to start. At the end of their lives, the prided themselves with sleek thick bodies and round bellies.

It was not at all a difficult life for them. They started as long legged hunters of small fast things. Then as they grew over the course of a year, they became vicious enough to tackle the largest of prey to be found in the area, working in packs usually. On reaching their adult size over the course of a single year, the hot bloods then accumulated the tasty adipose I desired. They continued to hunt for a while, but when they slowed, they began the long migration back home for the hot bloods would wander far afield and often into distant lands and other climes. They switched to grazing and wood eating to sustain the growth of their bulk and invariably, they returned swaying and plump as grapes from a vine.

I was quite proud of my hot blooded creations and their simple, instinctive minds, dim, but eager. I fondly looked at my collection of fatty content daughters. This system pleased me more than the tribute of the past, I had merely to stretch out my claw and daintily pluck a soft morsel for myself whenever the taste of wood became tiresome. Though there was a flaw. I'd over-clocked my precious hot bloods so much they they were already growing old and decaying by the time they returned to me. It was not uncommon for a daughter to fall during the migration back and be unable to continue. It was an annoyance, but I was able to send other daughters to feast on the carcass for me. Ever I tinkered and tried to improve the design.

In my quieter times, I had those again as my net was distributed, I contemplated the minds of essences far and wide. I still sensed those bright ones in a far away land. There were more of them now and they seemed to be spreading. Mouth watering, I tried to picture them in my mind. What sort of angelic beings were they? Of flesh and blood they were certainly, but they seemed to have managed a strength of thought and spirit far above the lower tiers of life. Only great predators glowed anywhere near with the intensity I detected. I imagined a ferocious race with long teeth and claws, a proud, noble race. Perhaps they were very large as well, but that wasn't necessary. They might have been as small as a common canine and still glowed with inner fire. Though I wondered about the glimmers often, I did not travel in their direction. I was certain that we would meet in good time and then I would taste and know of these high order animals.

Steadily I was able to soften my body as the land grew richer. The density of my net relaxed and unfolded, spread out among many daughters. On a diet of wood and daughter flesh, I grew content and happy again. With many mouths and countless essences I grew, soaking in the life of the land. With my tail and the weight of my body and my appetite for wood which increased with time, I morphed the landscape. I was able to eat trees faster than they grew now and a meadow sprang up in the area where I dwelt. The meadow became a plain as I continued to eat and wander about the edges. Naturally, the trees were far too thick for me to move through comfortably.

I don't know how, but large creatures came to roam the plain I'd created. They were quite large, but not nearly as large as the great lizards of old and of course they were mammals. As large as they were, they were still too fast for me to catch. I had to craft heavy bodied daughters to go after them for me, these elephants with fur and the large cats and wolves who hunted them. They coursed with muscle and had long fangs for tearing. I gave them mighty wings, the largest I had ever made and they were still only capable of short flights to come upon their prey with speed. I did not over clock these ones. It was too taxing to make large daughters and painful to pass them. To them, I gifted large brains and intelligence and I found quickly that I had missed conversing with like thoughts without knowing it. My daughters would kill for me and guard the large carcasses as I made my way towards them usually assisting by dragging them towards me as I came as well.

Animal flesh was a nearly forgotten treat, the tang of it different from daughter flesh even if it did not sustain as well. A mammoth was several large bites at least. The snapping of bone was satisfying in the extreme. A mammoth dinner was more of an experience than devouring a fatty daughter whole, succulent though they were. My new large huntresses were happy to provide, needing only a small portion for themselves. And the land became noisy with their chatter, their thoughts dancing on the breeze. I listened and conversed with them, happy to hear new voices again.

Eventually the forest gave way before me. All of the trees were now cleared for as far as I could see raising myself up to high heights by sitting on my haunches and reaching up with my neck. There was only a line of green marring the horizon far to the north-east and I knew that place for it was once a border of the vast circle I had been eating out of the once dense forest. I did not want to walk that far distance back the way I had come. however, my gut rumbled like a distant avalanche and I placed my claws upon my round, plump belly as wide around now as a whale was long I was sure.

The threat of hunger loomed over me. I did have several thousand daughters whose flesh could inflate me to sea life proportions if I wanted, but still the staple of my diet was now missing and I wished to continue eating with my own mouth, not vicariously through daughters. It was time to migrate once again.

I was not very far from the sea now, a different sea. My daughters informed me that there was land to the south and very, very far to the west. I had a difficult choice. The journey south was by far easier, but it was in that direction that the glowing essences lived. I hungered to taste them, but a part of me hesitated, not completely trusting myself. If I went to this new place, would I be able to stop from eating all of the bright minds? What if the bright ones never came again once they were gone. I had usually left enough in my wake to recover, but my appetite was vast now. Where once a forest had been, no trees now remained. Not that forests were eternal, they came and went and not all of the trees had disappeared from this place by my hand. But there was a sense of fragility about the bright ones. They had been many, but the world was cooling again and they had dwindled. I didn't know if I could help myself should I come upon their entire population. The temptation might prove too much.

My uncertainty decided it for me. To the west I would go. For several years I lingered on the shore and then the waters off the coast. Many daughters would not be able to join me in a long voyage across the water, all of my faithful hotbloods had to be committed to my flesh and all of my grazers, and flitters as well. Even my large huntresses had to be devoured for their wings could not carry their huge weight over open water. I grew and grew with daughter flesh, swelling happily until I was distended completely out of my lean shape. I grew as fast as I could, building the frame on which I could hang all my daughter flesh as soft adipose. Tickled, I found I almost didn't have enough room for it all, huge though I'd grown.

Between my legs there swelled a vast basin of a belly which contained enough flesh to fill a small lake. That tank felt limitless in the depths of it, but more flesh yet was spread out over my flanks, shoulders, neck and tail. In the water I floated like an island, my back dry, waves hardly ever washing over it except during storms. My hind legs were cradled around the swell of my middle. My forelegs cupped my wide scaled breast which protruded as far as their length. My shoulders bulged outward, engulfing most of my forelimbs and my neck became as thick as my torso could have been, if I shed most of my excess weight. By the time that I had consumed my last daughter and become a single entity again, my tail was my only useful extremity. Thickly, I waved it in the water and made slow, slow progress towards the west.

I had enough reserves to sustain myself and growth for centuries without eating, but nevertheless, I did birth a few aquatic daughters so that I could taste the life of the new ocean. A lot of it was the same, particularly among the mammals who swam from pole to pole. But a couple daughters I sent to forage in the deeps and return to me with their essences and the taste of life that had grown in darkness. The flavor was already different from what I remembered. I did not raise an army though. I was intent on finding my way west. However, I was long delayed by contrary currents and my own slow pace. One part of the year, the current would aid me, the next it would push me south and east. If my propulsion had been any weaker, I might never have found the western continent. Though, of course, I would have moved along much faster had I not been nearly as wide as I was long.

After many years, though, I did finally catch sight of land in the west over the waves. My heart leapt at the sight of new green land. Immediately I quickened myself in celebration and licked my chops with anticipation.