Chapter Text
Pythor stared listlessly up at the distant ceiling from the bumpy, hard floor, trying to ignore the rumbling of his stomach. The lack of light and the musty air of the tomb made it difficult for him to notice a difference in the room when his eyes were open or closed. If he was not armed with such acute senses of smell, sight, and hearing, it would be near impossible for him to detect any sign of life in his dismal new living quarters.
Trying to find some comfort in the warm, dark pit, Pythor’s tongue slipped out from between his fangs, flickering and tasting the air. Though muted by the smell and taste of dust, he caught the odor of a number of his fellow tribesmen and women dispersed throughout the surrounding tunnels. When he focussed, he could hear them too. Some talked in undertones to each other, and some argued in louder voices, while some slumbered.
The tomb had gotten progressively quieter with every day. Many of the Anacondrai had lost hope and fallen into depression, like him. And others had simply died.
Pythor groaned quietly, curling his body tighter around itself, trying to focus on anything but the hunger. He wasn’t sure when he’d last eaten- he hadn’t bothered to count the days, as a number only made the gravity of his imprisonment more tangible. It’d taken everything in him not to complain about it vocally. Though, very soon, it seemed there would be nothing left in him.
Don’t think about it . Pythor’s own mental voice berated his treacherous, wandering mind. Thinking about hunger only made it more intense. It was pointless anyway. He and the other Anacondrai had searched the caverns of the tomb to no avail. There were no roots or tubers burrowing from the ground, no insects or rodents scurrying through the tunnels, and no puddles to drink from. And the General’s finest Serpentine had worked to no avail to find an escape from the tomb.
They were going to starve to death in this awful pit. All of them.
Slithering upright, leaning against the wall of the room, Pythor unfurled his long neck, glancing around as he periodically did. He was not particularly well respected amongst his tribe, and he’d grown accustomed to watching his back as a result. His unusually long neck made him an oddity- a comedic sight when compared to the normally bulky, compact Anacondrai. His amusing appearance had made an outcast of him. Last to be chosen for the Slitherpits, last to be drafted into the war with the surface dwellers, and even the last to be forced into his current residence, the dreadful tomb.
Seeing that he was indeed alone in the cramped niche of the catacombs, Pythor laid back down and closed his eyes, trying to get comfortable. He’d spent countless hours doing just- time he and the others could not keep track of. They had nothing to write with, and even then, what would counting accomplish? The leaders of the surface dwellers, the Sons of the First Spinjitzu Master, had made it clear that no Serpentine would ever see the sun again. Not while they were still considered a threat.
The memory of the Elemental Alliance made Pythor grit his fangs and snarl. Why should an entire race pay for the actions of a few? Pythor hadn’t unleashed the Great Devourer, nor united the five tribes in an effort to take the surface, nor heeded the slippery words of that deceitful Master Chen. What was he doing in this hole, paying for the actions of Arcturus and his council of Generals? He’d done nothing!
Pythor’s eyes found the ceiling of the cave, narrowing. It was a fool’s dream to look forward to freedom, but if he ever did manage to wriggle his way out of the tomb . . . he’d earn his sentence. He’d do exactly what the surface dwellers expected him to. They’d cast him away to die in darkness with a tribe that hated him despite his innocence. He craved to repay the service.
Closing his eyes, Pythor cursed mentally. He shouldn’t bother dreaming of escape. The feeling and sound of his stomach made it clear he was not going to live much longer.
Pythor flinched, his tongue tasting the dusty air as he heard someone approach. The soft scraping of a serpentine body against the dirt and rock of the tomb floor. Slithering upright again, Pythor braced himself for a confrontation. An Anacondrai undulated into view just outside the room, peaking into the crevice Pythor had squeezed into with crimson eyes. Like all Anacondrai, this Serpentine was clad in deep purple scales, stretched tightly against a muscular frame with two hefty arms and a long tail instead of legs.
Unlike Pythor, this Anacondrai had a neck so small it was almost indistinguishable from its shoulders or the back of its head. Pythor’s eyes flickered to a scar on the snake’s right shoulder, shaped vaguely like an X. It helped him identify this particular Anacondrai as Zemeya, a former commander in the army. Pythor relaxed, recalling that Zemeya had been one of the few Anacondrai that hadn’t actively degraded him, though likely out of apathy rather than sympathy.
“Come, Pythor.” The female Anacondrai bade, gesturing with her tail. “The General has called a conclave in the antechamber.”
Another one? Pythor hissed in agitation at being dragged out of his isolation, but offered no rebuttal. He waited for Zemeya to get some headway before slithering out of the niche and after her. She led the way up a twisted passage of rock, sand and dirt, changing routes once or twice as they passed other chambers. A few times, she peaked into those other rooms and called out for other Anacondrai to follow them up to the top.
The Anacondrai Tomb was far more spacious than it appeared from the surface. Up there, there was only a single room, sheltered by an enormous monolith of a fang. But that room granted access to a stairway that led down to the antechamber, which spread off into tens of caverns like this one. The Anacondrai were the smallest of the five Serpentine tribes, but there were still hundreds of them, and they needed a sizable place to reside.
Not that the Elemental Alliance had put that into consideration. With nothing to eat or drink, it was only a matter of time before the entire tribe died out.
After a while, Zemeya passed through the final passage, and they entered the antechamber. A wide, open chamber, the vaguely circular room was large enough to host the entire tribe. Or, at least, it was now. By Pythor’s count, seven Anacondrai had already given in to the hunger. It was possible more had passed away since the last conclave.
Hundreds of Anacondrai had packed into the chamber, lining the walls, leaving the center open. Though Zemeya and a few of the others pushed their way close to the front, Pythor made no attempt to move further, leaning against the doorway. He kept his neck curled up, lying low, as he always did.
The slight chatter died out as Zemeya reached the center of the room. There, she joined a few of the other commanders, who stood a short distance away from General Viperion. An Anacondrai with sapphire blue eyes and spiked armor on his arms, Viperion had been made leader of the tribe following the banishment of Arcturus. He’d been challenged twice since then by Cobria and Rattler, both of whom had failed to best him in the Slitherpit.
Pythor himself had never understood the point of having a General anymore. What was there to command or manage while they were all buried in a hole?
“Quiet down, now,” Viperion called out to the room, his deep, hoarse voice quickly snuffing out the remaining murmurs. He tapped his golden chieftain staff against the floor once or twice to emphasize his point. “Silence! This conclave will begin.”
Pythor fought back an eyeroll. Though he’d not dared voice his mind, he’d come to expect one thing from these meetings and one thing only. Headaches.
“I won’t waste your time,” Viperion said, beginning to pace, slithering in a slow circle around the center of the room. “We have finally run out of all food. The rations we still had when we were locked in here are gone. And we’ve scoured the caverns for plants, animals or water, but found none. There is nothing in this tomb to sustain us.”
Pythor grunted, deciding firmly that he would slip away from the meeting as soon as he could do so discreetly. Viperion had said the same thing at the last two conclaves as well. Were they expecting to find some untouched food, just lying around on the floor? Who were they fooling but themselves?
They’d obviously been placed in this barren, desolate pit for a reason. Pythor had lent an ear to the rumors as he and his kin were dragged to the tomb. Some of the Anacondrai had heard whispers of the other tribes’ whereabouts. If they were accurate, the Constrictai were contained in the mountains, the Venomari in the swamps, the Fangpyre in the woods, and the Hypnobrai in the tundra. Even if sparse, at least those locations bore more life than the desert.
The decision to place the Anacondrai in the cruelest, least hospitable tomb of the five had clearly been deliberate. It was their tribe that had been at the forefront of the war, and so they received the harshest punishment. It would be a miracle if any of them survived another month.
“The searches for an escape have continued,” Viperion was saying to the tribe, his voice growing colder. “And they have yielded no different results. The entire tomb has been mapped. There is no way out besides the door in which we came.”
The Anacondrai tribe underwent a chorus of whispers, snarls and hisses. The many luminous eyes cutting through the darkness of the tomb narrowed as the serpentine leaned in close to one another, sharing their comments. Pythor made no attempt to join the conversations.
“We cannot escape by any means available to us,” Viperion went on. “The caverns do not grant escape from the tomb, and we lack the strength of the Constrictai to burrow as efficiently from them. And even if we could dig, the Elemental Alliance made it clear we understood that would not get us far. The tombs are coated in Vengestone, a substance we cannot penetrate. And the door that sealed behind us can only be opened by those that closed it- an heir of the First Spinjitzu Master. We are trapped.”
Pythor almost smiled as the murmurings grew louder and angrier. It almost amused him to finally hear the remaining optimism being snuffed out. Almost.
“Have we not already known this?” Spat a serpentine on the opposite side of the antechamber. Many heads turned in that direction. “Would the Elemental Masters have thrown us down here without making certain we could not escape? What did you hope to find?”
“ Hope is precisely what we hoped to find, Anguisi,” Viperion growled, turning his gaze on the speaker. “We understood the gravity of our situation from the start, but we did not wish to dwell on misery. Should we lower ourselves to wallow in our self pity, we have already lost.”
“Of course we already lost!” An Anacondrai woman shouted from another side of the room. “Did you miss the end of the war? We’ve been cast into pits to die! Arcturus and the council of Generals are lost to the cursed realm, and the other tribes are buried the same as us!”
More voices joined her’s and Anguisi’s, and soon the antechamber was filled with a chorus of bickering. Viperion’s voice rang out in anger, trying to stifle the uproar, but his voice was drowned out by the hundreds of others. Pythor watched with some amusement as the commanders tried to hold back the angry crowd, before sighing and turning away.
Using the distraction, he took a deep breath and camouflaged. His skin shimmered, becoming translucent and matching the terrain around him, and in a quick second, he was gone from sight. Casting a furtive glance to ensure no one had spotted him cloak himself, Pythor turned and slithered back down the cavern, away from the shouting.
“What point is there in waiting for revenge?” Anguisi was calling over the chaos. “No one is going to come for us! For what reason would an heir of the First Spinjitzu Master seek an audience with us?”
“We mustn't give up!” Viperion persisted, his voice growing distant as Pythor vanished down the tunnel. “Our reckoning will come! In time, we will breach our tombs and have vengeance! We will reclaim the Silver Fangblades and rouse the Great Devourer! Trust in me!”
Pythor hesitated, glaring back down the passage before slithering on. He could almost sympathize with the de facto General in that regard. If there was any hope to cling onto it, it was to get even with the surface dwellers. He’d never seen the Great Devourer- he’d been too young to join the war effort when the Great Queen of the Serpentine had been released on the surface last time. But he’d heard the legends of her ferocious appetite, sheer mass, and her obedience to the Serpentine of old.
Oh, if there was any chance at getting free and releasing the Devourer, the desire to see that alone would keep Pythor alive.
Pythor stumbled in his stride, a tremendous rumble from his stomach sending shivers down his spine. Clutching the nearest wall, becoming visible in his moment of weakness, Pythor held his breath, trying not to retch as the sensation reached his throat. He didn’t have the scientific education to understand exactly what his body was doing, but it felt as though his innards were eating themselves to compensate for the lack of food.
Swallowing thickly, Pythor abandoned his path back to his crevice, instead ducking into the nearest side chamber, where he leaned against the wall and slid into a lying position. Breathing slowly, deeply, his eyes closed and he tried once again to focus on any other feeling. His tongue tasting the air, he gave a sudden twitch when he realized he wasn’t alone. His neck swung his head to the side, where his eyes fell upon another Anacondrai, curled up in the corner just a few feet away.
It was a younger Anacondrai, a bit smaller than the average warrior, wearing no clothes or armor. Pythor had been so distracted by his hunger before that he hadn’t noticed the smell, but the Anacondrai stank of roadkill. With a sinking feeling, Pythor’s eyes scanned the serpentine, taking in the pale scales, the lack of movement, and the open, lifeless eyes. The Anacondrai had died, probably recently.
Pythor’s stomach growled fiercely, but he fought the feeling down, pounding a fist against his chest. He didn’t want to feel this hungry sitting so near a corpse. What if inhaling the stench somehow killed him faster? He knew Serpentine were more immune to disease and injury than humans- it was part of why he and the other Anacondrai had been able to last weeks without food. But he was beginning to reach the end of the line.
Pythor groaned, throwing his head back against the wall, practically tearing up from the pain. It was as though worms were writhing inside his stomach, threatening to tear it open. This was the end, and he could feel it. He wouldn’t last another day.
Please, not yet . Pythor squeezed his eyes shut, his fingers curling into fists, trembling against the floor of the cave. He didn’t know who he was praying to, or why he expected an answer, but he didn’t care that he was being irrational. If there was anyone in Ninjago that could spare him from this fate, he would do whatever they asked of him. He didn’t want to die. Especially not here, surrounded by those that would not miss him. Especially after he’d done nothing to earn his punishment.
He couldn’t die. Not until he repaid the surface dwellers for this injustice. Not until the Great Devourer swept over Ninjago and swallowed the land, sea and sun whole. Not until he made proud Arcturus and the Serpentine of old, and finally made a name for himself.
Pythor’s eyes rolled open, lazily drifting toward the corpse he was sharing a room with. He’d been told by so many that death was an inevitable stage of life. It was like peacefully resting after a long endeavor. But what did they know? They hadn’t died- how did they know what it was like? In his experience, witnessing savage brutality during the war, death was something to be feared above all else. It wasn’t a stage of life, it was the end of life!
Why should he be shamed for being terrified of the end of his life? He’d done nothing with his life, due to those that had given him no chance to. He wouldn’t be subject to death until he’d done something with his life. He would live forever if he could. He’d never die, and he’d never stay down.
Pythor blinked. He hadn’t realized he’d been staring at the corpse. He glanced away, figuring it was only a matter of time before it began to stink, and he’d have to find a new room. How the surface dwellers would mock if they could see the mighty Anacondrai reduced to feeble beggars starving in holes.
Pythor’s eyes found the body again, narrowing. At the rate the Serpentine were dying out, the bodies would surely spread disease to those that remained, and they’d only perish faster. What was to be done with these bodies? They had to be dealt with before they became a problem. But they had nowhere to get rid of them. They couldn’t burn the bodies or break them down.
Pythor mused that the bodies could've been fed to the Anacondrai Serpent. A strange mutation of the Anacondrai, General Arcturus had owned an enormous purple monster- the only Serpentine that perfectly resembled an ordinary snake besides the Great Devourer herself. They’d used the serpent in the war effort, though Pythor was unsure what became of her after the human victory. It was a shame they didn’t still have it- it would make short work of these bodies as meals.
An idea occurred to Pythor, but he quickly dismissed it. No, that’s ridiculous . An utterly revolting idea. And yet, it had merit.
Pythor shook his head, looking away from the body, hardly believing what he was thinking. Had he really just considered eating a corpse? What had come over him? He chuckled nervously, sliding upright and moving for the doorway, deciding to find somewhere truly empty. But he passed just outside the room, glancing back at the lifeless Anacondrai.
But what if he did? There was nothing else to eat, and he knew he was doomed if he did not eat soon. He could feel his stomach tearing itself apart right now. If it was not satisfied in the next hours, he would be dead. Why shouldn't he put this body to use? It wasn’t doing anything as it was.
“No!” Pythor spat, shaking his head again, shivering. He glanced around at the cavern to see that it was empty- it would appear the General’s conclave was still going. He didn’t want to be seen here, having this pointless argument with himself. He wasn’t going to do it. There was nothing that could make him go that far.
Why wasn’t he moving? Pythor groaned, clutching his stomach. He’d decided he wasn’t going to eat the body, so why wasn’t he leaving? What else was there for him here? Nothing!
Exactly . A sinister part of Pythor’s mind reasoned. There’s nothing for me here but bodies. Bodies that must be discarded. And if I am to survive, sacrifices must be made.
Wanting to scream, Pythor threw himself against the floor of the cave, clenching when the quick motion disturbed his empty stomach. He could feel it squirming, as though it had a mouth of its own and was trying to eat his organs. He had to act fast if he wanted to live. Gritting his fangs, tears of desperation forming at the corners of his eyes, he crept toward the body of the fallen Anacondrai, grabbing its cold, lifeless arm with a trembling hand.
I can’t do this . Pythor pulled away, breathing heavily, withholding a gag at the thought of what he was doing. It’s a person. It’s one of my kind. It’s cannibalism!
I must . That dark, soothing voice in his head replied. This cadaver was never one of my kind. My tribe has turned its back on me, shunned me and mocked me my whole life. I am my own kind, and they are their own kind. They’d do the same to me when I died.
Pythor pulled himself closer to the corpse, unfurling his neck and lowering his head toward the shoulder of the Anacondrai. Pythor made a pained, shaky noise when he found the Serpentine’s motionless face staring up at him. Whether or not he had any sympathy for this snake, or any other snake in this desolate pit was irrelevant. Even if it was already dead, what would it mean if he ate it? Would he do so again when another died? How often was he willing to do this? What would the others think if they found out?
I will survive. Pythor’s eyes narrowed, and for the first time in days, weeks, or however long it had been, the rumbling of his stomach subsided, sensing a meal on its way. Ignoring the senses that screamed at him not to, he lowered his head again and opened his mouth, fangs descending upon the flesh of his fallen kin. I’ll always survive.