The little snake smiled in the embrace of the Ancestor.
Every time the Ancestor patted its head, the little snake was reminded of the times it would huddle together with its siblings, sleeping soundly in the narrow burrow of a tree stump.
Siblings who had been torn away, separated for life by the hands of the two-legged beasts.
The little snake, who had believed such warmth would never return, fully savored the Ancestor’s touch.
‘Smooth, bald…’
Unlike its siblings, the Ancestor’s thoughts contained strange words that were difficult to understand.
‘Meaning. What?’
‘Ah, your hearing is sharper than I thought…?’
The little snake was certain it must be something good.
With such beautiful eyes and such a gentle gaze, how could the meaning of those thoughts be anything but kind?
‘But why am I your Ancestor? I never had a child like you. It’s not like I have kin or anything…’
The Ancestor was, naturally, the Ancestor. The little snake didn’t know how to respond to such a question.
So it simply answered with quiet certainty.
‘Ancestor. Obvious.’
‘…Well, whatever.’
It wasn’t that it had no thoughts to convey; it was that it couldn’t decide which thought to send first.
Now that communication had become easier, paradoxically, there was less need to speak.
‘Smooth…’
With the Ancestor’s hand endlessly stroking its head, the little snake felt as if it would doze off at any moment.
But it shook its head with a sharp squeak, breaking free.
The Ancestor’s touch felt good, but it didn’t want to fall asleep just yet.
The little snake sent a thought—anything to keep the conversation going.
It recalled the recent event: standing bravely even in front of the beast, trusting in the Ancestor’s thoughts.
‘Ancestor! Waiting. Thought. Following!’
The little snake was proud.
Maybe it would even receive praise.
However, the Ancestor scolded it instead.
‘You foolish, chubby snake. Waiting doesn’t mean staying completely still!’
The little snake struggled to understand the Ancestor’s thoughts.
Did ‘waiting’ have another meaning? As far as it knew, there was none.
Its tiny brain could only grasp so much.
Hop.
Suddenly, its vision lifted upwards.
The little snake let out a startled squeak, but quickly understood why.
The Ancestor had stood up, holding the little snake in its embrace.
Shaking its wings, the Ancestor grumbled.
‘At this rate, my wings are going to be stained completely red…’
The little snake wanted to reassure the Ancestor, to say that such things could not taint its grandeur, but it swallowed its thoughts instead.
With every movement of the wings, the little snake caught glimpses of something unusual.
The Ancestor’s wings were different from those of the birds it knew.
They resembled those of the quiet cave-dwellers the little snake had seen only a few times in its life—wings layered beneath ordinary feathers.
If they were structured like that, it made sense that blood would be difficult to clean once it seeped in.
The mere thought of the Ancestor carrying the scent of the beast’s blood was horrifying.
So the little snake urged the Ancestor.
‘Move! Good. Positive!’
‘Alright. Now, where should we go…?’
Still holding the little snake, the Ancestor stepped out of the room.
Pitter-patter.
Not long after leaving, the Ancestor suddenly stopped, gazing blankly at the ceiling.
Then, looking down at the little snake, it asked a question.
‘Chubby snake, a temple belongs to its god, right? So if this is all mine, that means I can lie down anywhere I want, doesn’t it?’
‘Temple? God? What?’
The little snake didn’t quite understand what the Ancestor meant.
At the very least, its mother had never taught it such words.
But the Ancestor wouldn’t send meaningless thoughts.
So the little snake decided that if the Ancestor said so, it must be good.
‘Positive.’
‘Right. No need to go all the way back to that room. I didn’t like it much to begin with. I need a quieter, more open resting place. This place is big enough… If I pick carefully, there should be at least one good spot.’
Satisfied with the little snake’s answer, the Ancestor began looking around.
The little snake found this fascinating.
Even when it followed the Ancestor’s gaze, all it saw were walls, floors, and ceilings.
What exactly was the Ancestor seeing?
Curious, but not wanting to interrupt, the little snake remained silent.
‘Hmm. How about that place? It’s small, but there’s no one around.’
The Ancestor stretched out its tail to point.
From what the little snake could see, it was just… a wall.
Feeling perplexed but trusting the Ancestor, the little snake simply nodded.
‘Positive.’
‘Not there, then how about here? Looks like someone with a very free-spirited face is already living there, but I can just toss them out when I have the energy.’
Once again, all the little snake saw was a wall.
Still, it nodded repeatedly.
‘Positive.’
The Ancestor, listening to the little snake’s thoughts, suddenly stretched out its arms.
The little snake, plump and elastic, stretched along with them.
Now dangling in midair, held up by both hands, the little snake found itself staring directly into the Ancestor’s face.
“Chubby snake, you really agree with everything I say, huh? You’re a total yes-man. Not that I really know what that means…”
Squeak?
The little snake had been struggling to understand some of the Ancestor’s words for a while now.
But of course, it still nodded in agreement.
‘Affirmative! Ancestor. Right! Everything!’
Beyond those breathtakingly beautiful eyes, the true essence of the Ancestor shone through.
The little snake couldn’t describe that even if it tried.
But it could at least tell that the Ancestor was far, far greater than it had imagined.
So the little snake affirmed the Ancestor.
There was no way the Ancestor would send meaningless thoughts with a gaze like that.
“Hehe. Of course, of course…”
The corners of the Ancestor’s eyes curved into a soft smile.
“Chubby snake, I have a question for you.”
‘What…?’
The little snake suddenly felt uneasy.
But since there was no real reason to feel uneasy, it dismissed it as a mistake.
“What do you think about getting taken away to the Dragon King’s Palace? You see, dragons are supposed to kidnap humans.”
Squeak, squeak?!
The little snake flinched at the word “kidnap” for a moment but nodded absentmindedly.
It knew what “two-legged beasts” were, but it had no idea what a “human” was, nor did it know what the “Dragon King’s Palace” was.
‘Affirmative.’
The Ancestor grinned widely.
The little snake shivered.
It felt even more uneasy.
“Well, you may have some… unconventional facial features, but since you can communicate through thoughts, I guess you’re basically human, right?”
Squeak, squeak?!
The little snake was utterly bewildered.
Why was the conversation suddenly going in this direction?!
It was so flustered that, for the first time, it actually struggled to escape from the Ancestor’s grasp.
But the Ancestor didn’t let go.
“What number priestess was Shim Cheong again? She took care of me like a doting parent… So don’t you think you should do something for me too?”
That was when the little snake finally realized something was very wrong.
Its plump little body began to hiccup nervously, and its tiny heart pounded.
The little snake hesitated for a moment before sending a timid thought.
It slowly shook its head side to side.
‘N-no…? Negative…?’
“Too late.”
The little snake’s view plummeted toward the ground.
Squeak?!
Before it could even react, the Ancestor sat down, and its body began to change.
Its wings and tail shrunk and disappeared into its body.
Its horns crumbled into dust, scattering into the air.
The little snake was even more startled than when it had seen a beast.
The very presence of the Ancestor was diminishing at an alarming rate.
To the little snake, it seemed like the Ancestor would keep shrinking until it disappeared into nothing.
The Ancestor’s body remained the same size, but the little snake felt as if it were vanishing.
‘Ancestor! Disappear. No! Hate!’
It desperately sent out a thought.
“Huh? What are you even saying? Hehe… It’s just natural to change into sleepwear when resting.”
And with that, the Ancestor’s dwindling presence finally stopped.
Its horns, wings, and tail were gone, but nothing more.
It didn’t seem like the little snake’s thought had stopped it… but still, the little snake felt relieved.
So relieved, in fact, that for a brief moment, it forgot all about its earlier unease.
And then—
It completely failed to sense what was coming.
The Ancestor’s head came crashing down, mercilessly squashing the little snake beneath it.
Boing.
The little snake’s plump, elastic body flattened like a boa constrictor under an elephant’s foot.
“Ever since I first saw you, I’ve been wanting to do this… Hehe. Your heart beats so quietly because you’re small. How fascinating.”
‘Crushed! No! Negative!’
Whimper.
A sorrowful squeak echoed through the air.
It had been tricked!
The little snake squirmed in protest, but with its tiny strength, it couldn’t move even a single millimeter from between the Ancestor’s hands and head.
“Give it up. You make the perfect pillow.”
Indeed, it was already far too late.
As always, the Ancestor’s words had been completely, unquestionably correct.
“Hmm… I was just planning to lie down for a moment, but now that I am, I’m feeling really tired. All the decent rooms are too far away anyway… And this chubby snake’s heartbeat isn’t too bad… so maybe I’ll just… rest here…?”
The Ancestor’s thoughts trailed off into silence.
The little snake, having accepted its fate, quietly wiped away a single tear.
Whimper.