44 DoW Day 9 -- A Favorite Mythological Animal

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Hmmmm......I guess I have a slight issue with the word "mythological".  Don't get me wrong, I understand what they're asking, but the word "mythological", to me, implies that the creatures lumped into that category don't exist -- that they're just the products of someone's imagination that wove them into tales and legends.

I can just imagine the "well, duh!" stares I might be getting from whomever reads this.  But please bear in mind:  whether you believe me or not, I originated as an Elf and the realm I came from had these "imaginary" creatures.  Dragons, Unicorns, Pegasi, you name it, we probably had them in our area or knew where you could go to see one.  But even then, these creatures weren't "animals" like humans tend to view animals here.  Here, animals generally tend to be seen as "inferior".  A crap-ton of humans don't even think that animals have souls, arrogantly thinking that only humans go to the after-life, etc.  Animals are thoughtlessly murdered, some to the point or almost to the point of extinction, for absolutely macabre trophies and the rest of their remains are left behind to go to waste.  And yes, I know that the wasteful trophy hunting is something that has become highly discouraged, but it still happens.  I have no problems with a hunter who takes down a deer so long as the meat is properly dealt with (but I think keeping a kill's decapitated head is horrendously disgusting and is not unlike the old practice of putting a beheaded person's head on a spike).  Hell, even there we hunted.  But every kill was valued and treated with respect and none of it went to waste.

Where I come from, though, the creatures -- from the more fantastical to the more "mundane" -- are more sentient.  I don't mean that in terms as to say that they could all talk the way the more humanoid races could.  But we just all understood each other.  Elves there are more connected to nature in a way that humans here (generally speaking) would never understand.  We could listen to their vocals and understand what they were saying much in the same way that that Shaun Ellis (aka the Wolf man) understands wolves.  In fact, personally, if that dude isn't Other or Therian in some form or fashion, I'd be massively surprised.  But that's just me.

Eye contact with the creatures would often times allow for a telepathic link if the creature would allow it and if the creature was willing to take that trust and bond further, the link could be kept open even without looking.  There was a pack of wolves that lived in the area of my village that had that kind of bond with us.  They'd even let us run with them when we were Shifted.  But, as much as we Elves had that kinship with nature, don't let that fool you into thinking that all creatures allowed such a bond with us.  That wolf pack was the only one out of 2 - 4 others that allowed that mental link.

Dragons were more sentient.  They could be tricky to deal with -- great care had to be taken not to accidentally say something offensive, but more often than not, our dealings and relationships with them were friendly.  One of my best friends over there was a Dragon and he was one of the ones who enjoyed taking a humanoid form from time to time (not all of them would, but a decent number of them would do so, especially if they needed to come into my village).  I daresay that that's one of the reasons I've had such a love of Dragons (about as far back as I can remember) and why I connected with the Fire Element so well as mentioned in previous posts.  In fact, it has often crossed my mind that the Dragon that comes when I call upon South in ritual is, in fact, my Dragon friend from Over There  :)

Anyway.  I've massively digressed.  I have many favorite creature types and while many of them don't physically exist in those forms in this realm, they're no more imaginary than the chair I'm currently sitting on.