Ratha

He remembers, those muddy years before he became a person. Memories of a simpler time, where he was merely an apex predator. Eat, kill, hunt, sleep. 

Die. 

He remembers her face, and the faces of her companions. Remembers the concern in those purple eyes as he lay dying, remembers her tending to her wounds and those of her friends as he breathed his last. 

He doesn’t hold it against her. He understands, now, why she did what she did. Understands invasive species, and the sheer amount of damage they can do to an environment. Understands that through no fault of his own, he’d been put in a position where he had to be removed. 

It still hurt, dying. He hadn’t been afraid, meeting his end. He hadn’t really had the capacity to. Oh, he’d been afraid as he realized he’d been fighting a losing battle, but…it hadn’t been death itself that had him so scared. 

He remembers a crystal, and a woman in white and blue. She was speaking, but he didn’t understand, not then. It was only later, as a person, that he could look back and understand the confused look on her face, and the words she’d spoken. 

“What. What am I- thou art like Imber, thou cannot reincarnate! Cannot join the lifestream. What am I even going to do with thee? What canst thou-“

Here the woman paused, understanding dawning upon her face. 

“Thou CANST reincarnate. Thy soul may not be made for it, but it can be done, if not properly. Go. Take thy second chance in thy talons, and grow to be more than thou were.”

And then, he breathed again. 

Things weren’t much different, in the beginning. Life consisted of eating, sleeping, and fighting, as per usual, though this fighting had been relegated to play. But as he grew, he began to wonder, for the first time. Questions that had never before crossed his mind began to clamor unceasingly in his heart. 

WHY was the sky blue? What was this feathered, yellow prey called? Why were they forbidden from hunting humans, as was his right? Why did some trees lose their leaves come winter, and others did not? What even was this whiteness that coated the ground? How did water become solid?

And, who were these people in his memories, who’d laid him low and returned him to life? This palico-eared woman with purple eyes, and the one clothed in blue and white, wreathed in crystalline light?

These and many more were answered mostly-patiently by his elders. His killer was none other than Imber Rein, Warrior of Light and repeated savior of this star. And the second…was Hydaelyn, goddess of light and the will of the star. The one who had granted his many-greats sire sanctuary on this star, that dragonkind may live. 

And so he learned. And as he learned, his world began to expand, in ways it never had before.

There was more to life than eating, sleeping, and holding territory. Humans - HYUR - weren’t out to kill monsters like him, not anymore. They were friends here. He liked the taste of mountain goat, loved the feeling of plunging through the skies as he dove through the clouds. He hated the stink of the smoke the Gnath and Vath lit to keep his kind away, and the meteors the red-feathered chocobos launched in his face. 

He had favorites, now. Had likes and dislikes, PREFERENCES, when he’d never had before. 

By some quirk of fate, he’d hatched for the second time with the striking wing patterns and general shape he’d had before, save for one important thing: hands. He liked hands. Hands made things easier, allowed him to do things he’d never been able to before. Like drawing. He drew with charcoal and paper, filling Hyur-given notebook after Hyur-given notebook with pictures. Things he’d seen, in his life before. People he’d known, monsters he’d fought. Children he’d borne, poking their beaks out from their eggs as they came into his old world, breathing for the very first time. 

Names had no meaning, back when he’d been a monster. Things simply were. But here, names encompassed the whole of who you were, defined your presence in this world. And he, a Rathalos-turned-dragon, could choose to eschew draconic tradition and declare his own: Ratha. A homage to his new and old lives both, a word defining his very being.

Naming yourself just wasn’t done, not among dragons. You EARNED your name, each time you grew, evolved. But Ratha’s situation was strange enough for the others to accept this breaking of tradition. For him to be known as Ratha, now and forevermore. 

He’d earned that name, through fire and blood and death. 

Of course, some tried to torment him for his differences. But after a lifetime of defending territory with tooth and claw, of monsters always seeking out weakness to seize upon, be it predator or prey, well. He knew what to do. And knocking some skulls together to drive his strength home was surprisingly therapeutic. Must be a people thing, he figured. Either way, the end result was the same. His strength remained unquestioned, for a time. And when certain idiots decided to test him again, as lesser monsters once had, he simply repeated the process. 

They’d learn, eventually. Or not. It made no difference to him. 

It was while he was still but a whelping in his second year that he met Imber again. After she’d averted the Final Days of the star, and won them their right to live and love. 

Ratha had never heard someone apologize so much. It was strange. But he understood, and more than that, he was actually grateful, for this twist of fate that led him from Rathalos to dragon. To have the chance to become a person; to know more than the simple life as a predator that had defined him for all his first life. 

He liked her, he decided. She was nothing like the Hunters Ratha had known, back in his old world. She was…kind. Respectful. A good person. One who even entrusted him with her most priceless secret; that she, too, was like him. A soul reborn in a world not her own. 

BARTHOLOMEOW, on the other hand, he could despise. Imber had killed him because it was necessary; Bartholomeow had killed and helped his Hunter partner kill Hydaelyn knows how many monsters for SPORT. 

Was Ratha being uncharitable? Probably. Did he care? Not at all. 

Pettiness, he found, was something both person AND beast understood. And as both, Ratha was very, very good at it. And while the beast understood pettiness just fine, there was something simply exquisite about being able to take in the entirety of the impact of one’s actions.

Some things, he knew, were universal, be it among being or beast. Or, as Imber is so fond of saying, MULTIversal.