Lei-Tian was made of stories. The stories and whispers of the grass and snow beneath him, the spruce and willow twisting over him. In the rumble of the beasts, and the thrum of the thunder, his heartbeat found itself. Life formed from the forest around it and on the cusp of spring, he took his first breath, wreathed in heavenly gold. He was raised by the vestiges of his ancestors, by the trees that saw all. Though he could not see with the blind eyes of his, he had no need for it in the lush forest he called his home.

He would've lived as such for millenia to come if he could. Yet as much as his spirit remained unchanging, the creatures that called themselves human were ever changing. His first memories of these humans were the humble shrines they made for him, made of wood and innocent awe. He had even made friends with them.

But then the shrines got bigger, larger, ornamented in ores of the ground. More and more humans arrived, building their houses around and around the shrines. From there emerged the suffocating feeling in his throat, as the edges of his forest got smaller and smaller. That same veneration they once held for him seemed to have twisted over the years, eyes glinting with greed and desire.

The same vestiges that raised Lei-Tian warned him too, of what would happen if he allowed these humans to encroach further. Stories of pain, suffering and sorrow, and those too became a part of his soul. So he played the part, scaring away the humans from the edges of his forest. He imparted a story, a part of himself. A legend of who he was, of the hidden teeth beneath the trees, and to stay away. And they listened, even centuries later, beyond the occasional wanderer.

From the frozen lake he sat beside, as he played with butterflies, his ears flicked at a footstep. The smell of a human. He waited. Whether human blood would spill upon his grounds tonight depended on how this human acted. He hoped they'd leave with no fuss. He had no desire to hurt the descendants of those who once were friends.