Post by Yaksha Dokuja on May 3, 2018 18:37:51 GMT -5
A predator's instincts were well-honed, suited towards a great number of things. They could figure out how to sneak up on a target, how to best cut off avenues of escape such that even a more nimble target couldn't escape, and they could ensure that the fight was to their advantage, every time. A good predator always made sure it had every possible advantage, and most importantly, a good predator cut and run as soon as something it hadn't planned for happened. All these things had been rewarded, over the fullness of time, ensuring that the best and strongest predators knew their work inside and out, and never took chances.
Yaksha was not a very good predator. He had fed a scant few times in his life, and almost always on creatures that couldn't be called filling, or significant. It wasn't hard to see why a hollow such as him had failed to evolve yet, looking at the long-term. The vast majority of his time had been spent curled up in some hole somewhere, or running as soon as anything happened, unexpected or not. Were evolution at play, one would have had to ask themselves very hard how a creature this lazy, this uninterested in much of anything, had been able to survive.
Yaksha could've answered that question easily, though: He survived because survival was all he cared about. Immortality was the ultimate form of evolution, after all: It didn't matter whether or not one's genetic or memetic load held any value towards others, if you never actually died. A wolf needed the pack because that was how every wolf ensured the next generation of wolves were armed for the hunt. A lion needed its claws and fangs because the pressures of the outside world dictated that without such things, a lion would die.
A hollow, defanged, and left with no claws, was still no less clever or sociable than a human. That was all Yaksha needed to remind others of: He was, quite simply, immune to the pressures of external forces. There was an infinite landscape for him to explore, endless resources to make use of, and he had the guile and patience to use all of it to his advantage. To what end would learning to blow things up with lasers, or to bite hard enough to shatter bones, change anything? There was simply no need for the sort of violence and savagery his brethren exhibited. And so, with great care, and much patience, he had excised it.
Most of it, at least. And now Yaksha had to wonder how much of it was intact, as he skulked from rooftop to rooftop, instincts screaming to him that he was the one being tracked, that he was the one being pushed into a corner. He knew every trick a would-be predator would use, and none of them were in play...but some instinctual part of him still drowned out all reason, still demanded he react. It told him to cut and run, to make himself appear as big as possible, and intimidate whatever would-be attacker was trying to strike him down, it told him a dozen things that all contradicted one another, and Yaksha knew following his instincts were almost certainly smarter than logic...if he could figure out who was actually tracking him.
One piece of missing information, that was all it took for the predator to win its meal. And Yaksha had survived very long by not working off of faulty information. So he stood atop one building, scanning the surroundings for any sign of anyone that could even see him.
Yaksha was not a very good predator. He had fed a scant few times in his life, and almost always on creatures that couldn't be called filling, or significant. It wasn't hard to see why a hollow such as him had failed to evolve yet, looking at the long-term. The vast majority of his time had been spent curled up in some hole somewhere, or running as soon as anything happened, unexpected or not. Were evolution at play, one would have had to ask themselves very hard how a creature this lazy, this uninterested in much of anything, had been able to survive.
Yaksha could've answered that question easily, though: He survived because survival was all he cared about. Immortality was the ultimate form of evolution, after all: It didn't matter whether or not one's genetic or memetic load held any value towards others, if you never actually died. A wolf needed the pack because that was how every wolf ensured the next generation of wolves were armed for the hunt. A lion needed its claws and fangs because the pressures of the outside world dictated that without such things, a lion would die.
A hollow, defanged, and left with no claws, was still no less clever or sociable than a human. That was all Yaksha needed to remind others of: He was, quite simply, immune to the pressures of external forces. There was an infinite landscape for him to explore, endless resources to make use of, and he had the guile and patience to use all of it to his advantage. To what end would learning to blow things up with lasers, or to bite hard enough to shatter bones, change anything? There was simply no need for the sort of violence and savagery his brethren exhibited. And so, with great care, and much patience, he had excised it.
Most of it, at least. And now Yaksha had to wonder how much of it was intact, as he skulked from rooftop to rooftop, instincts screaming to him that he was the one being tracked, that he was the one being pushed into a corner. He knew every trick a would-be predator would use, and none of them were in play...but some instinctual part of him still drowned out all reason, still demanded he react. It told him to cut and run, to make himself appear as big as possible, and intimidate whatever would-be attacker was trying to strike him down, it told him a dozen things that all contradicted one another, and Yaksha knew following his instincts were almost certainly smarter than logic...if he could figure out who was actually tracking him.
One piece of missing information, that was all it took for the predator to win its meal. And Yaksha had survived very long by not working off of faulty information. So he stood atop one building, scanning the surroundings for any sign of anyone that could even see him.
