He is dead, and the lindworm is crying over his corpse.

Tears dilute the blood flowing down its maw, drenching the earth. Its body is wrapped around the trees; dozens of rings encompass the surrounding forest and disappear into the dark. The light of the moon reflects on its soiled skin, glistening against the burgundy stains covering the beautiful viridian scales. It doesn’t move, just stares at the butchered remains in front of it, keeping its jaws tightly shut against the now crushed head, and breathes through its flaring nostrils.

Then its deep, golden brown eyes meet mine, and I choke up when I see them soften.

I am desperate to say something, but I stay on the ground, legs weak and arms shaking, looking from the field to the creature that’s mauled its hunter. His halberd lies discarded from when I tried to take it away from him, and the cold iron waits next to me like a deadly viper hiding in the tall grass. My heart races with the thought of touching it.

The beast tenses. It stares at my hands, impatiently shifting its short legs against the trunk it’s holding itself on. I notice its claws digging into the bark, while its muscles strain and contract around the trees.

It waits for my decision.

I can barely breathe. I had only wanted to stop the man, but the lindworm slithered out of the dark when the shimmering metal got pointed right at my chest. The creature sunk its long, needle-like teeth deep in the assailant’s flesh before I could react. Flashes of the massacre play in my head—the horse rearing and throwing off his rider, the violent shakes of the lindworm’s head as it slaughtered the hunter, the sounds of agony and limbs ripping apart, the pungent smell of death in the fresh summer night.

And now the lindworm and I are left alone with one another for the first time since I saw it standing above the emptied shell of my wife’s body. Seven years since it vanished into the swamp and eluded my grasp. Seven years since I started mourning what I had lost and proclaimed myself a widower. Seven years since I let myself be taken by sadness and anger that fueled my hatred toward it.

It took everything we had and ruined the life I had known. It stole birdsong from my garden and laughter from my kitchen. It removed warmth from my hearth and caresses from my skin. It took the only person I had ever loved and left me with a small child I did not know how to care for. Everything I had lost had been due to its vicious teeth that yearned to taste what had been long forbidden.

When the poor clump of reddened, putrid sores that I had once called my son succumbed to its short, painful illness, I decided I wanted the lindworm to suffer. I wanted to punish it for its selfish abandonment. I showed the tiny, ruined corpse to the other villagers, and pointed at the deep, bloodied wounds and its bloated, disfigured face.

It was easy to put the blame on the monster crawling through the swamp. As if the other men needed any more reason to take up their pitchforks to destroy what they deemed was the cause of all their misery. As if the women needed any more excuses to light their torches to burn what they blamed for their families’ ailments. As if the priests needed any more conviction to condemn an earthly soul as the devil incarnate.

“Kill it!” they shouted, raising their weapons.

“Burn it!” they screamed, waving their fires.

“Punish it!” they chanted, clenching their crucifixes.

“I shall!” said the hunter, making his way between them and showing death made of iron, shining in his hands.

Alas, I was to experience vindication. Alas, I was to see its head severed and mounted above the bed it had emptied. Alas, I was to sleep peacefully under its lifeless eyes.

And yet, when I saw the hunter disappear from sight and when the villagers started spitting at the ground, mourning the death of my progeny, but cursing my wife’s name, something split inside me. Hearing the name I’d been too heartbroken to utter used by bitter mouths and spoiled tongues fueled the remorse I had tamed for too long. When I charged toward them and drew blood, they called me a madman and tied me to a tree, lest I interfere with their intentions.

The thought of the lindworm being gone ate away at my insides. All I wanted was for it to shed its scales again and accept the life it had promised to me. To come back to me. To be with me as I had known it. And I had doomed it instead.

Had I not slipped out of the rope that bound me, had I not run into the dark forest to stop the hunter, and had I not decided to take him on myself, I would have lost it. Forever. And its striking, burning eyes that recognized me after all those years, even though I was the one who refused to see them. Who was afraid to face them—the thin, slit irises that ignited the moment they took their snake-like form.

Now they wait before me. Hesitant. Ready to accept my denial and extinguish what I had seen aglow, returning into the forest where I know I will never see it again. The death of my child has been enough to drive the people to violence. Now they will seek revenge. Peace is not an option anymore. It never even was.

I do not wish to relinquish what I had known as my home. It does not want to surrender the freedom it has achieved. I fear the change I would need to accept. It fears the lie it would need to live.

The wind rustles across the field, bringing in the scent of ash. The moon has gone past its zenith and recedes slowly toward the horizon again. We have wasted so much time. Years and years of tragedy and regrets. Of hearths that couldn’t warm the house and the gentle creaking of the glistening snow beyond the edge of the garden. Of the loathsome tang of hatred my spouse held for the thing that I hoped would thwart her imminent transformation and the subsequent silent indifference that drowned the forest in shameless serenity. Of incessant cries I didn’t know how to soothe and the distant, alluring murmurs that resonated through the swamp. And now there is nothing more between us. Only distance.

In my desperation to keep it bound to me, I had made up its mind and driven it away. So many mistakes, and all of them mine. It was right to abandon a place it had thought a prison, to seek comfort somewhere else. And my heart aches with the thought that it couldn’t have found it with me.

“I’m sorry.”

I meet its tears with mine, and it responds in a mournful tune. There is too much left unsaid, and I notice how its claws sink deeper into the trunk, and how its body slithers nervously, ready to vanish into the darkness of the forest again.

It is getting ready to disappear, to run away from me again. I am the ball to the chain of our marriage, and it doesn’t want to come close to the shackles again. When I see its head give a slight wave of rejection, and when its enticing form begins disappearing from my sight, a jolt of fear cracks through my chest and I call out, back on my feet, hands extended toward it.

It flinches and I halt, cold air burning through my lungs. My fingertips brush against the cool scales. Then the whole palm. Goosebumps cover my skin. A deep, guttural sound fills the night. A growl mixed with a purr. A warning overpowered by want.

I swallow, fixated on the shimmering rings I’ve never touched, but which I recognize, and which I remember as outlines of the snake-like skin beneath the one that disguised it as human.

Coils constrict when I reach the underside, feeling the tender area that expands with each of its breaths. Blood surges through its veins in a steady rhythm. The motions wake something inside me. A need to experience more of its slithering expanse. A want to feel it pressed against me. A desire to lay my tongue across its flesh.

I do not sense the world quivering around me when I slowly lower my head toward it, nor do I recognize that the ground beneath me shudders as my mouth opens to taste the tartness of the forest soil sticking to its body. I care only for the lindworm’s pensive wince as my lips trace the thin membrane between its plates.

When my nails dig into its flesh, it suddenly slips from my embrace, retreating in the shadows. Away from my grasp, where it knows I cannot touch it anymore. I am left dazed and breathless, realizing the mistake of my transgression. I cower as I realize my face is not the only place where blood has settled to further color my embarrassment.

“I apologize.” A step back, gaze lowered to the ground. Throat tight and hands raised in an excuse. “I shouldn’t have.”

When I look at it again, its head hovers in front of me. Blood still seeps through its maw, mixed with saliva. It stares at me. Waiting. Calculating.

Searching.

Then, finally, it moves, unfurls, and loops around the trees deeper into the forest. It never ceases to follow my reactions to its movements, hypnotizing and obscene. With its tail slithering along the wide trunks. Tempting me.

Inviting me.

And I am helpless to resist its call.

I walk toward it, stumbling over the dirt road, craving to feel it once again. I cross the threshold of the forest, let the shadows consume me, and enter its domain. There is no more moonlight to illuminate my way, no wind rustling through the leaves, no scent from the faraway fires. I am surrounded by nothingness, guided only by the low growls underlined with a promise.

Then, in front of me, the swamp. A calm, murky abyss embraced by thickets of soft grass. The lindworm slides into the water, its slick figure cutting through the silver liquid—shears against velvet.

Moss muffles my steps and mist covers my breath. Glancing across my shoulder, I cannot make out the fields any longer and do not know which way I should take to get back home. But I do not care for it anyway, just for the glass surface in front of me, reflecting the desperation written in my hesitant limbs. My mind is powerless to resist the burning ache of my heart. I step into the water, breaking through the mirrored image of the world, and allow myself to be consumed by the swamp.

My legs lose their footing. I float in the darkness, the shore outside my grasp. I do not see the lindworm, but I can feel it stroking against me as it swims past. Beneath my legs to steady me. Around my hips to reassure me. Across the small of my back to tempt me. A dazed exhale escapes my throat, and it is enough for the lindworm to come closer.

It wraps its slick body around mine. Tight. Decisive. It slides under my clothes, cool scales against hot skin. My fingers brush against the curved edges of iridescent green. I feel the dips and notches, the increments and arches—familiar shapes of what I had once known. Of what I crave.

My head rolls back, hair submerged and flowing, and I let out a whimper. The lindworm holds me firmly. My limbs are restrained by it, confined by tight muscles that deprive me of my volition. It tightens around my thighs, caressing against places which make me shiver. My knuckles strain from wanting to reciprocate, to give back, but it keeps me in place, not allowing me to do something against its wishes. It coils and it compresses, and when a low sound escapes my lips, it matches it with a shuddering thrill.

The more I give in, the more it gives out. Tail slipping between my legs. The ridges on its back grinding against my crotch. Smooth, precise movements over sensitive areas. Undulating in a titillating rhythm. A carefully constructed orchestra of agitations that make me quiver.

Its head appears from the dark, the ridge of its muzzle breaking the surface, and I only see the glint of its eyes before it opens its mouth to reveal a salivating tongue. My back arches with the touch of it, but the creature holds me down. It drags its tongue across supple sinews, slips into nooks and slithers along ridges. I taste salt in my mouth and I know it does too. Sweat and swamp water.

The surface ripples with the movements, quiet sighs and purrs filling in the silence between the strumming of crickets. Water lilies wrap around our entangled bodies, slipping in through the gaps and knotting across our extremities. The wind caresses exposed wet skin, sending intoxicating shivers down already overstimulated areas. The moon traces lines of reverberating coils, leaving most of them under the secret of the night, deep inside the murky, opaque expanse.

Soon the lithe, tender flesh I feel around my loins ignites the kindling inside my abdomen. Soon all the motions become too much to bear. Soon I cannot take the pressure any longer. Water enters between my lips, and I close them again as I am pulled under the surface. The lack of air drags me deeper into the void, numbing my senses. All except the intoxicating, maddening, suffocating feeling between my legs that quickly approaches its pinnacle. The fluctuations of the lindworm’s muscles, its rigid grip on me, and the shared experience of the same overwhelming passion I recognize in the tightening of its body is what finally spills the overflowing pit inside me.

I open my mouth to let out a sigh, and the lindworm follows suit, trembling alongside me as I helplessly accept the sweet relief and offering the strain which my body begs for it to hold. I break through the surface, fighting for my breath, and struggling to endure the saccharine pleasure that resonates through my veins. It is torture and it is bliss, and I clench my hands around the lindworm’s coils and pull it closer, pleading for more.

And it concedes my request. It relishes my reactions. It savors my moans.

Until I can’t take any more. Until I go limp. Until my voice tones down.

We lie still, drifting in the water, knotted around one another. Muscles loosen around me, allowing space for my body to regain control over itself. The coils expand and contract in the rhythm of my breaths, and I recognize the painfully familiar pattern of mutually fulfilled pleasure. A gentle hum resonates beneath the lindworm’s scales, matching the sounds of the swamp around us. The buzzing of insects and the croaking of frogs, the rustling in the reeds and the stirring of the trees, the moisture that sticks to the skin and the heat that clings to the chest. It is nature in its simplicity. It is peace.

One I know can’t exist with me.

It stayed away from me for a reason. It saw my sadness. It knew my anger. And it felt my temper. One too many times. I have never raised my hands on it, but my words were enough to leave scars.

No. I had brought it too much pain. It deserves a life where it is not burdened by a constant reminder of what it could have had if it kept pretending to be something it was not.

The lindworm senses the tightening of my jaw and the growing lump in my throat. It feels the languishing touch of my palm caressing its side. And it knows what I’ve decided.

It slowly releases me from its grasp, its scales sliding under my fingers and clinging to the lingering warmth in my veins. This moment in time will never be as painful in memory as it is right now.

Mud under my feet. The firmness of the shore. Water dripping down. The clamor of the forest. Dawn nearing the horizon. The heaviness of the heart. One last caress, maw against the crook of my neck and the gentle whisper of my name. The remnants of a voice, diluted and subdued by the tones of another. Yet, it is enough to make tears well up in my eyes again. I hear the understanding in it, and the affection. It’s a temporary farewell, the promise of another encounter, but with gratitude for the freedom I have promised to grant it.

I turn, catching the last glimpse of the tail, taken by the water. The surface shows my reflection again, this time fueled by quiet solace. I lost my future to sickness and my unrelenting ire. I have no life to return to, no place to call my home and no people to call my friends. I am alone, left to the little I still possess. But I will rest easy, knowing that the swamp will hold what I cherish the most, away from harm and surrounded by opulence.

And I will be contempt in my solitude, watching from a distance, eagerly awaiting the next wistful moment I may spend with the beholder of my heart.

My lover, the lindworm.

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To Love a Lindworm © 2025 Lea Katarina Gobec

[EN] Lea Katarina Gobec has too many hobbies, one of which is obviously writing. Many of her stories are published in Morina Kutija, where she helps out as an editor as well, but can also be found in FantaSTikon’s short story collection “A možda je u šumi” and the haunted house anthology “Posljednja kuća u Šenoinoj ulici”. She was awarded the „Chrysalis“ award by the ESFS in 2023, and got an honorable mention for the 2024 „Stjepko Težak“ award. Her eco-horror novella “The Last Witch of Lonjsko Polje” is coming out this fall.

The short story To Love a Lindworm was originally published in the Morina kutija, no. 9 (kolovoz, 2025). You can download it for free from morinakutija.com/mag or Smashwords.

[HR] Lea Katarina Gobec ima previše hobija, uključujući i pisanje. Više njezinih priča objavljeno je u Morinoj Kutiji, gdje također pomaže kao urednica, ali se mogu naći i u FantaSTikonovoj zbirci “A možda je u šumi” te antologiji ukletih kuća “Posljednja kuća u Šenoinoj ulici”. Dobila je ESFS nagradu Chrysalis 2023. i posebno priznanje natječaja za kratku priču “Stjepko Težak”. Njezina eko-horor novela “The Last Witch of Lonjsko Polje” izlazi ove jeseni.

Priča To Love a Lindworm objavljena je u online časopisu Morina kutija, br. 9 (kolovoz, 2025.). Časopis možete besplatno preuzeti s morinakutija.com/mag ili s platforme Smashwords.

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Urednički komentar: Melankolična, puna boli i senzualna, ova kratka romantična fantasy priča daje nam uvid u drukčiju, mogli bismo reći, čudovišnu, vezu. Ali tko je pravo čudovište?