It is not as if he ever doubted it. It never existed a moment where he could open his eyes and not see proof that his adventure with the creature had been real, that it had changed so much for so many people. He never doubted when he looked at the mysterious marks forever branded on his skin.

He never doubted when he saw the crater of the creature's weight on the ground, as it slowly disappeared in the passage of years, seasons and winds. As it grew back and almost faded. Never doubted as the village's children once scared grew up secure, and his own children eventually did. In time, his grandchildren would follow.

To these new generations, his tale was an amazing event, true and inspiring, but just that: a tale. Something once lived, now gone. The results would linger on, and it was more than most could ask for - but it was gone. The adventure was lived and gone.

How many small hands had temptatively ran over his arms to feel the marks, which bore no texture any different to human skin. Their young, unafraid minds imagining wild scenarios, never too exaggerated but never close to reality, of the once so frightening tricos. Now, they talked and painted these wonderful creatures in a new light, and with the contours of their own imaginations.

Sometimes it felt like a tale to him. Something once real, but so gone in time it had now withered away.

He would pick the feather then. That one feather the healer had placed next to his sickbed so long ago.

"For good luck," she had hissed, the words too foreign still for her then, but undeniably accurate even at the time after the events unfolded.

Good luck it brought.

Years passed, but holding the feather brought back the grounding and the certainty that time had unavoidably faded.

A tale, but a real one.

It allowed the children to wander about the creatures that bore those velvety feathers, dreaming one day they might have an adventure of their own with a surviving trico. If there ever were any left.

And it brought him solace, the memories of physically holding the creature's body, the perils they faced and conquered together. Mostly the feeling, the physical memory of patting and soothing its feathers, tend to its wounds it so strongly held up to. The sound of the splashing water, the coldness of it as it splashed him as well, as the creature played like a small cub, rolled so playfully and carelessly, so confidently entrusting him to be there, to join him.

A real remnant of the precious time that happened in the past, yes, and still bore consequences now, but that he could still physically hold, see and touch.

Still made him feel like a child hoping to see his friend once more.

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the end

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Author's Note: In my own way, I'm trying to overcome the recent events.

I'm also in a process of mental cleansing and so I know all the stories will have weaker writing and simple plots, but I prefer that to continue like I have until now.

Thanks for reading, reviews are appreciated if you want to and please point out mistakes.