Every spiteful comment of hers makes me die inside a little. 

But then I swat it away like an irksome fly, get up and rise even stronger from the ashes.

LoG, 347

The Dark Terrors were indeed the naked, grotesque, wrinkly old women with saggy teats from Damona's story. However, they had no poisonous knee-long tongues. 

An enormous, gaping hole stood where their stomach was supposed to be. It showed rotten, foul-smelling jaws filled with big, sharp teeth. The misshapen miserable forms of life had stomachs and belly buttons on their heads, while their eyeless faces with predominant mandibles were on their stomachs.

"Damn it!" Drian swore. "I knew we shouldn't have let the fire burn for so long." He pulled out his trustworthy bone knife, which, to be honest, he had lately been using simply for making sandwiches and swung it towards the nearest hag.

The hag lunged at him impossibly fast, opening her jaws and trapping his arm within them. Drian was forced to release the knife if he wanted to keep his hand, so he let her swallow it. The hag did so, with a loud uncomfortable burp.

Well, there goes that. If I ever see Liton again, I don't know how I am going to explain to him where the knife is now.

Damona kicked the second hag with her hind hooves.  Then she impaled the third one with her horns, bathing her in its own impure, smelly water. Moments later, the antelope shifted into the cheetah and attacked the fourth hag. She ripped the old, soft flesh which gave under her rapier-like canines.

A screech descended from above. Malik came out of nowhere as the fifth hag, along with the first one, brought Drian to the ground.  He wrestled with them as much as he could. His hair got entangled into jaws of one of them as he was trying to keep the other one as far away as he could from his neck.

I knew I should have cut my hair, was a silly thought that ran through Drian's brain before the possibility of his own death suppressed it.

Malik positioned himself on one of the hag's shoulders and started pecking her ears, hair and the corners of her eyes. She was livid with fury when she grabbed him and almost snapped the poor bird's neck, but the diversion was successful. The hag's entire attention was now on the flying critter.

Drian was left alone with one of The Abominations as Damona was busy pursuing the last one. Days of sitting behind the canvas and kneeling in The House of Credo were showing. He couldn't overpower her.

I am useless. Damona killed two ... 

A distant cry was heard in the background.

No, three hags. Malik is blinding and pestering this one. And what about me? Even the old wrinkly Terror is physically stronger than me, Drian thought, terribly disappointed with himself.

Precisely at that moment, when the fetid jaws were breathing down his spine, readying themselves to snap it, a type of the battle cry was heard that pierced Drian's ears.

"Lily liveeeeer!"

Both Drian and the hag looked left, surprised at the newcomer. Their upper and lower jaws simultaneously opened in wonder as the battle came to a halt.

Sooo ... To fight five wrinkly hostile old hags ... Heeeere comes another wrinkly old hag. Hopefully not hostile. Since when did I become snarky? All those influences—Liton's, Malik's, Damona's—are finally rubbing off on me.

"The wrinkly old hag" was indeed the most accurate description of the woman that stepped onto the battle stage. She was dwarfishly short and impossibly fat, but she ran even faster than Damona on her chubby stout shanks. There were wounds between her thighs at places where the odd bespectacled granny's legs joined, creating side friction. She wore a black polka dot dress with white dots and reeked strongly of goat droppings.

But the most surprising of it all was a stick that she carried around with her, handling it quite aptly for her old age. It was twice her size, yet as soon as the granny smacked the hag with it, the Abomination dropped dead on the ground. That left Drian open-mouthed.

Malik and Damona re-joined the duo, panting. "Well, I think that's all of them," Damona muttered through her teeth. "That was a nasty surprise because ... Grandma!!!" she exclaimed jumping on top of the granny so hard that Drian thought Damona was going to squash her. "You are here! I missed you so much, granny dearest! Wait, why are you still wearing clothes?"

"I like this dress," the granny replied grumpily.

Malik and Drian stared at amazement as the old woman and her granddaughter performed some kind of a tribal belly dance in salute. They kissed each other soundly on the mouth when the ritual was over.

Then the woman turned suspiciously towards Malik.

"Belka." Malik nodded and even made a small, respectful bow.

"Malik." her squealy voice was unbearable to listen to.

Drian suddenly had the image of chalk dragging along the blackboard in a particularly unpleasant way.

So that's Belka. And, of course, Malik and she know each other. Is there anyone in The Squareworld Malik doesn't know?  Oh well, instead of us wandering around The Barrens looking for her Grove, she seemed to have found us.

"You late," she said angrily, using a rudimentary language.

Drian concluded it was probably due to all that time she spent transformed into a goat.

She forgot proper grammar. 

"I know, I am sorry. We couldn't go any faster," Malik replied, preening himself. "Welp, I am leaving you in good hooves, my boy. Be back in a jiffy! By the time I return you will have already dominated the transformation. And that is how you nail the use of Future Perfect tense," was the last thing Malik said before flying away again, which made no sense to Drian.

Drian wondered whether Malik was still upset about his comment. Damona stayed, though, and it made him feel better.

"This he?" the granny inquired, staring Drian down, looking at her granddaughter expectantly.

"Yes." Damona nodded.

"Lily liver. Bad stance. Scrawny legs. Pity posture." The old woman spat in the dust.

Drian didn't dare say a word.

"No." The granny with glasses concluded.

"No?" both Damona and Drian exclaimed.

"No. No. Belka no. No teach. Is hopeless. Time waste. Dum dum. Man Cloth. I go. Go now. Go fuck. Fuck ram. Belka enjoys."

"No!" Damona stopped her in her tracks. "No fuck! Fuck later! Drian nice! I care! He learns! You teach!"

"I guess you are now speaking her language." Drian smiled in his beard, not daring to raise his voice above the whisper.

"Granddaughter cares. I try. But once. Baaa! Lily!" Her menacing look killed all the will in Drian to practice.

He had just met the woman, yet she expected him to warm up to her and to start following her teachings. "So what am I to do, how do I learn?"

"Push, Lily. Push form. Form out."

Drian tried to visualize himself becoming the black panther.  He imagined fur growing all over his body and then ...

"Why strain, Lily? StrainFace! Wanna fart! No fart! No bad smell! My Grove!" 

His strange facial expression earned him a smack with the cane.

"Well this place isn't smelling nice at all, what with the reek of all your goat droppings," Drian murmured under his voice. She didn't exactly look like someone he should respect.

"What?"

"Nothing."

"What you did?" the goat woman seemed impatient to know what Drian was thinking of.

"I was imagining myself becoming a panther."

"Imagine? No imagine. You are a panther, Lily! Accept cat! You push away! You coward! You chicken! No. No chicken. I offend chicken when I call you chicken."

Drian wasn't sure whether he really wanted to take on the form of something he was afraid he couldn't control. 

That fear was what was defeating him over and over again.

"Accept cat!" she insisted, landing a well-aimed blow on his fingers.

"Ow! But what does that mean? How do I accept cat?"

"Be like me! I accept goat! I like goat. Goat simple. Goat climb. Goat run. Goat nature! What cat does?"

"Cat ..." His forehead wrinkled in thought as he remembered his very first transformations. 

Both of the times Drian changed because he was sure he was threatened. He felt confident that the new shape would help him overcome his attackers and protect himself.

"Cat ... Defends." I turned into a panther when I wanted to defend myself from those wolves.

"Yes. Good. Good Lily. Cat defends." She grinned a toothless smile.

"Cat ... Attacks." Drian said in the barely audible voice, recalling his assault on his helpless father.

"You afraid. Afraid consequence. But must do! Is easy! You think Belka cares? Belka doesn't care whether you do or do not! All the same for her! Belka goes. Belka eats shrubs. Fucks rams! Climbs! You need control! Not me!"

"I do," Drian admitted. "I need to restrain this power."

"Move-defend. Stop-attack."

"That just doesn't make any sense," Drian was exasperated.

"Three: Move. Stop. Repeat." She all of a sudden assaulted him with the stick, jumping on top of Drian's head with fluid movements.

His anger at getting beaten up made him move.  

Drian let out a guttural roar, as an image of a wolf that attacked him many Lights ago appeared in his brain.

"Step one: Move," she ordered. At Drian's surprise, his hand became a panther's paw, which he used to swat at the woman. A gash appeared on her hand.

"Step two: stop," she squealed, in pain.

That forced a different image upon Drian.  An image of his father's mangled body. 

The paw retracted.

"Know now, Lily? What moves you? What stops you?"

Drian didn't know how Belka did it, let alone how she did it so fast. What's important is that she did it. Drian was only supposed to conjure two strong emotional images of the exact moments in his life that caused him to transform and to end his transformation.

They practised in a similar fashion during some more time, with enthusiastic Damona hooting and cheering, before Belka said: "You ready. I go. No teach more."

"Just like that?" Drian was surprised. I thought this training was going to last for many successive Lights and Darks.

"Yes." The goat woman nodded and started to walk away.

Drian reluctantly approached Belka to bid her farewell. He asked her yet another burning question he had. "My ... Paintings. Do you know ... Why they come to life?"

The granny observed him for several moments and then she shrugged her shoulders. After that, Belka pointed towards a solitary grey peak in the centre of The Squareworld.

"Mountain answer."

"Thank you" Drian smiled in return. He grew to like her laconic expressions. She was indeed a woman of few words and a lot of action. Drian respected she could get things done.

Something heavy fell on his foot. It was a human excrement.

"Sorry," The she-goat said. "I forget I no goat now. Bad digestion."

That caused Damona to roar in laughter, rolling on the ground. 

She went to talk to Belka in private and, Drian assumed, to say goodbye to her grandmother.

Still wearing panther's ears, teeth, claws and tail, but walking upright, Drian now stood alone in the territory of The Grove. 

He watched the ancient polka dot dress lady walk away, followed by the cute antelope.  At the very edge of the forest, Belka raised her hand that now already resembled a hoof, bidding Drian farewell.

The familiar claws scratched his shoulder. 

"How was it?" Malik asked nonchalantly.

"It was awesome!" Damona chimed in, now in cheetah shape, admiring Drian's new appearance.

She is back. Does that mean ... She is coming with me? he wondered.

"It was ... something," Drian agreed. He still felt strange but at least he accepted all of his body parts for what they were. A part of him. "Can we go to Bronze Cliff now?" was Drian's immediate question.  He delivered it with a slight dash of growl.

"Sure thing, kiddo. We will go with the first Light. Better to travel during The Light, don't you think?"

The panther and the cheetah silently nodded, their furry shoulders touching in agreement.

Malik went on. "The good thing is, we don't have to risk staying out here and getting attacked by those Terrors again," he informed them. "I happen to know an amazing, spacious uninhabited cave where we can rest and spend The Dark. Follow me!"