Alta followed the Moonlight fairy through the door. She guided her across the village with a slight feeling of dread as she watched every corner. The curious attitude of the fairy weirded the chimera.
What’s she trying to do? Alta pondered. It looks as if she doesn’t want more of her fairy comrades to see me, but why? She and the tailor with the weird name said they had never seen a Blossomflame fairy, is that why she is hiding me?
And even if that were to be the case, Alta couldn’t comprehend the reasoning behind it.
Icasondra stopped, forcing Alta to do the same. She was looking over a corner and had been doing so for a while, so Alta decided to take a peek. There, over a pond, a fairy was cleaning herself with water. Unlike the previous two other fairies Alta had seen, this one was a male, and he was obviously naked.
Alta’s eyes were drawn to the fairy’s wings. She hadn’t failed to notice that every fairy she had seen had different sets of wings. Icasondra had luminous wings with dark blues and blacks, whilst her wings were leaf-shaped flames oscillating between reds and oranges.
The fairy before them had a waterier touch to his wings. The shape was the same as Icasondra’s and the weirdly named fairy, but it had more in common with the former. Unlike herself or the tailor, the male fairy’s wings were translucid like Icasondra’s. Though his were bordering transparent rather than translucid and had a slight light blue tinge to them.
The other fairy, Aecasomerys, or however she was called, had a more interesting set of wings. With a shape similar to these two, but with more pronounced colors. A bronze-like orange on the borders of the wings flowed like wind, and in the center of each section of the wing lay a deep black that seemed to consume the orange in a spiraling way but never managed to do so.
The Losttime fairy’s wings had been interesting, but Alta’s were better, of course.
After her extended moment of ponderation, Alta noticed that Icasondra’s face had gained a red tinge similar to her Blossomflame wings.
“Why are you spying on that man?” Alta whispered.
“Ah!” Icasondra jumped with a pitched scream. “Don’t do that! You scared me.”
“Understood.” Alta nodded. “Why are you spying on that man?”
The red colors on the Moonlight fairy’s face became more accentuated and brighter.
“I’m not spying on him!” She shouted in a whispering tone. “That would be indecent!”
“Then why were you looking at him for so long?” Alta counterattacked.
“Because I’m waiting for him to go away so we can go to my home!” The fairy continued her low shout, making up excuses.
“Wouldn’t it be easier to take another route then?” The chimera offered her opinion.
“Oh,” Icasondra added with a baffled expression. “Right, yes. That could work...”
That reaction reinforced Alta’s theory on whether the Moonlight fairy was spying on the naked fairy or not.
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With a hardened (and redder) expression, Icasondra guided the chimera behind a house. The house was bigger than most, but it wasn’t their destination as the Moonlight fairy passed by it. Instead, she walked towards a tree and looked up.
“That’s my house.” Icasondra pointed up, a collection of vines, branches, and even roots gathered in what, indeed, appeared to be a cottage.
“Why is it up on the trees?” It seemed highly impractical to the new-fairy.
“Because I’m a Moonlight fairy, and I need to bathe in the moonlight the most I can.” The senior fairy explained.
“By the way, what’s moonlight?”
“You’ll see it soon enough, don’t worry about that. For now, fly up there.” She signaled with a slight movement of her head at the house embedded in the tree. “I’ll be waiting for you up there!”
Then she flew upwards to her home. Alta frowned her brows as she didn’t believe herself capable of flying those distances. The house was well over five meters up on the trees, and she hadn’t even elevated a single meter in her previous try.
With a jump, Alta tried to elevate herself to the skies, but her body fell down as usual. The violent fluttering of her wings did slow the fall, but it was barely noticeable.
“Argh!” The Blossomflame grunted, feeling frustration for the first time in her life.
Everything she had done had come to her naturally, even the traits of other species. She could adapt herself to any environment, it was easier when she assimilated the biomass of the inhabitants. But currently, Alta was unable to fly.
And that frustrated her.
Being incapable of replicating the movements of Icasondra, she decided for the easy way out, shifting biomass into her skinny legs, turning them worryingly muscular, and making a jump that shoot her body three meters upwards.
She fell two meters short of the house, but with a fast flapping of her wings, Alta maintained her altitude and slowly directed herself to the tree. The chimera grabbed a branch and climbed on top of it. Then she repeated the same motion.
The next jump was unstable and gave her less high, but barely enough to cling to the house embedded into the tree. She looked down to see the fallen leaves telling the story of her violent jump.
Alta gasped and entered Icasondra’s house, not lingering on the disastrous obstacle course she had completed.
The Moonlight fairy's house was astonishing, far more than the tailor’s house or the outside of the village. It was decorated with vines and leaves on the exterior, but the interior was something else. Multiple pieces of blue fabric in concordance with the fairy’s own colors decorated the place. A myriad of shades of blue, not one truly repeating. Light blue, dark blue, teal, azure, turquoise...
Intrinsic knowledge filled the chimera’s mind.
Though in this case, it was more trivial than on other occasions. She wasn’t really interested in color theory.
The fairy’s house also was decorated with pieces of wood, carved and crafted with a fine hand. Alta didn’t know why, but she knew those were some good pieces, fine work.
Icasondra waited in another room, her long-tailed teal dress exchanged for a sleeveless white dressing gown, and she had also tied her long platinum hair into a ponytail.
“What are you doing?” Alta asked the fairy with the guard down.
“Oh, you are already here?” Icasondra slightly turned her head toward Alta but kept her body in place. “I’m cooking, of course.”
“What’s cooking?”
“Well, I’m doing some fried blueberries.” She responded.
“No.” Alta swayed her head. “I meant what cooking means?”
“You don’t even know that?” The chimera swayed her head once more. The Moonlight fairy sighed. “It means to prepare food, normally by heating it.”
“You don’t eat it raw?”
“I mean, there are some foods you can eat raw. Nothing will happen if you eat some wild blueberries, but they are certainly more delicious when cooked, especially with my secret recipe.” The fairy gave a twirl to the metallic tool in her hands.
“Why does it matter food tastes?” Alta was confused. “Nutrients are nutrients.”
“Oh, sweet summer child, haven’t you had a good meal in your life?”
“I’m no daughter of any Sweet Summer, but I have never been worried about the taste of my meals.” She confessed. “Meals were hard to get on the prison, so I appreciated every single one.”
“Oh.” This groan wasn’t of surprise like the one before but filled with sadness. “Then you’ll definitely enjoy what I’m making now!”
Icasondra gave her a smile, which she found warm. Somehow.
“Now, go to the living room.” She pointed with her head to the door Alta had come from, already knowing the chimera wouldn’t know what living room meant. “I’ll come in a while with our dinner, you just take a rest. You deserve it.”