“What’s a chimera?” The fairy asked, still fluttering over the ground.
“I don’t know,” Alta responded as a matter of fact.
Forgetting its fear, the fairy frowned its brows and looked at him with doubt. “If you don’t know what a chimera is, then how do you know that you are one?”
“I just know.” The man added with the same impassivity and lack of expression.
That response really irked the fairy for some reason.
“Then what do chimeras do?” The fairy relaxed and tried another approach.
“Eat, breathe, sleep.” Alta said.
“Everyone does that!” The fairy moved aggressively in the air, the fear being a matter of the past, and instead making its anger visible. “I meant what is something chimeras can do better than others.”
Alta tilted his head to the side; he was amazed how this little creature could get this angry before him with just words when it was prey. It was amusing, though.
“I can shift my biomass?” He explained, unsure if it was a valid response. He had yet to see other creatures shift their biomass and bodies, so he assumed it had to be a chimera thing.
“And what does that mean?” The fairy asked for clarification.
Instead of trying to put it into words, Alta decided to show it to the flying creature.
Alta took a look at the dead ‘humans’ and recalled that they looked exactly like he did without any shapeshifting. So, he did that, returning his shifted hunter legs and ebony rodent claws back into the biomass of his body to assemble his prior state. He still kept the hunter’s eyes, though. Those eyeballs were more developed than his, and it would be foolish to undo his augmented senses.
The fairy looked at Alta with a mixture of curiosity and terror as it saw his body shift grossly. At least this time there weren’t any splutters of blood. Alta was slowly getting more used to shapeshifting. He wasn’t able to practice his skill much in the prison as he always was lacking the biomass to do so. Yet in these last hours-slash-days, he had gotten valuable experience and mastery.
It only took him a pair of minutes to undo the changes and return to his default naked glory.
“Oh.” The fairy gasped. But instead of asking questions about his shifting, the fairy asked something he didn’t expect. “Are you a female?”
“No, I’m a man,” Alta replied.
“No, you are a female like me.” But as Alta swayed his head in negation, the fairy pointed at his crotch, its face gaining an unnatural red coloration. “Then what about that?”
“What about it?” He hadn’t understood the question.
“Men have... something there!” The fairy’s red coloration exacerbated. The color contrasted brightly against its blue accents, and its visage was resembling Alta’s hair color more than anything.
“Do they?” In response, the fairy nodded shyly.
Remembering the dead humans, Alta went to check them. They looked male enough.
He crouched before the last one he had killed and ripped the fabrics blocking his sight of the human’s flesh. Alta then noticed that, indeed, the dead body appeared to have another set of organs on its crotch. The fairy had been right, he lacked some critical organs in his body.
Alta inspected the carcass, but instead of consuming it, he shifted a claw back on one finger and pushed deep into the flesh. He had more than enough biomass now, consuming more would make him too heavy, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t learn from other creatures without consuming them.
The organ was quite simple, though he noticed it went further inside of the body than he first had thought. He spent five minutes in silence, except for the silent fluttering of the fairy’s wings, inspecting the organ.
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Then it took him less than a minute to recreate it.
He stood up.
“What about now?” Alta asked looking at the fairy. “Am I now a man?”
“Eep!” The creature screeched and put its hands on its eyes. Or rather, put her on her eyes. The fairy had told him she was a female after all. “What are you showing me that?”
“You told me I needed it to be a man.” He replied. “I wanted some confirmation of my status as a man.”
“Yes, yes, yes!” She cried out frenetically. “You are a man, now get it out of my sight!”
“Do you want me to remove it?” Alta asked in confusion.
“Remove it?” Color drained from her visage, gaining an even paler shade. “No! Just... just hide it!”
“How?”
“With clothes, obviously!” She replied as a matter of fact.
“What are ‘clothes’?” Alta asked, unbeknownst of the word.
“Really? You don’t even know that?” He swayed his head. “It’s what I’m wearing and... they had been wearing.”
“Why do you use these clothes?” Alta added. “They seem to restrict mobility and add weight that isn’t part of your biomass.”
“Because it’s indecent otherwise!”
Alta tilted his head to the side. “Indecent?”
“Of course, you wouldn’t understand, you would naked all the time, do you?” He nodded. “It wasn’t a qu- aargh, it doesn’t matter. Here, let me see if you understand this concept, we use clothes to protect ourselves against the elements, like wind and cold, you understand that, right?”
“Oh, I get it.” Alta nodded once more. “It’s light armor.”
“How do you know about armor but not clothing?” The fairy shouted in exasperation.
“Because I had never seen clothing, but I did see armor?” He couldn’t understand the flying creature sometimes.
“Doesn’t matter! Just... cover that thing.” She tried to point at his new organ. Tried being the keyword as she did so with her eyes closed, failing utterly at her only task.
Alta didn’t understand the necessity of covering himself, especially only his crotch. He could feel the cold, but it would not kill him. Either way, just covering that would obstruct his movement and it would make the fairy stop talking about it.
Not really knowing how to wear the clothes, Alta ripped the top part of the dead man’s clothing, a beige piece of cloth, and tied it around his hips.
“Is it good now?” He asked the closed-eyed fairy.
She opened them and gave Alta a timid look. “Why didn’t you take his pants?”
“The what?”
“I don’t know why I even bother.” The fairy sighed. “Yes, that’s fine. At least far better than having that thing swing around in the open.” The last part she added between mutters, but his developed ears were enough to catch her words.
The fairy then flew inside the white structure. Now that Alta inspected it, the top was made of a similar fabric to the clothes of the dead humans. Though he didn’t recognize the material at the bottom of the structure. Brown and strong, though not as much as stone.
“What are you doing?” Alta asked the fairy.
“Looting.” She responded. “There could be valuables here, and whilst I’m no thief, it would be foolish to leave expensive things or money for other people to take.”
Hmm... Alta pondered. Was my analysis wrong? Maybe she isn’t a prey, but a scavenger, an opportunist?
“What’s ‘money’?” He asked entering the structure. The inside was mostly empty except for some boxes.
“You truly don’t know anything, do you?”
“I can’t know of something I haven’t seen or heard about,” Alta replied. “Except when I do know.”
“What does that even mean?” The fairy swayed her head. “Don’t matter, smash these boxes, I can’t open them.”
“Why?” Even though he asked, he already began shifting biomass into his right arm. It was difficult to say no to smashing things.
“Because there could be nice things inside.”
“Is that money you talked about a nice thing?” Alta asked.
“Yes.” The fairy nodded. “Money is like an object that allows you to exchange it for other things. The more money you have, the more things or better ones you can have.”
“I see.” He didn’t actually understand it, but it felt appropriate to say so. Then he smashed the box to smithereens. “Open.”
The fairy didn’t say anything and rummaged through the contents. “Cloth and hide, nothing expensive, if it were silk, I could take it... Anyways, smash the other three.”
Alta did as told, crushing the other boxes open and then shifting his biomass back to its place.
“More cloth, more hide, some jerky, bah...” The fairy grunted. “Oh, what’s this?”
The flying creature picked a roll of red cloth.
“Jackpot, chimera do you know what this is?” Alta negated with his head. “Silk. And silk is very expensive. I could get a lot of money back in the village with this.” The fairy salivated as she held the silk.
“What’s a ‘village’?” Alta asked after hearing a new word.
“Uh, it’s nothing.” Fear, lies. He could smell them.
“What is a village?” Alta repeated slowly. He had tolerated the presence of the fairy because it gave him useful information, but if it began to lie to him, well... it was no longer useful.
“I-it’s nothing y-you would care about, really.” She avoided his gaze.
Alta took a step forward, and before the fairy could fly one backward, he grabbed her by the face.
“Fairy.” He stated. “What is a village? Do not lie to me or hide the truth from me.”
Water began to slowly pour down from her eyes once more. He also smelled a foul odor coming from her, he recognized that same smell from one of the humans.
“I. Em. I-it’s...” He looked at her sternly. “It’s where the other fairies live!”
Alta peered into her eyes and after a nod, he released her.
“Alright, take me there.” He added with a smile.
The chimera could hear the fairy take a bountiful gulp of saliva.