Now that he was face to face with the boy he had just saved, it was clear that what he had thought was a scarf was actually a chain of flowers and grasses, all woven together! The boy’s face was covered in red and black markings, applied without any clear pattern or system, as if a group of children had fingerpainted him. His upper body was stark white, with veins showing through as dark lines that made him look like he was carved from marble. Despite his lack of melanin, which gave him a somewhat fragile and sickly appearance, his physique was anything but weak. His muscles were well-defined and covered every part of him, not like a weightlifter’s bulk but with a frame perfectly balanced for fighting.
His lower body was clad in knee-length breeches made of a tough, leather-like material. Aside from the garland and the breeches, the boy wore nothing else, standing barefoot on the root-strewn ground. Despite having never been in a fight the man was sure this boy would kick his ass if the two were to brawl. At least if his brain wasn’t hiding some secret techniques for making use of his own, rather frail, physique.
Seeing the man’s reaction, the boy raised an eyebrow. “Why did you save me?” His questioning tone sounded like he was asking a killer why they had plunged a knife into his chest.
The man lowered his finger. That was a reaction he had not expected. Instead of gratitude for having been saved from becoming a monster's lunch, all the boy showed him was bordering on antagonism. Finding such caution in a child was starnge, but considering how this first encounter went, maybe that was the norm here.
The problem was he needed the boy to trust him if he wanted to get anything useful out of him. Maybe a joke to lighten the mood? He shrugged. “You are welcome to walk back and let that thing finish you off.”
The man pointed to where they had come from. The boy’s eyes twitched for a second. His response seemed sour before he narrowed his eyes. “It's called a Gazerbeast, and you didn’t answer my question.”
The man gritted his teeth, the sides of his jaw becoming more defined. That kid was sharp, or at least not naive enough, that he could wease his way out of answering his question. Much to his dismay, the boy's left hand shot down and wrapped around the handle of an arm long dagger that was put up over his rear. The man smacked his lips. He hadn’t seen that weapon. Fuck.That boy really had no chill.
He doubted that the kid would really attack him, but considering all his experiences up to this point, he rather played it safe.
He sighed and decided to take a leap of faith. With not enough knowledge about this world to craft a compelling lie, all he was left with was the truth. Either it would work to convince the boy, or he was screwed either way. He sat down in front of the kid, thus forcing the boy to look down at him.
“The truth is…,” he started, crossing his arms. “... I am lost, and I had hoped that maybe you could at least help me to avoid becoming monster food.”
The boy hesitated for a moment, glancing quickly around before crouching down near the man. The way he half-sat and half-stood with his hands on his knees showed he was ready to flee at any moment. Nonetheless, the man felt relieved because the boy was at least willing to listen.
“Where do you come from?” He asked, and the man could clearly see the curiosity glimming out of his white eyes. Answering his question with a shrug, he continued.
“I have no idea, to be honest. Yesterday I woke up near some weirdo who wanted my eyes. After I told him to scram, he kicked me down into some kind of sea.” The man pointed to where he suspected his sleeping place for yesterday should be now. “I nearly drowned, but then someone pulled me out of the water and dragged me ashore.”
“Pulled you ashore?” The boy scuffed, tilting his head. “Come one, at least try to make your lies convincing.”
The man stared the boy dead in the eye. He knew what he would say next would sound like complete bullshit, but he had nowhere else to go with this. Maybe I should have just said that I woke up on the shore in the first place? Too late to look back now, he throught and continued.
“No, someone saved me. He fished me out of the water with some kind of glowing threat and carried me to the shore.” The man raised his hand over his head. “He was at least twice my size, and he could walk on water, because who cares about physics, right?”
Despite his nonsensical portrayal of the things that had happened, the expression on the boy's face changed, his suspiciousness lowering into caution.
“Did he have four fingers?” the boy asked, opening and closing his left hand with his thumb tucked in the middle. The urge to just agree with him was strong, but the man suppressed it. Apparently, honesty was the way to go here, so he answered truthfully once again. “I didn’t notice,” he said with a dry smile. “I was too busy drowning.”
The boy snickered and the man relaxed. Apparently he had done something right. He suppressed the urge to smile or lick over his lips.
“Was he wearing a yellow coat and a white bunny mask?” The boys asked, leaning forward, staring at the man like he wanted to see into his very soul.
“Yes,” the man said, his excitement that the kid seemed to know his mysterious saviour made him shout louder than he had intended to. In an instant, the boy's hand slid over his lips. “Pst!” He said sternly, the index finger of his other hand in front of his mouth. “Just because we escapted the Gazerbeast doesn’t mean you have to alert the whole forest to our existence.”
The man grabbed the boy's hand and peeled it off. “Sorry,” he muttered. “Was wearing a long yellow coat and some kind of white mask..” The boy kept his suspicious look up for a moment before his expression softened and he exhaled audibly. When he spoke again his voice was almost bursting with …. excitement?
“You really met Great Fisher?”
The man looked the boy in the eye. “Is that his name? Sounds more like a description to me.”
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The boy smacked his lips. “We don’t know his actual name.”
The man snipped his finger and pointed it at the kid. “Did nobody ever ask him?”
The boy shook his head. “We aren’t stupid enough to get anywhere near the Hungry Ocean for long enough to stumble into him. To us the Fisher is more of a legend than he is a person. Rumors say he can walk over water like it was solid ground.” To emphasize his point the boy stomped one foot on the ground, producing nothing but a weak thud. “Just like you said he did. He is like a guardian to us natives. Every now and then someone actually falls into the Ocean’s jaws and the Fisher saves them. About a hundred years ago, he saved my mother from drowning and even aid her in getting a phoenix’s heart.”
The gaze of the boy went wide. Now he actually looked his age. “Without him, neither me nor my sister would be here today.”
“Wow,” the man said after blowing some air through his teeth. “So I met quite the celebrity back there. Guess I am one lucky bastard then.”
The boy nodded. “Yes, you are. You might be the only living person in the whole fifth layer that can claim to have seen the fisher.”
“So your grandma is…,” the man started.
“... dead.” The boy finished the man's sentance.
Something inside the man shifted. Despite having nothing to do with it, he wasn’t even aware of the concept of grandmothers until his mouth had formed the word, a knot formed in his throat. Losing someone was horrible. He had no memory of ever experiencing it, but he still knew this was true.
“I am sorry,” The man said. After the words had left his mouth, he was wondering about himself. He had no involvement in the grandmother's death, so it was stupid for him to say he was sorry for it, yet it felt like the right thing to do.
“No need to be. She died fighting … no … protecting our tribe. I’m proud of her.” Despite his words, the boy's voice teared up a little.
The two of them sat in front of each other for a short while before the man decided to break the silence. He didn’t like sitting around in the open and if the boy had some kind of tribe, he wanted to get there as fast as possible.
“Whats your name?” He tried to get a conversation going again. Hopefully one that ended with ‘Oh, you are so great, please come with me to my clan’.
“I’m Kai.” The boy extended his hand to the man and he shook it. “I don’t really have a name,” he said. Lyam raised an eyebrow. “How is that possible?” His question had no suspicion in it. Apparently the man's honesty had won the boy over so he decided to stick to it. “I have no idea. Like I said, I woke up near some weirdo, and I can remember nothing about my person. Good thing breathing is automatic.”
The two of them shared an awkward laugh. “So how did you manage to get chased by a Gazer beast?”
Kai scratched his neck, before grabbing and raising his necklace. “In my tribe, it's a tradition that we achieve our Heartshape without the help of our tribe, so we hunt the best we want on our own.”
The man snorted. “First time I see a hunter running away from his prey.”
Kai rolled his eyes but the edges of his mouth twitched upwards for a second. “Funny, funny. But it's true that I was in a bit over my head.” He lowered his head and poked the ground with a finger. “I just wanted something strong.”
That got the man's interest. “Something stong?” He wondered. “What exactly is a Heartshape?” This question earned him an annoyed glance.
“Are you from the outer layers or how do you not know that?”
The man gave him another dry smile. “I have lost most of my memories, remember?”
The boy rolled his eyes. “Yeah, yeah, but still. Everyone should know the Shapeless.” He slapped his hand on the biceps of the other arm, which he thrust into the air, before whispering a victory cry. “We are the natives of the 5th layer!”
“Now you are avoiding questions,” the man commented, tearing the boy out of whatever fit he was having. The boy's shoulders slumped, and he sighed, realising his performance didn’t have any effect on the man.
“When we manage to get a creature's heart and replace it with our own”, he tipped his finger against his chest, “we Shapeless can absorb a creature's form and abilities.”
“And I am supposed to believe that?” The man asked with a laugh in his voice, which raised the boy's ichor.
“Of course you should believe it, its true,” he shouted. After realising what he had just done, he sighed and continued whispering. “For someone who just met The Great Fisher, you are very skeptical when it comes to other peoples powers. Judging from your blabbering about fysik earlier, I pressume the Fisher doesn’t quite agree with your layers magic system?”
The man had no idea why the boy's comment irked him on like this but couldn’t suppress setting the boy straight. “Its called physics and it has nothing to do with magic. It is a science that explains why things fall to the ground or how to produce light on a fundamental level.”
Kai gave him a cocky smile and shrugged with his eyes closed. “Sounds like a magic system to me.”
But it's not; the man wanted to shout, but he stopped himself at the last moment. Composure was key, he reminded himself. He wouldn’t get anywhere if the two of them just chatted the day away. And the kid had made a good argument. For some reason he was absolutely against the existence of such things as magic, but there was no other way he could explain how the fisher walked on water or how the cube to his feet kept chasing him. At least not yet.
“Ok, fine. You are right.” He started. “So you failed to get the shape you wanted; that means you better get back to your tribe, right?”
Kai nodded. “Yes… I suppose you are right.” Upon hearing his answer, the man had to suppress a smile. Leading questions are the best questions, he thought.
The boy looked beaten for a moment, his eyes wandering over the ground, before suddenly latching onto the man. A mischievous grin spread across Kai's face.
“What?” The man asked, slowly growing suspicious. The boy pointed at the cube to the man's feet.
“You want me to take you back to our village, don’t you?” Kais voice was as sweet as a piece of sugar that was stuck in someone's throat.
Shit, the man thought as he realised he had come on too strong. The boy had already proven himself to be very sharp, but their relaxed conversation and his young appearance had distracted him from that fact. Screw leading questions, he thought. Only children are stupid enough to fall for them.
Observing the man's forcefully neutral reaction, the boys smile grew bigger. “You know, I have no issue taking you there.” He purred like a cat to a mouse. The man sighed.
“Let me guess. You want me to help you kill that thing, don’t you?” The man asked, defeated.
Upon hearing his words, the boys smile grew into a toothy grin that could’ve competed with the Gazerbeast in scaryness.“Yup.”
The man's shoulders slumped to the ground. That meant he either walked through a forest he knew nothing about and that was presumably filled with more creatures, like the one the boy wanted to kill, or he helped him.
“Fuck.”