Drip-Fed Pt. 03

The slime would have been ecstatic over its new wings, were it not for circumstances. Carrying its body on their emerald span, they allowed it nimble movements through the air and were perfectly capable of lifting its body, much denser than a hollow boned bird's. To say the least, they were more reliable than the clunky four wing solution it had used prior.

Much faster as well and nimble to boot. It would have done a couple of loops if it hadn't been carrying the body of Aclysia inside it. Reminded of the current predicament, it flapped its wings and kept looking around with the pair of eyes it sported on its underside, growing directly out of the slime. A second pair was sitting on the snake-vulture-deer construction, its current only head, and keeping a look around. It would have loved more eyes, but found that too much input on a single sense was the recipe for a nucleus-ache.

If it could avoid it, the slime wanted to never get ambushed in the air again. Or ambushed period. Being the one doing the hidden assault was glorious, now that it had experienced twice what it was like to be on the receiving end, it also understood why. There was just no telling what was going on in the moments of confusion.

Thinking about it, didn't the metal fairy screech something before all of this happened? Maybe she had seen the eagle and had tried to warn it. Now the slime was sad and depressed, its liquid main body becoming droopy and not at all aero-dynamic. Without it noticing, its flight path went from a straight progression to a slow descend.

A flicker, like a lightning bolt without any thunder or electrical shock. The lowered altitude must have made it hit something. There was a weirdly symmetric block of wood underneath it. Flicker, and it was gone.

The slime blinked all of its eyes repeatedly and checked behind it. There was just forest. What had that been? Something clearly magical, it reckoned that much.

Curious and in search of magical things that may help it with its situation, the slime turned around to see what it had accidentally flown upon. Taking a large turn also robbed it off a fair bit of speed, the slime carefully entered the area where it estimated it had been a moment ago.

Flicker. A circular cut-out of the forest vanished and gave room to the block of wood again. On second glance, it looked even weirder. It was as if somebody had sliced multiple trees apart and then stacked the thin pieces of dead wood on top of each other. A slanted ceiling capped off the brown.... Flicker. It was gone.

Now the slime had a rough idea where the outline of this illusionary barrier lay and it turned around once more to enter a circular flight that would have it slide along the edge. Flicker. It looked at the block of wood again, this time it noticed a few irregularities over its shape. Like that rectangle shaped board that was placed vertical where all the others were aligned horizontally. Or these translucent squares through which it could look at the other shapes made from dead wood and stone inside.

A walkway made from cobblestone split in front of the house and connected it to a small pond of water on one side and separated into many sub-paths on the other. Those, in turn, separated and framed eight hills of fertile brown soil on which several herbs grew, the kind the slime hadn't seen before. The rest of the circular area was dominated by simple and healthy grass and surrounded by a tall fence of grey metal.

It hadn't drunk or eaten in perhaps too long, judging by how its entire body urged it to plunge right into the pond. The fact that its urges quickly overpowered its consciousness only showed just how far the slime had stretched itself. With two flaps of its wings and at a moderate speed, the slime sunk into the clear water and began replacing what had evaporated through prolonged exposure to sunlight.

The air pockets between its feathers kept the slime from sinking completely. Getting rid of the wings completely was impossible, just like with the pheromone glands, but it could size them down to just a few centimetres if it was so inclined. However, as it needed them if it wanted to flee quickly and those times of transformations took time and energy, it refrained from doing so. In the first place, floating wasn't really a problem.

Then it felt the steps of someone approaching and turned its head. It didn't react with a panicked flight due to the way the walk towards it felt. Those weren't the hasty movements of a charging predator or the sneaky, barely noticeable quivers of soft-soled sneak attack but the simple walking of a deer that was grazing nearby.

Simply put, it was not the kind of behaviour the slime felt like it needed to be afraid of on the face of it. It still looked alarmed at the approaching humanoid. Something that it immediately felt rather silly for.

The lack of the chest extensions put it what the slime guessed to be the male of the species. It made that guess somewhat comfortably, as the metal fairy currently inside it had what passed for the recreation of a vagina (even if it was just on the surface and under a layer of cloth-esque skin) and it made the connection between those and the secondary sexual organ that were the mammary glands. By inverting that logic, it meant that a lack of breasts meant that this creature had the dangly parts, talking statistically likely between his legs.

Although the slime only saw a large brown assembly of cloth, the stained robe of a monk to anyone who knew society, instead of legs. It felt that there were two underneath and really had to wonder about humans and how many different kinds of skins they had. Made very little sense biologically, so what, were they wearing the skins of other animals over their own ones? Questions for later.

This particular male specimen needed a thick piece of wood in addition to his own legs, slowing his movements to a crawl. His hunched forward form reminded the slime of the very first insect it had eaten, slow and easy to prey upon. If they slime had been more than fifth that human's size, it might have attempted a takedown. Well, there was another reason aside from size why it didn't.

"My, my, what do we have here?" a surprisingly energetic voice reverberated in the air and the slime understood it. Not the individual words, of course, but the general meaning was somehow apparent to it. Like the content of these words were deciphered and broadcasted right into it, with the arriving sound only being secondary to the intent. "I would call you a chimera, but I have never heard of a chimera that is part slime around these parts. Much less of one that carries a fairy inside it."

The man slowly bowed down to the pond. His hands quivering on the cane and strained breathing made the slime feel like doing that much was an enormous exercise for the man. The only parts of him that seemed to be alive where those light blue eyes in his deeply wrinkled face. What little of his grey hair remained was combed back rather poorly.

After finally making it down to his knees, this old and odd man extended a quivering hand, covered in age spots and loose skin, towards the slime. Warningly, the snake head hissed and snapped its mouth a few centimetres away from the man's fingers. Just because it wasn't afraid of the man didn't mean it would just let itself get touched.

If it could have figured out how to, it would have thrown a warning shock the man's way. However, despite theoretically having the parts for it, the slime was incapable of figuring out how to weave magic. All attempts had just ended with it sitting somewhere and wondering what to do.

The indicated bite seemed enough of a warning though, as the man pulled back. "Not a trusting fellow, are you?" he asked in an amused tone. That the slime understood that the tone was 'amused' only made it more suspicious about all of this.

"Can you talk?" the man asked after grabbing his staff with both hands again. The slime remained motionless, how was it supposed to answer whether or not it could communicate in the humanoid way if it couldn't? The old fellow quickly realized his mistake. "Ah, of course, I can take that as a no but for the future, if you want say 'Yes' do this," he moved his head up and down by the neck. "and for 'No' do this." He shook his head sideways. "Do you understand?"

The slime slowly nodded with its head and the man smiled a bit.

"Splendid, you learn quick," he complimented. That was the first bit of flattery the slime had gotten, it rather liked that feeling. "Are you hungry?" the old man asked. Again, the slime nodded. "Would you let me feed you?"

The slime shook its head, not only would that feel degrading it would also go against the whole thing where it needed to be involved in the murder of its prey in order to absorb parts of it.

"Mhm, okay then...would you let me show you what you can eat around here?" the man asked. Cautiously, the slime nodded, that would work. Although it could just have eaten the grass. "Follow me, then."

Even slower than he had kneeled down, the man rose again and guided the slime, following in a sensible distance and through fluttering jumps, to the beds of herbs. "Just don't eat all of one kind, otherwise regrowing them will be difficult," the man warned and stepped aside to give the reluctant slime a comfortable amount of space.

Slowly, the slime approached. The first herb it came across was of a pleasant purple and smelled quite intensely. "That is lavender, I use it to chase away small bugs," the man explained as the slime gnawed a bit on the plant. After being convinced it wasn't poisonous, it went about to gobble down multiple of it. A snake's head wasn't the best at that, so it pulled back that particular head and replaced it with a neckless deer.

"Oh?" the man wasn't shocked by the sudden appearance of yet another animal's parts on the slime. Sure, he had never heard of anything like this, but he had lived too long to believe he had seen or heard of everything or that new things weren't thrown out into the omni-verse quicker than anyone could scribble it down.

The slime, in the meanwhile, felt its taste-liquids fill with lavender. It wasn't unpleasant, but after getting through half the field it got overly intensive. Thankfully, it was also full by that point and quite a bit bigger. Once it had digested this, it would chow down on the other seven plants. Each field sported a different herb after all, so it should help its growth a bit.

The slime regrew the snake-vulture-deer head, that neck was better to nod or shake than simple deer maw it had used to chew. Food in smaller parts was easier to digest, thanks to having a bigger surface area it could apply its acid too.

"Are you still hungry?" asked the man, getting himself a shake of the slime's head in answer. "Good... May I take a look at that fairy?" That was a harder question, but ultimately the slime nodded and, for the first time in over a week, let Aclysia out of its body.

Not a bit of acid stuck to the cracked shape of the metal fairy. Her green eyes still stood open, lifeless, and she just lay in the grass where the slime gently put her down. Deeply saddened by that sight, the slime instinctively started stubbing her with the snout of its head again. Hoping that anything would be different this time was, by definition, insanity. Even a monster understood that and even a monster didn't care when grief was involved.

Again, the slime warningly snapped its jaws at the protruding fingers of the man, who had kneeled down. "What?" the man blinked in confusion, freezing as he was being hissed at. "Ah," again he was quick to realize his mistake. "May I touch the fairy to take a good look at her?"

Vehemently, the slime shook its head. Aclysia looked so fragile, it didn't want any force applied to her body, particularly not big, quivering ones.

"Alright, I will go get my glasses," the man then said. Minutes passed during which the slime carefully, if not down right paranoid, looked everywhere and guarded the body. When the man finally returned, he had a weird apparatus on his nose. Six circular pieces, of the same translucent material that was filling the rectangles of his house, sat in frames of metal, one ahead of the other. Together they shaped a sort of cone. The man made sure the array of lenses sat correctly on his face and kneeled down again. "Ow-ow-ow-ow, this is not wise with my old bones," he half complained and half joked.

Now the slime felt kind of bad for the man, but that feeling took a backseat to listening to the translation of meaning that reached its nucleus. "Mhm, a clear case of vessel damage. This soul used more magic than her body could use... This kind of metal, the waved alignment of its structure... Eclysiat, the metal of the divine... Ah, this must be Aclysia..." for the first time the slime realized that this word wasn't just another part of a communication like any of the others that these humanoid barked out, but something more clear than that. A name. "What a considerably strange day this is." The man hummed to himself.

Unlike Hemle, upon finding out what he was dealing with, this old man showed no greed or aggressive intent. Instead, he just seemed ever more amused. "A divine soul in a cracked vessel, her soul has returned to the root dimension of her creator, but the spark that anchors her in this body remains." He looked from the body to the slime. "Is it restoration of this ones life you seek?"

Strongly, the slime nodded.

"Then I could be of help." Hope, so soon after taking on its journey. The slime rejoiced. "However, you will need to trust me. Do you do that?" Slowly, the slime shook its head. "Could you learn to do that given time?" It nodded. "Then you are welcome to stay in my humble abode, if you help me with a few things that is. In return, once you feel ready to let me take her, I will show you how to restore her."

He smiled. "My name is Gizmo, it wasn't always but that is what I go by nowadays. Do you have a name?" Having literally learned about what names were moments ago, the slime could only shake its head. "Can I give you one?" Gizmo asked.

The question was weird. There was no ill-intent in it, no wish to take control of the slime in any way but a considerable amount of hope for something the slime could only barely understand. A wish to leave something of worth with someone.

Seeing no danger, the slime nodded. "Mhm, then, seeing how you seem very keen on eating things... a predator... yes, how about Apexus from apex predator?" he glanced at the metal fairy again and the amount of protection the slime gave it. "With your leanings, I am sure a male-sounding name is most fitting."

A day after Apexus' arrival, it had looked at almost everything in the illusionary space that was outside the house. The pond never lost water, no matter the amount of water the man filled into buckets and took back into his den or the slime drank. What was planted in the herb beds grew in a matter of hours. The metal fence was pretty odd, patterns covered the three levels of railing that ran horizontally from pole to pole. Wherever a strut and stanchion intersected, there was a thorn of metal that pointed towards the inner centre of the illusionary bubble.

One week after Apexus' arrival, it trusted the man enough to enter his den. It only had a single room. In the far-left corner stood a bed, if it even deserved that title. Frame with enough cloth between the body and the wood to invoke the appearance but none of the comfort of the bed would have been completely accurate, but that was too long a title. There were three desks. One that stood lonely in a corner of the room, two of the three chairs dusty and clearly never used. A second that was right next to the bed and had paper, ink and writing utensils orderly stowed away.

The third, and largest, was more of a desk construction than a single table. On cupboards and shelves nailed to the ceiling and walls stood flasks of many colours and with many coloured liquids inside. Little sacks of seeds were orderly stored away in labelled boxes.

After two weeks Apexus asked what those weird shapes on the labels were supposed to be. Asking being it staring and prodding its head at them until Gizmo figured out what it wanted. From there on out, the old man started teaching it words and letters. Although the former was a side-effect of the latter.

After three weeks, this little scene took place.

"Apple," Gizmo stated, pointing at the red fruit in his hand. Apexus stared at the fruit for a few moments and then reared its head. Grabbing a large brush with its mouth it dragged four oversized letters on a piece of paper. After the brush returned back to the small casket, where the black paint wouldn't drop on the wool carpet, the slime presented its work to the old man.

"No, no, no," he laughed warmly but with a necessary amount of scolding in his tone, "Ap-ple, not Ap-le. This word has a double p... I would ask you to form the syllables with your own mouth, but if you could form a human one, you would have done so already... can you?"

Apexus shook its snake head.

"Can you explain to me why not?" Gizmo wanted to know.

After thinking about it for a moment, the slime nodded and wrote down a couple of words. "Have not killed you," the old man read out loud and raised an eyebrow. "What do you mean? Do you need to kill someone specific in order to replicate parts of their species?"

Apexus shook its head and thought about how to make it clearer in the words of the man. It just didn't know the order of letters yet that expressed what it wanted to say. Unable to find an answer, it reached out to the apple acted like it took a bite.

"You need eat a specific individual?" Gizmo asked, his ability to translate words into meaning proved as vital as ever. In this leaf of existence, he was one of the few people who could properly communicate with and teach the slime. Reverberating Meaning was a magic few learned and even fewer could use passively in every word they spoke.,

The slime nodded and shook its head in that order. "Mhm... Ah, you need to kill and eat a member of a species kind?" A nod. "So, you have to kill them yourself?" Another nod. Gizmo's lively eyes seemed to grow as dark and old as the rest of him for just a moment. "I see," he mumbled in a depressed tone, "I see how this tale ends."

Apexus was confused. Remembering a gesture Aclysia had often used, which, in retrospect, probably was born from the same feeling, the slime tilted the posture of its head. "Not important. For future reference: Kind." Gizmo wrote it down, "Have not killed your kind, that's the proper sentence for what you meant. 'Killed and ate your kind' would have been even better."

Why did the 'you' suddenly gain an 'r'? Human communication was so complicated.

A month after the slime's arrival, it finally decided that it was time to trust Gizmo. It wasn't something it just suddenly came to. The night prior, the old man had woken up long before his usual time. Not of his own volition, but because a heavy coughing fit shook his body. It lasted from that point until the sunrise and even when it had finally passed Gizmo was bound to his bed for that whole day, pale as pastry and quivering underneath his blanket as if he was freezing.

That was the first day Apexus properly realized that this man was old and that old people would die, sooner rather than later. Not trusting him for even longer might extinguish the first and only lead the slime had on healing Aclysia.

So, it one day placed the metal fairy's body on the alchemic worktable as Gizmo was watching a potion brew over an ever-burning candle. To signal it was serious, the slime then backed off until it was out of striking range. That range was considerably longer now, while it may have forgotten just about everything from back in the cave and the Growths from its adventures on the mountainside were slowly fading as well (It was afraid it wouldn't be able to regrow its snake-vulture-deer combination if it ever let it fade at this point), Apexus had grown considerably.