I had, I must confess, become fond of the poor wretched creature by this point. Though his ranting did annoy me somewhat; and I found him, to be candid, rather ugly, although these things are of course highly subjective.
He was a thin biped-a morphology I used to loathe, though I was becoming used to it-with two eyes in the front and one mouth; and, at this very moment, his face was wet, which I knew from considerable experience of this species-type indicated a show of emotion.
Then, as his face dampened still further, he lay down and curled his body up in an unnatural posture which I presumed to be defensive and defeated. So I waved my arms and blew soft air on him through my tentacle-tips, and was appalled when he began to scream.
I withdrew a few paces and, still in my gentlest tones, explained the truth about our lives, the thing that we all of us have to face.
“Your body has been improved,” I said. “Your rejuvenation powers have been enhanced. A bullet cannot kill you. A knife cannot kill you. A broken neck cannot kill you. Age cannot kill you. Disease cannot kill you. But if you do not eat, you will become a living skeleton and the pain will drive you to the brink of insanity.”
“This is evil beyond evil, you creature-who-should-never-have-been-born!” he roared.
Then he began to writhe and spasm, and he howled in horror, fists tight-clenched, tortured by the fact that his formidable (by small biped standards) physical strength could not be used against an enemy such as this: his own body.
“You must,” I told him sternly, “eat, or you will regret it, bitterly and self-reproachfully, for all eternity.”
That night, Quipu recited to us a poem; it took six hours to perform, using a complex system of calls and responses between his five garrulous heads. His poem was extremely good but a little repetitive. It was the story of a god who played tricks with all his creatures by disguising himself as various exotic animals indigenous to Quipu’s home planet. The final trick was when the god arrived on Quipu’s world disguised as an alien invader.
We all roared with laughter at that.
I watched the dawn. It seemed to me that the dawn was a slightly different colour every day, though Quipu told me I was deluded.
I felt a breeze on my cheek.
“Enjoy your day,” I said to Lirilla, as she hovered next to my head, also savouring the dawn, and cooling me with the rapid beating of her multi-coloured wings.
“I shall,” Lirilla replied, in a voice so soft it was like a memory distantly recalled.
After five hours of cutting and biting with my claws and teeth, I fabricated a perfect stone, and then I carried it on my back from the quarry to the Temple.
The path was long, and winding; I passed herds of grazing creatures dawdling in the fields, savouring the sun on their variously coloured hides; I skirted the swamplands, where drowsy mud-beasts were wallowing, occasionally splashing each other with shit and mud; and finally I reached the Great Plain, where stood the Temple of the Interior World.
It reached, by now, almost to the clouds; a double-cylinder 8 shape with oval windows built, brick by brick, out of carved rock, modelled on a constellation visible from the night skies of my own home planet. The rays of the sun shone down upon the polished surfaces of the stone; it gleamed white in the soft light, a squat beast with its head striving to angrily butt the sky.
I placed my perfectly-shaped stone down on the grass for just one moment, and admired the beauty of the magnificent edifice we had conceived and built: a doubly circular obelisk set amidst rich grassland, with the snow-capped mountains in the distance peering down at the child of their rocky loins.
And I felt proud; just for a moment; the very briefest of moments.
And then I clambered up the side of the Temple until I reached the top and levered the stone into position. And I spat the fast-mortar I had been carrying in my mouth into the thick join between stone and stone, to secure the block in place.
This trick of mine always annoyed Fray. There were cranes and ramps that were specifically designed to allow workers to raise up the stone blocks, and hordes of skilful builders of various highly dextrous species standing by to mortar the stones into position. I was, Fray argued, spoiling it for everyone else by “showing off.”
I did not care; this was one of my rare moments of purely selfish joy.
From the top of the Temple I had a perfect high view of my entire world. I savoured it for a while, till Fray screamed at me to come down and stop being such a forsaken-by-good-manners turd-mountain braggart.
I visited the prisoner again. He had not eaten, nor had he drunk his water of life. His skin was paler than it had been when he first joined us. He looked terrible. He wasn’t pleased to see me.
I watched as Fray ran across the savannah. Her hooves thundered, her vast bulk blurred; she could run faster than any land animal I knew of on this world.
Fray’s savannah however was small, and not very plausible. When she reached the forest, she stopped abruptly, and tossed her head, and staggered around in half-circles to come to terms with the fact she was no longer running like the wind; and then she roared to the skies.
Lirilla laughed. She hovered next to my cheek, a whirlwind of colour and grace, lit by the sun.
Above us, Cuzco was flying loops in the air, with extraordinary grace. Fray snorted, getting ready for another run.
“Tell that fat fuck,” I said to Lirilla, of Fray, “that she’s a useless lumbering fat fuck.” This was a phrase I had learned from Fray; among her kind it is considered a term of endearment. (Or so I have been led to believe; for it is what she so very often calls me.)
Lirilla vanished, and was back in the beat of a wing.
“She says that she has seen great steaming mounds of shit more active than you,” Lirilla told me.
“Cruel,” I observed.
“I think she meant it kindly,” said Lirilla, anxiously.
“Tell her,” I said, “that she’s an awkward dim-witted loose-bowelled cart-carrier.” And Lirilla vanished; and flew across the savannah so fast it was as if she were rifting through space; and whispered in Fray’s ear. From my vantage point, I could see Fray snort and roar and crash her hooves on the ground.
I looked up; Cuzco, the orange-bellied giant, was flying on updrafts of warm air, not moving his six wings at all; like a cloud made of golden armour held up by hope and poetry.
And Lirilla was back, whispering in my ear. “Watch this,” she said, quoting Fray.
I saw Fray begin another run across the savannah; hooves pounding; dust rising up in clouds; her ugly ungainly body turned into pure graceful motion as she traversed the savannah with extraordinary speed. Finally, she came to a halt, steam billowing off her hide, and pounded her hooves on the ground and stood up on her three back feet and roared.
“Tell Fray,” I said to Lirilla, “that for someone who is so-clumsy-she-falls-over-her-own-huge-tits-all-the-time, that was not at all bad.”
“Tell me your name.”
The prisoner shook his head, stubbornly. Three days had passed, and I was making little progress with him. But I was still patient. It takes time.
It always takes time.
“Tell me your name.” My voice was gentle; I was using my sweetest tones to make it clear that I was on his side, and that I cared.
“Why are you doing this to me, you bitch from Hell?” he said, in calm fearless tones that betrayed his underlying panic.
“Because I want to be your friend,” I said.
He blinked. “How could that be possible?” he said accusingly. “You destroyed my entire world!”
“Not I. They. I am like you. A captive. A slave.”
He considered this assertion; clearly considering it to be an outrageous lie.
“You are an evil ugly loathsome vomit-inducing monster,” he pointed out. “Are you telling me my enemies are even worse than you?”