If Kimera was beautiful, Kala could best be described as... Kala.

A sort of muddy thing laying in the marsh that stank of death things and swamp, unmoving for hours on end, with only the occasional flick of its ear. The sounds of Cetus-- the buzzing of insects and lazy sloshing of water when the fish did whatever it was that fish did were familiar to them. It was noisy, but it did very little to disturb their rest.

No, it was something else that had disturbed it today. A thump and something running along the drier parts of the land-- not close to the muddy, soaking shore like Kala liked to do. When they lifted their head they could smell it-- not-food, they presumed. Too stocky to be a deer and too big to be anything else worth eating.

Kala would have dropped their head back down if the noises didn't stop after the thump. It was still running and now there was furious squawking, the flapping of wings and--

CRUNCH.

It was an unusually abrupt movement for someone moving an inch per hour; as the caller came close enough it snapped out and caught one wing in its jaws with a sickening crack of bones. The bird shrieked louder, thrashing out the side of Kala's mouth, until it readjusted its grip on the lesser and it fell very still.

They could tell the Chasing Thing was still somewhere nearby-- they could sense the heat and they could smell them even through the coppery blood filling their jaws.

Pointedly, they spat the bird out in Kimera's direction, silent.

The kaiju licked its jowls. There was really no telling if they were listening to Kimera or not (they were, sort of) by looking at it directly. It's face and mask was pointed in her direction but their ears were angled backwards, as though listening to something else far-off (which it was, it was another hallowed caller, and they had decided they were hungry.)

At first, they were dead silent. Manners meant absolutely nothing to a creature that had spent nearly three years living alone in a swamp eating whatever was unfortunate to pass by, or attacking whatever was annoying it too much. Perhaps more fortunately, Kimera hadn't hit that threshold yet, at least.

Instead, its head was tilting down towards the hybrid's pointing hand. There was a distinct, singular snff followed by them huffing a heated breath onto the little rat-fingers. It half-mimicked; "that's mine," with a croaking voice rumbling somewhere deep, deep in its throat.

Incidentally, this was enough information it seemed willing to part about the mask. It was theirs. And that was the end of the conversation.

Kala heaved a long breath, as if the mere act of spitting out two (2) whole syllables had really been that tiring. And yet-- "Kala," it went on.

And then, its attention was shifting again, nose pointing to the crunched-on caller. It sniffed loudly, emitted a strange, sort of rocks-grinding-on-rock sound, and added, "eating it?"

They were hungry.

It watched, in their own way (as in, with no uncovered eyes) as Kimera started stripping the feathers away. Why Kimera wanted them was beyond it, but they sniffed almost carefully, right up until Kimera tossed the dead bird forSNAPACURCHEOCURNCHHCSFH.

It was the most possible movement a creature could ever make. Hair and limbs went flying as Kala caught the naked thing before it hit the ground. There was a genuinely horrific cacophony of hisses and snarls intermixed with crunching and tearing at flesh and thin, hollow bones.

And then, it began to slow back down into the gentle, barely-there movements of settling back down and laying their head back on the mud. It didn't say thank you and it didn't respond-- again --at first to Kimera's questions. Merely, it thought.

And this was the conclusion it came to.

To be a hunter, you had to be threatening. You had to strike fear into the hearts of your enemy, because that made hunting much more fufilling. There was no enrichment in having food just walk into your mouth when you could chase after it. Clearly, this is why Kimera was trying to thread them into her hair.

In short: fuck yeah she wanted in on that!

There was another long, sort of rumbling breath. "Yes," it said, the muscles in its shoulders bracing as it prepared to be Touched. It paused for a moment, and in a spur of unusual curiosity-- "What... things?"

Kala was always hungry, but it wasn't very easy to formulate a verbal response to that, especially while an unfamiliar hand touched its hair. There was an immediate, full-body flinch and it snapped its jaws at nothing in particular. It decided, right then and there, it had enough of physical interaction right then and there.

"No," it said, because it was always good to establish boundaries. It also took this a step forward by, instead of wandering to a 'cleaner' pool of water, Kala was backing up into the mud and sinking deeper into the marsh. Like a cat getting comfortable, it raked at the ground and adjusted its position.

It was only a short distance away from Kimera, but it definitely felt more at ease like this. Kala would figure out a way to decorate itself with the trophies of dead things another day.

A blue tongue slid from its mouth to swipe along the bits of hallowed caller it had missed on its lips.

There was still a fairly long pause for it to continue speaking, however, grinding away like a whetstone sharpening metal. "With feathers," it went on. "What... do you make?"

A very long, rumbling noise came from Kala's throat. But, as Kimera kept her distance, Kala began to gradually wind down. Their shoulders slackened and they sank just a little deeper into the black water, ears flicking lazily.

But it was very much unsure why Kimera still needed the feathers. Could she not generate her own warmth? What was an arrow? What was an Eridanus? Hugging?

It wasn't very long before Kala began to tense up again, all progress erased in one fell swoop. The flood of new information was a lot for it, and it spent a very long moment rolling it all over in their head. It supposed that if Kimera needed more warmth, her feathers were either entirely useless or she made its nest somewhere colder than Cetus.

And presumably cleaner, if she was that fixated on washing Kala.

Eridanus and arrows, that was easy to throw away as 'information it did not really need.' But the hugging-- the stuffing skins with feathers, was beginning to bug it a little.

And so, "why?" It demanded, without meaning to really demand at all. It couldn't see the purpose in it other than keeping a trophy, to ward off predators, perhaps, but hugging it and resting your head on it? "Does it... not... rot?"