The Creature - Part 3

"So, I guess we need to learn how to train it then," Lyrika spoke up, "Do you have any ideas on how it's done Philly?"

"Just because I'm a researcher doesn't mean I have all the answers. I researched cultures and races. Not animals."

"Well, as Ortan said, the stables are the first place to go. They probably train horses all the time. They may have some insight on how to train a Zentora. Well, at least something similar to it at least." Olivia said, skipping past Philly's comment.

"Horses?"

Olivia missed the confused response from both Philly and Lyrika, being too focused on the Zentora.

Having finished talking to Ortan they watched him head towards the village, where they then took some time to play with the Zentora before heading back to the village themselves, passing Ortan in the process.

They did offer to take it back for him, but he was adamant that he would do his job.

Once they got back, they quickly made their way through the gate, providing their permits to a guard they hadn't seen before, hoping that he knew nothing of the fun they had a while ago.

Now, back in the village, after getting some directions from a nearby villager, they made their way to the stables. As they neared it, where Olivia had expected to see horses, she was surprised to see animals that looked…a little different.

"It's a unicorn… with six legs."

"Unicorn. No these are called Umbrae. They are the best way to get around. Their six legs make them capable of going almost anywhere. And their horn makes them deadly in a fight." Philly spoke up providing a quick description of the beast.

"They're oddly beautiful. Did you have any in your village Lyrika and where ever you're from Philly?"

"Oh no, they are incredibly expensive to buy. No way anyone from our village would have one. I'm surprised they even have any here." Lyrika replied.

"I saw a few. People used them to travel to the institute. I have never seen so many in one place though, I was sure they were hard to breed."

"Your right on that little bunny."

All three quickly turned to see a woman that rivalled Olivia in terms of height. She had some muscle tone, but it was minuscule compared to Olivia. She stood only slightly shorter than Olivia, but that hardly mattered when somehow her aura made her even very imposing. It even easily affected Olivia.

Although, it could have been the massive breast she had, rather than an aura.

Olivia just stood there just gaping at her, unable to speak as her mind went blank. But when the woman snapped her fingers, it suddenly wore off. It was like the haze had been lifted from her mind.

"Are you all right there? It's like you were daydreaming or something."

"Err…it's. Sorry."

Olivia just looked down as she responded, not wanting to show the embarrassment on her face, or see the stern look that Lyrika was probably giving her.

"No worries. Happens all the time when people meet me. I have some sort of effect on people."

"…"

None of them knew how to respond to that.

"So, what can I do for you? Looking to purchase an Umbrea."

"Ah, no. Not today anyway. We were hoping to get some advice on training a creature. Can you help with that?"

"Sure. I trained all these beasts myself so I can give you some advice. Oh, my name is Milly by the way."

Each of them greeted her back, and Olivia brought the basket over.

"How do you have so many Umbrea anyway?" Philly asked, still surprised at that fact.

"Oh, well if anything it was luck. I happened across a few that had been attacked on my travels. I helped nurse them back to health, and after that, they just stuck by me. From there, we travelled, and they bred and gave birth along the way and the rest is history. I only ended up in this village a few weeks ago, hoping to sell some of them, but so far no ones brought them."

"That's a shame. What do you plan to do now them?" Lyrika asked.

"Well, given what you said little bunny, I'll probably head to the elven kingdom after a while. See if some people there can afford them. Anyway, enough about me. Let's see what you want help training."

Reaching over to the basket she opened the top, and Milly, with a smile on her face, looked in. But as soon as she saw the creature, that smile quickly turned to a frown before she caught herself and changed it back.

"That's an…interesting creature have there. Do you know what it's called?"

Olivia had seen the slip, but given she didn't even know the species of the creature, figured she had grimaced when she saw the sharp claws and spike. At least that was what she thought.

"It's a Zentora, from the demon kingdom."

"Demon kingdom. Makes sense, with the claws and spike on its tail. I can tell you would not want to be attacked by an adult of these."

"You're right there," Olivia said.

They spoke of how they found the Zentora and the fight they had with its parents. Milly listened with her full attention.

"I see. So that's how you came across one." Milly replied. As she did she almost sighed in relief for some reason, but stopped herself. "Why do you want to train it? If it going to be such a dangerous beast, surely killing it would be the best thing to do."

Philly did shrug at that, seeing that it was quite a logical argument. Olivia however, felt a little differently.

"Wha-. We can't just kill it! I know it's dangerous, but surely if it's trained from this age, that shouldn't be the case. At least that's what Ortan figured. Besides, it seems like it's a runt anyway, it's not likely to be as strong as another of its species when it grows."

"What do you want to train it to do? Kill people?"

Olivia was a little shocked at this. A psychopath would probably think she was offering to train it to do just that. But the tone of her voice told Olivia that was not the case. There was almost a hint of fear in it as well as some probing. Was she trying to gauge if Olivia was truly the monster she looked like, hoping to get some pet to help her kill people?

Was the statement from before about killing it now to be safe also a way to figure out what kind of person she was? Or did she actually mean it?

"No," Olivia said as she looked right into Milly's eyes. "It needs to know how to defend itself sure, but I think it should be trained so it can understand us in some way and not just run off into the wild to kill something or someone."

"…"

Silence grew between the two, but before Olivia could speak up, Milly finally let out that sigh of relief.

"Ok then. Come inside and I'll show you how I train the Umbrea and how it can be applied to the Zentora."

Just before she turned around, Olivia could have sworn that she saw Milly look her up and down. And as she finished checking her out, her face shifted into one that felt familiar. A look of lust.

But as soon as she turned her face away. It was like the image of how she looked just fell out of her head, vanishing from her mind entirely.

So, she got to walking and followed her into the stables, none the wiser.

…

Once they were inside the stable, it was as she had expected it to be. Made of wood, it was quite spacious. On the walls were various bits of kit for grooming and riding the Umbrea. Then to the side of that, was more Umbrea, all trotting around in their pens.

"Now, a lot of what is needed to train an Umbrea won't apply to your Zentora, but there are some key things that you need to do when training any animal. The first of which is bonding with them. You want the animal you're training to know you and for you to know it. It needs to get used to how you act, how you smell, how you talk. You need to make it see that being around you is a nice thing."

"Ok makes sense," Olivia said as she thought back to her time on Earth. She did have a dog at one point, but was not involved around training it or the like, being around twelve at the time. But, associating the time you spend with it as a positive thing is definitely needed.

"While it's getting to know you, you need to get to know it as well. Not smell, obviously, but how it communicates. I don't know how smart a Zentora is, but whether it is incredibly intelligent or quite dumb, it will try to communicate with you in some way. You need to be on the lookout for this to figure out what it likes, what it dislikes, and respond and help it when you can."

Milly walked over to one of the tables and picked up a massive bag, holding it up to show them.

"Next you need food. Lots of it. I imagine it eats meat, so you will need a lot. You can probably cut it up to make it last longer though since it's quite small, but you will need it in order to reward it when it does something good. This depends on what you're training it to do, but everyone needs to communicate basic commands. Telling it to stay, follow, hide maybe even hunt if it can, will need to be backed up with food it really likes to show it that it did well."

'Ok, positive reinforcement, that shouldn't be too hard. But what about…'

"What about if it does something bad?" Olivia quickly followed up with.

"That again depends on you. Some trainers just tell them no in a stern voice, others use a sound and some use…force. The last one though is not something you should entertain."

"Didn't plan to."

Olivia didn't even want to imagine how some owners might actually hit their pets. That was not a picture she wanted in her head.

Milly walked over to one of the Umbrea and gave it a little stroke before looking back to them.

"But really that's the basics. You can probably buy gear for it once it's bigger that will help. Anything you get now it will probably just grow out of. If you have enough coin you could probably buy magic items that help you keep track of it and, if memory servers there was one that lets you truly communicate with it. Assuming its smart enough to understand you as well though."

"Thank you, you have been a big help."

She had received a good lot of advice, and while she would have liked to stay in the stable for longer to see the Umbrea and talk more with the big-breasted beauty, they needed to visit some shops for supplies, and she needed to figure out how to save Ameril. Then there was even trying to figure out a name for the Zentora.

As she went to leave, this plan was thwarted though as neither Philly nor Lyrika were with her. A quick look around though, and she saw the reason why…it being one of the same reasons she had wanted to stay as well.

Over by the stables, both Lyrika and Philly were stroking the heads of the Umbrea, making lovely cooing noises. It also seemed like some stable hand had come by and given them a basket of food to give the animals, as she saw Lyrika holding one end of an odd spiral-shaped carrot parsnip thing like they had seen on the farm, while the other end was in the Umbrea's mouth.

'Well, it couldn't hurt to stay a little while,', was the last thought she had before she headed over and took one of the vegetables from the basket.

All the while, Milly just stood to the side and watched her walk over to them, a slight smile on her face as she did.