Chapter 10 - This is food??

Azra took Kasia's hand and walked with her to the entrance of the cave where Briar and Haran were waiting. Feeling proud of his accomplishment while she was sleeping.

The two males had gone hunting and found a large amount of food for the two females. They would have to hunt a lot more to get enough food to last through the cold season.

Kasia saw so many things wrong when she peered out from behind Azra's back. She was stunned into silence, eyes wide in shock. All three of them stared at her. Wondering what was wrong.

Azra could feel the disgust coming from his mate and he was startled by why she was so upset. Nothing was wrong He even made sure the meat was cooked before he woke her up. He didn't see anything wrong . Azra was staring at her anxiously. "What's wrong? Are you alright?"

Kasia couldn't tear her eyes away from the fire in front of her.

"Why... Why are you burning such a precious thing? I don't understand.. trees are so precious. Why would you destroy them like that? And why would you hurt such a creature and burn it? What are you doing?"

With a churning stomach Kasia walked away from the horrid sight without even waiting for anyone to answer her question.

Soon enough she made it outside the city and she couldn't help emptying the contents of her stomach.

Azra was stunned and scared his female was sick. Why did she react to that? Kasia looked in his direction after wiping her mouth before turning away and walking further into the forest. He followed her like he had lost his way and refused to let her leave his side but he didn't dare try to stop her either.

There was a clearing and Kasia looked up at a massive tree and started climbing towards the top to sit on a branch but to her surprise Azra followed her every move and sat next to her.

After a long silence between the two while they were staring off into the distance together, Kasia finally decided to speak to the concerned and internally frantic beast sitting next to her.

"Was that something normal here? Burning that creature and destroying such precious materials?"

Azra nodded and watched as she continued to stare off in the distance without even glancing at him.

" I'm from a different world Azra. There are going to be times that I don't understand why you do the things you do."

Kasia took a deep breath...

" Where I'm from there are no trees, grass or even plants. Only the rich could even dare look at a leaf of a tree much less see the tree itself. They are that uncommon and are just that rare. The only things I saw were just red dirt and rocks,a red very similar to your hair color. It's a beautiful place in it's own right.

It's considered a crime where I'm from to destroy anything that grows from the ground."

Azra sat quietly listening to his female.

" We know what fire is but it is forbidden to use because of all the destruction it causes.

We have learned since young to never use fire to burn anything. It's far too dangerous.

But if those things are normal here, I will have to rethink and continue to relearn everything. It's just going to take time to understand the differences between the places we've lived."

Azra asked " was it a crime because there were no plants? You see how many exist here so it won't hurt to use some of it. Don't worry, it's not a bad thing here. It's actually very normal. But how did you eat if you didn't cook your food?"

She looked horrified again. "Food...? What was? That creature?" Astounded that they eat living things. She was quite disgusted at the thought of doing such a thing. Kasia reached into her pocket and pulled out a little black orb and handed it to Azra.

" That is what we eat where I'm from. Outside of the tall walls are countless ferocious monsters that turn the world white. We have to fight them or else everyone would die. Every person is trained to be able to withstand a monster attack back home. Even if they can't fight they can survive it. We built walls to keep them out to protect the weak and the young."

Kasia brought her knees up to her chest and hugged them while looking at him before she continued.

" Every time the hunters go out and kill them they're accompanied by others that have the power to turn them into piles of these. They have enough nutrition for us and they keep us alive because there's no other alternatives. I just ... find it difficult to understand that you eat their flesh without the processing it this way."

Azra took in her words and understood why she reacted the way she did. He rolled the little black orb in palm of his hand before bringing it up to his mouth . He decided to eat it in an attempt to understand more of her world and even more so to understand about her.

At first he tried to chew it but it wouldn't break no matter how hard he bit down. Then he decided to just swallow it whole. Meanwhile Kasia was giggling away at him trying to eat it.

It was incredibly strange after he ate this little black orb, he was instantly completely full. There was no taste, no enjoyment, just sustenance. Something so small filled his stomach. His little female never got to eat anything tasty did she?

"So you can make those?" Kasia shook her head no

" You've seen my power, I have the power to carry my homes along with me wherever I go and place them almost wherever I want."

She pointed down to the clearing and thought about his home and in an instant He saw the cave floor and all of his things on the ground. Below them underneath the tree.

Azra looked at his things and saw a sweet fruit and climbed down to grab it and brought it back up to his mate. As he sat next to her he watched her uncertain gaze as he broke the sweet fruit into 4 pieces.

"Would you try a bit of food from this place? It's a plant so it should be easier to think about eating than ... Before."

As Kasia stared into his eyes. She looked down at his trembling hand holding the sweet fruit as he called it. She took piece of it and smelled it, It smelled different, like something she'd never smelled before. It wasn't like the flowers or the grass.

She reluctantly brought it to her lips and mimiced Azra as he took a bite. She watched as he chewed it before swallowing it. The moment she started chewing a very strong flavor that she knew very well coated her mouth and her eyes grew wide. This was something that most people only got to try a few times because it comes from people with special powers. She got to try this on a few different special days in her life thanks to her family that paid for someone to make a little pink orb.

They called this cotton candy back home.

Though it was something that melted in your mouth and it was never anything that could fill your stomach, but this "sweet fruit" was something you had to chew and the taste was just so similar.

"So? Is it okay?"

Kasia looked into Azra's eyes then reached over and hugged him tightly. He flinched and very quickly grabbed the branch to make sure they didn't fall off before using his other arm to wrap around his female dropping the other two pieces of the sweet fruit in the process. She was happy... he decided right then that he would hunt down all of the sweet fruit for her.