This Beast Tamer Has So Many Questions

The place Elias headed to was, surprisingly, a clothes shop.

Not for himself, of course. For spirit beasts.

It had been the spirit pets in the park that gave it away. Half-asleep on the bench, watching the little companions amble past in their tiny coats and embroidered vests, he had idly wondered—and asked—whether the material the third step required was, of all things, clothing. The answer had been yes. The strange, stubborn final piece of the Care Pig evolution was not some rare essence or precious ore at all. It was a set of clothes.

Elias had laughed out loud right there in the park, startling Briar all over again.

He found a shop that specialized in clothing for medium-sized spirit beasts, and proceeded, with uncharacteristic abandon, to buy.

He bought and bought and bought—every garment in the shop that looked as though it might fit an old Care Pig, in every style and cut and color they had on hand. He had no idea yet which ones would matter, so he simply took them all. The staff and the owner watched this quiet young man sweep through their inventory with growing astonishment, which quickly melted into delight as the total kept climbing. It was, Elias suspected, the best afternoon of business the little shop had seen in some time.

He had most of the haul delivered to his breeder shop, keeping only a few sets to carry back with him as he returned to the lab.

In the secret realm, the old pigs were discovering what their new minds could do. One nudged a fallen blossom through the air with Telekinesis, batting it back and forth with a butterfly that had decided to join the game, the two of them volleying the flower between them. Another drifted lazily on its back a foot above the grass, levitating purely for the joy of it, while bees looped curious circles around its belly. Two pigs sat nose to nose in what Elias was fairly sure was a silent conversation, sharing emotions back and forth, occasionally breaking off to look pleased with themselves. The bees and butterflies wove through it all, playing along with the old creatures as though the whole realm were one enormous, gentle playground.

Back in the secret realm, Elias called the pigs to him.

This time, he found he needed no help at all. Without Holly, Honey, Hope, or Briar to herd them, the pigs came on their own, and with far less difficulty than before—some of them simply using Levitation to float themselves gently across the meadow toward him, drifting over the flowers like dignified little clouds.

For animals that had arrived broken and hopeless, it was a transformation that never failed to warm him through.

With the pigs gathered, Elias laid the clothes out before them.

He let them investigate at their own pace—touching the fabrics, smelling them, trying them on to see which they liked. He honestly did not know whether this was the right approach. But the logic seemed sound enough, in its simple way: they were clothes, and clothes were meant to be worn. If preference mattered, the pigs would have to be the ones to show him.

Soon the pigs were busy at it—and the result surprised him.

To a one, they went for the elegant, simple garments. Not the soft, cutesy, comfortable little outfits he might have expected old pigs to prefer, but the clean, refined, dignified pieces—the tailored and the understated. It seemed the Mental attribute had brought with it a certain sense of taste. These were not pets dressing up. They were old souls choosing how they wished to present themselves to the world.

A few hours later, when the bulk of the delivery arrived, Elias tried to verify the guess with a far larger selection.

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The preference held. Every pig, given hundreds of options, still gravitated toward the elegant and the clean-cut. But with so much more to choose from, something finer emerged: individual taste. Each pig had its own particular style now. One favored longer, flowing cuts; another, crisp and close-fitting lines. They diverged on patterns, on length, on color—some drawn to deep, quiet tones, others to soft pastels, each according to a personality that had been there all along and finally had a way to show itself.

Sebastian simply used Telepathy to tell Elias which he liked—a quiet impression pressed gently against his mind, clear as a pointed hoof.

Elias recorded every preference with care. And once he had them all, he placed a custom order at once: garments tailored perfectly to each pig’s desires and to each pig’s body, fitted to old frames that off-the-rack clothing never quite suited.

A week later, the custom order was delivered, and Elias dressed them.

The moment the clothes settled onto them, he could feel it—a wave of happiness rolling off the pigs, deep and genuine and unmistakable. Even the blind ones, who could not possibly see how fine they looked, radiated the same delight. It was strange. He turned it over in his mind and decided it was likely less about fashion than about instinct—some deep evolutionary pull, the creature sensing on a level beneath thought that it was being prepared for what came next.

He had not ordered only a single set, either. Over that week, he had worked out exactly what the third step required, and it called for more than one.

The method, once he understood it, was almost embarrassingly simple—the way these things always were, once known.

First, find the clothing each pig truly preferred. Then soak and imbue that clothing with the Mental attribute. Then have the pig wear it. That was all. Three small steps, obvious in hindsight, impossible to guess in advance. The preference mattered because the garment had to be one the pig would genuinely want to wear, would keep close and wear willingly; only then would the imbued attribute take proper hold.

So back to work he went, settling in to research the exact formula the clothes would need to be soaked in—the precise blend and concentration of mental materials, the method of imbuing, the soaking time. Meanwhile, blissfully unaware that their fine new wardrobes were the prelude to anything at all, the pigs occupied themselves with what could only be described as a fashion show, parading their outfits before one another and before every bee and butterfly willing to watch, showing off shamelessly and admiring one another in turn.

It was during this research that Elias was interrupted by a rebellion.

Holly, Honey, Hope, Briar—and, to his complete astonishment, even Valentine—all made it abundantly clear that if the pigs were getting clothes, they most certainly wanted clothes too.

Elias relented immediately. He knew a losing battle when he saw one.

He placed another custom order: delicate ribbons, tailored to each of them. The bees received fine ribbons tied at their legs; the butterflies, the same; and Briar a length of ribbon wound elegantly about his stem. They joined the fashion show with every bit as much enthusiasm as the pigs, the three queens in particular preening with the regal satisfaction of creatures who had always known they deserved finery and were gratified to finally receive it.

Even Valentine allowed himself to be adorned, fluttering once around Elias’s head to show off his crimson ribbon in a scatter of rainbow light—before, predictably, retreating to his favorite place against the side of Elias’s neck, satisfied that he had participated and now finished with the whole affair.

Elias looked around at his ridiculous, beribboned, beautifully dressed little family, and thought that he would not trade the sight for anything in the world.

Two weeks later, the work was done.

The clothes had been fully imbued with the Mental attribute, the formula at last perfected through patient research and careful questioning. It was time for the evolution to truly begin.

Elias gathered the pigs once more. Gently, he removed the everyday clothes they had been wearing—garments the fastidious creatures had kept spotless this whole time, cleaning them diligently themselves, of course—and replaced them with the imbued set, dressing each old pig in the Mental-attribute clothing tailored just for it.

The effect came swiftly. One by one, just as before, the pigs grew drowsy and sank down into the soft grass, drifting off into the deep sleep of transformation.

And one by one, Elias settled in beside them to keep watch—Holly, Honey, Hope, and Briar gathering close around him, the whole quiet little family standing guard together over the sleeping pigs as the final step of their long journey began.