Chimera

I had read that the Chimera was a lion, a goat and a serpent in one body. What no book prepared me for is that it is also a debate. The lion’s head sits proudly at the front, mane full of dust and grit; the goat’s head sprouts from the shoulders with a pair of curling horns and an expression of permanent disapproval; and the serpent, coiled at the end of the tail, watches everything behind you that you would rather it did not.

They roam the Rocky Badlands, and you can usually find one by its tracks, which go round and round in a near perfect circle. I followed one such circle for most of a morning before realizing I was following my own footprints as well as the Chimera’s. The creature itself was sitting on a nearby rock, watching me with all three faces, and I am quite certain at least two of them were amused.

The Mystery of the “Sunset Council”

Every evening, as the light goes orange over the badlands, the Chimeras I observed would stop whatever they were doing and fall silent. All three heads would face inward, nearly touching, for several minutes. Then they would part, and the creature would set off in a single, purposeful direction, as if something had at last been decided.

A Centaur scout of the Ridgehorn clan told me that the heads are voting, and that the matriarch of the three (always the goat, she insisted) has the deciding voice. A Redcap I asked the next week laughed until he fell off his wall and said the serpent wins every vote, because it is the only one that can bite the other two. I do not know which is right, but I noticed afterwards that the serpent always looked rather pleased with itself.

On the Matter of Bonding

The Chimera is the only creature I know of that must be bonded with three times. Each head must decide independently that you are worth the trouble, and each is moved by something different. The lion wants respect and the occasional bit of flattery about its mane. The goat wants to be argued with, honestly and stubbornly; it despises anyone who agrees too quickly. The serpent wants only to be left out of things until it is ready, and then it wants a warm stone.

The masters here are the Hags, and I report this with some reluctance. A coven of three, I was told, will each take one head and work it with rune and blood. It is effective, I gather, and also not what anyone would call a friendship. The Chimeras bound that way are said to stop arguing altogether, which sounds peaceful until you realize it means they have stopped thinking.

I much prefer the method of a Centaur herder I met near the canyon wells, who simply carries three different treats (dried meat, a twist of bitter thistle, and a smooth sun-warmed pebble) and offers them in a different order every day, so that no head ever feels it has been put second. She has had the same Chimera at her side for eleven years. “Diplomacy,” she told me, “is mostly remembering who had the first biscuit yesterday.”