Pearl Before Swine ch 1: The Essence of the Sea

~THE PEARL~

The golems are agitated. Very little disturbs them, so this must be an important visitor. In all honesty, any visitor is important at this point. It has been so long since we had one.

Humans like the one who brought me here used to come regularly, bearing gifts for the Essence of the Land in exchange for favors. They were a river that diminished into a stream, then a trickle, now a dry ditch. Thousands of seasons have passed since I saw a living human, and that drought is not quenched by today’s visitor.

She is something new but familiar, and I am drawn to her as I was to Terra at our first meeting. My bond with him is too strong for this novelty to break it, but curiosity waits like a tiger crouched in the grass, shivering across my curved sides like rising hackles.

My thoughts race, and I push them toward Terra. “She is like you but different.”

“Mare is my sister, the Essence of the Sea.”

Everything within me pulses quicker. How often the histories he tells involve the relationship between siblings, and it seems a precious thing to me. Siblings have the same origin, imperfect reflections of one another, as same as two individuals can be. Because one is an example of what the other could have been, they can be used as a measure for what one is and can be.

In the stories, sometimes this leads to a closeness that cannot be severed. Sometimes it leads to war.

As Terra stands upon his pedestal in the receiving room, I fear this is the latter. Dread trudges through him like heated sap, and regret stomps at any glimmer of hope or happiness.

Mare bustles down the staircase into this chamber, carried on the backs of some hybrid of swine and crustacean, and my intrigue grows. In quiet song, they grunt and squeal with every step, swift for creatures with such short limbs. Their hind legs are nearly non-existent, and their flippered tails drag. As they leave the stairs and enter the moat of powdered gold around our dais, dimpled furrows mark their trail.

“Hail, Brother. Time has grown old since last we met.” Mare’s voice booms within my mind like the crash of waves against a rocky cliff.

Terra nods. “True, Sister. Have you come because you miss me, then?”

She laughs as her group slows and stops only a leg-length from Terra’s hooves. Most do not dare encroach upon his space in such a way. If he kicks, the sea swine will be sent flying.

A part of me wants to see that happen. How dare she laugh at a statement that causes Terra so much pain.

All of the golems still, already facing us as always, and a few stride closer. They are as the armies of history. Though I doubt Terra needs them to fight for him, they form a daunting sight, elegant soldiers carved of marble, iron, and diamond.

I wonder at their choice of décor today. Gradients of jewels speckle the distant walls in intricate mosaics, and in the spaces between them flow molten streams of gold. The flicker of heatless flames barely licks the high ceiling, where faint glimmers drown in pools of shadow.

With a burst of pride for their hard work, I pull the image around me and reflect it as if my curved sides wear this facsimile of the night sky.

Mare’s eyes, electric green slit by blades of black, focus on Terra’s chest, right on me. “A sailor fell into the sea.”

From the back of her crowd, a statue formed of coral shuffles forward and drops its burden before her. The bedraggled body of a young man lands with a squelch, face-down and extremities at untidy angles. She flicks her tail, a jade-scaled appendage that stands in for her legs, and the corpse flips between us.

Dark, sightless eyes gaze up at Terra, and he grants the boy a brief glance. “Why would I want it?”

“It is not a gift. It is evidence.” She combs a webbed hand through her green-filament hair. The same material forms the fins that replace her feet, skirt her hips, and connect her biceps to her sides. Though the cave is moist, it is a desert compared to the ocean. Her body is sticky and heavy, and the discomfort weights her words. “Drowning sailors are neither new nor rare, but before I tired of this one, he told me something of interest, and now I see it is true.”

Arms crossed, Terra sighs. “Sister, I do not delve into your mind without permission, so grant me the courtesy of speaking forthright.”

Finger tipped in glossy scarlet to match her lips, she points at me. “That thing on your necklace is a sea stone. It came from the sea and therefore is mine. I have come to reclaim what was stolen.” Her hand rolls, waiting for me to land in her grasp.

No, I do not want to go with her. I was given to Terra, and he needs me. Humans no longer come. The golems, while beautiful, have little original thought. They made this net-like nest for me as a pendant so I can stay with Terra always, a companion with whom he can share everything.

Without me, he will be alone again.

His hand rises.

No, please, I want to stay. I am sorry I was curious of her.

His fingers curl around me, blocking most of the light, but instead of pulling me away, he holds me closer.

“She is not simply a jewel, Mare, not a bauble for you to play with and discard. Pearl is a Creature of Essence.”

I preen, glowing brighter at his use of my name. When he first asked me what I should be called, I repeated the word the humans had used. He said I did not have to keep it, that I could choose anything, but I like the enthrallment the humans associate with the sound.

“A Creature of Essence?” Mare blinks, features twisting. While they have more curves than Terra’s, they are still very sharp, and her scales glisten with the movement. “She came from my realm and so belongs in my Company.”

Terra presses me further into his chest, and I fear I might crack. No longer can I fit between the fibers of his skin, but I am still small compared to him, easily crushed.

“I will trade any number of my golems for her.”

“Ha, they are merely a wisp of thought like my corals—and at least my corals have some agency.” Her fingers tap her lips, then fall to her collarbone as if she already imagines me there amid the jewels, shells, and teeth of her necklace, hanging just above where her scales give way to green-tinged skin. “If you had anything like my swine or greater, I might consider it.”

“I can—”

“No, Brother, I have come for what is mine, and I want it, not to trade for things of lesser value. Now, give it.” Her lips stretch, one side peaking. Her teeth form a reflection of that mountain shape as her hand thrusts toward us again.

She is not alone. She does not need me, and this is cruel of her. Even if her corals and the golems can be counted as equal, she has more, the swine. They are far more complex Creatures of Essence.

I study them and poke at their minds. While they are not small, it takes two of them to carry their mistress. They are similar but not identical, siblings like Terra and Mare, each with their own thoughts and variants of features. Oversized tusks protrude from their lower jaws, and spiraling shells cover their bodies, dyed in every jewel tone.

Why does Terra not have something equivalent?

Mare huffs. “Your hesitance to release it only makes me want it all the more.”

It, she says, though Terra has already used my name. A storm churns within me, continuing to grow as they speak as if I cannot hear.

The squall rains, floods, fills me until I burst. “Why do you want me? Have you no care for what I want?”

My voice echoes in the silence that follows, the loudest I have ever spoken. Terra stiffens. The swine cower, one covering his eyes, another glancing about, other three huddled together. Though otherwise motionless, the golems rattle.

Mare lifts her hands, and her fingers steeple before her pursed lips as she cocks her head. “Pearl, is it? You think what you want matters?”

Does it not? Terra has always acted like it does. He teaches me how things work and lets me decide. Even my name is my choice.

Focusing on Mare, I shove my sentiments toward her. “You speak of the golems as having little value because of their lack of agency, yet, if my choices mean nothing, how can my worth rank above theirs?”

Terra smiles, and I sink into his pleasure and amusement like a warm bath. I must have said the right thing, even if my volume waned. It exacts mighty effort to sound forceful. Can I sleep soon?

Mare’s eyes narrow. “Let us have you prove it.” She stands, and the stone floor of the moat cracks beneath her. “If you are worthy of having your choices count, then you must be capable of making decisions toward a goal. I propose a contest, a bet.” Her gaze cuts to Terra. “At the end, we will see where Pearl chooses to live.”

Terra flinches. Fear’s cold hands slide over him, dark and smothering. Does he think I will not choose him? I will. For as long as he needs me, I will always choose to stay with him.

If I must prove my mettle first like a hero of legend, then I will do that, too.

“What are the terms?”

Her smile reveals a row of dagger-like teeth. “The humans have a concept they call love. You know it?”

Love is as prominent in the stories as family. I have many times asked Terra what it is and what it feels like, and his answer always remains the same. It is not an emotion Essences or their Creatures possess. It came with the humans, and we can understand it only in how they express it.

“I know of love. The humans prize it.”

She chuckles, one shoulder hitching toward her chin. “It is a nonsensical but entertaining notion, much like the humans themselves.”

My attention falls to the one present human. What is his story? Did he love anyone, and was he loved in return? His jaw is clenched and bruised, skin pale and webbed in dark lines. His last moment is written within, already breaking down but still legible.

Pain.

It is the same as the pain of some of our past visitors. Terra eased and healed their woes, but we can do nothing for this one. The thought fills me with a heavy tightness as if my own body is collapsing in on me.

“What do humans and their emotions have to do with this?”

“It is the task I set before you.” With a coral beneath either arm, she glides across the few paces between us, eyes level with me.

Terra’s grip tightens, but I do not hide, peeking between the grooves of bark on his fingers. I shake. Is this fear or excitement? Why would I feel either, safe in Terra’s grasp?

Mare’s smile tilts, bottom lip trembling. “You will take the form of a human and walk among them. Gain one’s love, then bring that human to me before the seventh sunset. If you succeed, then you will have proven your worth and won your freedom.”

She touches her collar again, crimson-tipped fingers like claws curling through the jagged-edged shells.

“If you fail, you prove you are a mere trinket, and that is what you will be, forever a silent pendant for my necklace.”

Continued in chapter 2: The Bet

Thank you for reading!