Pearl Before Swine ch 2: The Bet

~THE PEARL~

“Think carefully, Pearl.” A fire’s worth of warmth coats Terra’s warning, promising both comfort and danger.

“I am more than a trinket. Therefore, I will not fail.” I take what little light filters between his fingers and use it to flicker and flash, the only movement I have yet been able to manifest. “Please? Let me prove this. Mare will follow her own rules, yes? If I win, she will cease her claim on me.”

Mare’s smile is a steady sword level with Terra’s heart behind me. “Of course, Infant.”

Terra sighs, but his hand closes around me completely and pulls down. The cord snaps, and as his grasp opens, his other palm fits atop me. In darkness, I wait.

“Pearl must do this on her own. She will win the love of a human, but you will not interfere. If you do, Sister, you forfeit.”

As heat swells, swirls, and melts my curved sides, I strain to keep listening.

“Then you cannot interfere either, Brother. If you help her, she shall be mine by default.”

It makes sense. If I am to prove my own value, I do not want Mare’s hinderance, nor do I want Terra’s aid. I am not only proving what I am and where I fit to them, but to myself. This is a chance to discover what I am capable of.

If they continue to speak, I cannot hear it, liquifying in Terra’s grasp. The heat is focused but gentle, pouring me into an unseen mold and sanding off the edges.

As he pulls his hands apart, I sit within his palm, long legs dangling over its side. My hands clench and unfurl before my face, turning over, no part missing to my inspecting gaze. Ten fingers, ten toes, two legs and arms, a torso and head.

At my command, fingers comb over my face and scalp. Silken hair falls across my shoulders and in my eyes, dark as the strongest shadows.

I smile, lips feeling strange against my teeth. Are they red like Mare’s, brown like Terra’s, pink like many humans I have seen, or blue like the dead sailor’s?

My hands rise again, but to my dismay, they cannot feel the light as my curved sides once could. My fingers touch my lips and report that they are supple, moist, and warm, but they say nothing of color. Light slides along my back, but again, it lacks detail. I can see only where my eyes point, and that is a limiting, daunting thought. How can creatures defend themselves, looking in only one direction?

My teeth squelch into my lower lip, and breath fills my new lungs. There is something in it like a knife scraping the interior of my skull, and my nose wrinkles.

As Mare shimmies closer, the gross sensation intensifies. Is this smell? I do not like it, overwhelming in how it clogs everything.

I try to tell her to back away, but nothing happens. I cannot push the thought toward her mind. My throat tightens, eyes widening, and my short breaths barely make it past my tongue. I cannot touch or even sense any mind besides my own, not the swine, not the corals, the golems, or even Terra. I am isolated in here, in the vastness, in the quiet, even more alone than when I was a speck.

Take it back. I do not want this.

“Speak as a human, Pearl,” Terra advises as his hand lowers.

Right, I have not completely lost the ability to communicate, and I have gained movement. I have lips, a tongue, and ears, and can manipulate them at will, my will. My fingers and toes wiggle at my whim.

This body paints an outward display of my emotions, and I swivel my eyes to Mare, returning her smirk. “I accept your challenge.” It is a whisper but audible. To add weight to it, I slide off Terra’s palm, and my feet tap the cracked stone floor in front of the one who wants to own me.

I immediately fall, elbows clacking alongside my knees. Pain flares, tingling through every nerve, and my hiss is louder than my first words.

Progress?

The swine squeal in laughter, all but one. He stands furthest at the back, staring at me with wonder. That I cannot delve into his mind incites another sliver of regret. I must surmise what he feels from what he shows. Surprise is plain in his slack jaw and round eyes, jealousy hinted in the slant of his brows and curl of his snout.

I stand, shaky at first. It is not as easy as it looks, but my quick mind hops along the rippling calculations. Holding my arms out, I take a wobbly step toward the salient swine, intent on asking him why he stares so, but Mare’s chortles steal my attention.

“Already headed toward the exit. How cute.” She twists in her laughter, voice raspy in the dry air. “When you find the humans, they will certainly overflow with questions.”

“Take the sailor’s clothes,” Terra instructs, and with heat throbbing in my cheeks, I kneel to obey, fingers fumbling with the tiny buttons.

Human coverings are not mere decoration like Mare’s necklace. Why do they conceal parts of themselves? If this man knew that I unhid him now, what would he think?

It is strange, how alike he is to the humans of so many seasons ago, yet he is different, too. While he claims the same basic form, he has plucked the hair from his face. His muscles, though still well-defined, do not bulge in the same places as sailors of old as if he did not hoist the same loads. His clothes, though torn and ripped, are of a finer weave, the buttons so tiny, I can barely grasp them.

The one nearest his chin snaps off and flies toward the swine. They laugh again, a grunting, bass sound this time, and my cheeks light aflame. Why is this so difficult? Is it because this is wrong? Because this man would not approve of me taking his clothes?

He is dead. He knows and feels nothing. He no longer requires anything. Why should what he would think matter?

Yet, I cannot get his arm out of the ripped sleeve, not until the golems help me. With their assistance, I dress in tattered pants and a ripped shirt, tying it closed so as not to have to deal with the buttons again.

I am ready to go, but as I stand at the top of the staircase in the mouth of the cave, my legs refuse to carry me forward. They tremble. All of me does, my lips, my lashes. A breeze brushes through my hair and chases Mare’s stink from my lungs, replacing it with a crisp, fresh scent.

Maybe smell is not a bad thing. The world outside cannot be awful if its aroma is this enticing.

Yet, I cannot move. The trees beyond the cave dance with the wind, calling for me to join them, but in their acute angles, I see Terra and hear his words.

“Everything that rises, falls, and everything that comes, leaves.”

I whirl and rush back to him, throwing my arms around his front leg. “I will come back.” I do not intend for it to be a sob.

He pats my head.

A sniffle helps steady my voice as I back away. “I will return worthy. Of your care. Capable of anything.”

Before he can reply, I turn and face the light of outside.

“Before the seventh sunset,” Mare croons.

“Right, before the seventh sunset, I will see you again, and I will bring a human’s love with me.”

***

~THE SWINE~

It’s good to be back in the water, even if I hate to admit it. Walking is difficult on legs like tree stumps and harder when your butt drags the ground.

But when Mare announced she was going to visit the Essence of the Land, how my ears perked. And when she chose me as one to accompany her, mixed feelings soured my gut.

I want out of the ocean. I want away from Mare and her cruel games, even if it means I can barely walk. Even if my skin dries and cracks. The sea’s embrace is relief for the moment, but for how long?

The face of another drowning sailor hovers at the front of my mind, so much like the one Mare deposited at Terra’s feet today. The memory is old, from my infancy when I was stupid and reckless and didn’t understand how the world worked. I begged Mare to save that man of long ago.

“Oh, my baby, what a kind heart you have,” she cooed then. “He must first want to be saved.”

The sailor’s thrashes slowed as she caught his cheek and towed him closer, though it didn’t have anything to do with a lessening of his pain. Panic bulged his blood-shot eyes as his lips darkened and both hands slowly clawed at her arm—slowly because that was all he had left.

“Do you want to live?” she asked. “Will you consent to be mine?”

Relief flooded me at his nod, but I never asked her to save another. Neither of us knew what that man agreed to until it was too late.

I trusted Mare then, but not now. I’ll never be like Brine and Barnacle, who hang on her every whim, gradually crushed as they carry her upon their backs. Here in the grand chamber of one of the undersea palaces, they float side by side under an arch that leads onto the veranda. I barely hear their snickering from the opposite side of the large space. The black walls of cooled lava devour whispers.

I watch Mare’s flicking tail as she swims back and forth across the round room. She’s flustered, on the cusp of angry, and that’s never good, especially when it comes with that twist of her brows. She’s scheming.

“What’s so special about the Pearl?” Beryl floats upside-down, the lazy fool. Maybe if he paid attention to something other than what his belly wants from moment to moment, he wouldn’t have leapt on Saburra and me when the Pearl spoke. As if we could hold him. He’s twice our size. He’s got tusks, same as us. Let him fight his own battles.

As if I’m one to talk. The Pearl’s voice made my knees knock together, too. It sounded like a sun bursting into existence right there in front of me.

I’d remind Beryl of that if I felt like answering him. I only feel like sulking in my corner between a ship’s broken helm and a locked chest bleeding gold coins through its rotten wood. That’s normal. That’s safe. Mare rarely even notices me here anymore.

If only I was braver, if I could speak like the Pearl did today. She’s so tiny, but she didn’t let Mare have her way. Maybe it was because of Terra’s protection, but Mare didn’t hurt her. Instead, they gave her legs that can walk, run, swim, or jump. Human legs. Legs that I have wanted for so long. Legs that can carry me away from Mare and her aquatic prison.

What if I—

“Your face when the Pearl transformed.” Mare floats in front of me, cupped hands aimed at my cheeks.

I duck, ears flattened, but manage not to flinch as her scales stick against my skin. “If she’s a sister to the corals, shouldn’t you have known of her?”

“The Pearl is the product of a forgotten dream. Many of the corals are.” Mare’s red lips stretch in a wan smile, and her fingers trace shallow circles at the base of my ears. She tows me to the center of the room, beneath the chandelier of glowing algae. “Do not attempt to subvert the point, my baby. You cannot lie to me.”

It’s not worth even trying to lie to her. I want to pull my face away, but my every muscle has gone slack. Even my eyes refuse to focus, lids like drapes. If she doesn’t let go, I’ll pass out soon. It’s as if lightning threads between her hands, sawing through my mind between them.

My voice is a weak, cold current sinking to the bottom of the ocean. “I want to know what it’s like on land, among the humans.”

I manage not to say, “away from you,” but she probably sees that part anyway.

A gleam churns in the pit of her gaze. “How I would be hurt to think I am not good enough for you, that you would want to leave, but that is not the reason behind this desire, is it?”

I say nothing and hope she’ll let it drop. Mare hurts the things that hurt her, heaps the pain back on them threefold.

Her tail flicks, and she pushes me backward. We’re on the veranda, and my rear flippers scrunch against the balustrade. I shiver. I don’t even like to look at the human skulls stacked to form the rail, much less touch them. But at least they stopped me.

Beneath this jutting platform, twin serpents circle the base of the tower, never still. Their boredom slides over me like smothering, molten metal. They seek something to sink their fangs into and destroy.

Mare’s voice, though soft in this moment, is just as cloying. “As you wish, I will send you to the land.”

My eyes shoot open, tongue too tied to shape the “what” that flashes through my whole body.

Mare’s grin takes the shape of a harpoon. “That Terra, distancing us to ruin my fun. If I go and watch the Pearl, I will want to join in, make sure things go my way. Then the bet would be forfeit, but if you go...”

Her fingers pause, hooked behind my ears and pressing them upright as she waits for me to finish the thought.

“Terra didn’t say anything about me.” I look her straight in the eye. “I can make sure the Pearl doesn’t succeed.”

With the chandelier behind her, her smile is a black smudge against her silhouette. “You want to make me happy, do you not?”

A tiny, withered, starving part of me does, but most of me just wants to make sure I don’t upset her.

The skulls’ gaping sockets press into my behind, proof of Mare’s hate for humans, much as she pretends to be amused by them. The oldest corals claim she hasn’t always felt this way. They knew the human that loved her. Or said he loved her.

These are the skulls of his relatives.

Creatures of Essence can’t love. We aren’t meant to be loved, and this challenge Mare threw at the Pearl seems too similar to her own story.

Hind legs stiff, I push off the morbid half-wall. “You have me. And Beryl, Brine, Barnacle, and Saburra. The corals, the serpents, and a hundred others. What’s the harm in letting Terra have one tiny rock?”

Her embrace skims down my shell as she allows the momentum to carry us back under the arch. Here, she is less of a silhouette, eyes radiant like the jewels winking in the walls. “The boundaries between realms must be strict, or do you not remember what happened when I gave a little to the infant Essence of the Sky?”

It’s hard to forget feathers cracking one’s shell. She gave a little, and Caelus thought that meant he could take a lot.

Releasing me, she whirls, rises, then dives in a backward loop, arms wrapped around herself.

“Said he whose name shall never again be spoken, the oldest of my swine, ‘I want to dance.’” Upside-down, she puckers her lips and pinches my cheeks. “The Sky’s creatures do not play nice.”

No, not when they want something, and neither does Mare. She killed the oldest of my brothers rather than give him up.

For a moment, I wonder what would have happened had the Sky’s Essence found the sea stone instead of Terra. The Essence of the Land is passive. Caelus is not.

Mare curls playfully around me, soft tailfins flapping over my face. “Sing, the lot of you. I cannot work in this silence.”

As always, Brine and Barnacle are the first to obey, voices deep and clear. Beryl’s is a bit on the nasally side, Saburra’s bright and high.

My range should slide into the middle, but instead, I whisper, “I won’t let the Pearl win the bet, but if she did, what would you do?”

“I keep my word, my baby.” She straightens, sending me rolling, and I flap my fins and legs to stay in place. “If she does bring a human who claims to love her, I will respect her win, and I will show her the fickle, weak meaning of human love. The Pearl will have her freedom, and in exchange, I will take that human’s life.”

Of course she will, especially if—

Over her shoulder, my gaze cuts to the shortest column of skulls, each one’s grin riddled with gaps. The missing teeth dangle from Mare’s necklace.

Those men were islanders, though. How would the Pearl find one of their kin? I doubt she knows how to swim, but then, I saw how quickly she learned to walk for someone who never had legs before.

Mare catches my chin and pulls my face close to hers. “That will not happen, however, because when the seventh sun sets, the Pearl will have brought you to fulfill the bet, and you will only look human.”

Her lips touch my forehead, and a current courses through me. It tears and squeezes my muscles, sculpting them into a foreign shape. The water in my throat boils and burns, trapping a scream.

Like the many men I have seen drown, I thrash, knowing it’s useless, but these long limbs move on their own.

Mare holds me tight, and we rise, I think. The world has gone dark. I’m on fire on the inside, and the water won’t put it out.

“When you win this for me, as a reward, you can keep the transformation. Walk among the humans for as long as you please.”

Her words sound garbled through these deformed ears. Do I hear them right? Is this the chance I’ve been waiting for, longing for?

Her webbed hand cups the back of my head, drawing my face to the crook of her neck. Her jagged pendants dig into my cheek, but I barely feel it. I barely feel anything. Even the fire has gone cold.

As she squishes me against her one final time, her whisper falls into my ears clearer than it ever has. “Go, my baby. I will miss you so much.”

Continued in chapter 3: Humans

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