Pearl Before Swine ch 4: First Day

~THE PEARL~

When next my eyes open, the scene is unfamiliar. I face upward, but no blue or black sky comes into focus. Instead, gray hovers far above, nearly as high as the ceiling of Terra’s greeting hall, but this is smoother. Where the golems shape the dimples and straws of the cave into abstract forms, the polished stone here is carved with a frieze of flowers.

Is this something the humans have done? Have I somehow found my way within one’s home?

“Don’t frown like that. It mars your pretty face.”

I turn my head, and when that proves easy enough, I sit up.

“You’re probably wondering where you are, huh?” Pike laughs and rubs a hand over his sandy hair.

I stare at him, noting his flimsy chair, the cloth wall behind him, and its copies surrounding us. His garb has changed, and darkness loiters beneath his eyes. In this pallid light, they are more aqua than green, vivid with the bluish undertone of a sheltered lagoon.

“How long was I asleep?”

His laugh comes louder this time, freer. “That’s a fair question, too, I guess. It’s been half a day. My friend and I—well, he’s not a friend, per se, since I just met him yesterday and he’s a pain in the rear, but yeah, I’ll call us friends. Anyway, we brought you with us, and security wasn’t exactly happy about it, but we talked the dean into letting you stay, so welcome to Southern Shores University.”

He spreads his arms wide to match his grin, and something in the gesture reminds me of a wave stretching upon the shore, reaching as much of the land as it can before the sea draws it back in.

“Where is your friend?”

“In class.” He scoops a blue cap off the chair beside him and stands. “We arrived later than we should have, and he had to go. Technically, I did, too, but I have no delusions that my attendance will end any wars. Plus, I’m infinitely more compassionate than he is.”

Relief is a cool, calm breeze chasing out the tightness from my chest. He did not die from his wounds at least, but I wonder at the implications of that last comparison. Does being more compassionate mean Pike is more capable or more naturally inclined to show love? Should I focus my efforts on this short, noisy human?

Pike wrings his hat, gaze passing through his feet. “Far be it from me to tell anybody they can’t be friends, but he—well, I’ll just warn you that making friends with him could be dangerous for both of you.”

Before I can ask how, his smirk returns, his cap settles crookedly on his beach-like hair, and he offers me a hand. “Think you can stand?”

My focus flutters from his face to his fingers, where callouses blur his knuckles. In the stories, this is a big moment, when lovers touch for the first time. As I accept his hand, will a spark jump between us?

My fingers meet his palm, then slide forward to fold over his wrist. While there is warmth, that is all, no flash, no firework. His grasp closes, helping me rise, but I feel no thrill or flurry. If anything, I feel trapped, as if he intends to steal my hand.

“The dean wanted to see you as soon as possible, so I’ll escort you to his office, I guess.” Head tilted, he gives me a smile.

I return it, but unexplained weight makes the expression a chore until he releases me, pivots toward a break in the flimsy partition, and indicates with an outstretched arm that I should precede him.

Beyond the doorway awaits a maze of cloth walls barely higher than our heads. The ceiling so far above appears to float on nothing. I stare at it as I walk until the swooshing fabric at my ankles calls my attention.

I hitch my step, jaunting left, then right to watch the pant legs flare at my calves. Short boots encase my feet, and my toes curl, testing the restriction. I do not appreciate how little the space for them is, as if they have been packed into a tomb, never again to face the light.

“What do you think of the uniform?” Pike asks, subtle gestures directing me at every intersection. “You’re not a student here, but we couldn’t leave you in what you were in, so I convinced the medic to let you borrow one of her novice’s outfits. The gold looks good on you.”

I run a hand along a three-quarter sleeve and down my side to where the jacket stretches beneath a metal belt. The material is both soft and slick, a pale yellow with a hint of shine.

“I couldn’t seem to talk her into letting you have the beret, too, though.” He winks and glances up as if he can see his own hat. Discounting that, his outfit is similar to mine—a jacket, though his sleeves are longer, and a metal belt. His pants tuck into his boots. The color is different as well.

“Do you prefer blue?”

“In a way. Blue is for students of experimental science, and though I don’t think that’s much different from medicine anyway, it’s closer to my dream.” He pauses as if he ran into a wall I cannot see. “Why, do you think it doesn’t look good on me or something?”

I squint at him, considering. “It does not go with your eyes.”

It would go with his friend’s, however. Does he wear the same uniform?

We reach the end of the maze and enter a hall of metal planks. Vertical bars and gold-tinted glass imprison gears in the walls. These turn in endless circles, cloaked in steam, and a humid haze shrouds the path, thickest at our feet. Its chill seeps through my skin, and I shiver.

With a guffaw, Pike strolls past me. “Nothing goes with these eyes. At least I’m not here for fashion. I’d love to have eyes like yours, though, dark like they could swallow the stars.” He faces me, looking up from a bow, hands behind his back. “Actually, I think I’m just plain jealous of you, awesomely able to dodge that bear’s attacks. While carrying someone twice your size, no less.”

I try to laugh it off, and this time, the smile shows up on its own. “I was fear’s puppet.”

“Anyone would be. I was hiding in a tree, but you…I don’t believe in fairies, but you certainly looked like one. If I didn’t know it was impossible, I’d believe you could fly.”

“Why do you not believe in fairies? Caelus is said to have many.”

He tilts his head so far, his hat slides off, and he catches it. “If I believed in Caelus, then I suppose I’d have to believe in his fairies, too.”

A far-away look unfocuses his pale jade eyes. His sandy lashes gleam in the afternoon light that slants through the tall windows at the ever-nearing end of the hall. Yesterday in the forest, the light carried warmth. Here, it is too sallow as if it is shadow disguised as light.

“It was probably just my imagination, but I saw a glow between you two as you faced the bear. Do you remember anything like that?”

My steps slow as I replay the scene in my mind. The blue-eyed man hung slack in my embrace. How badly I had wanted to share my strength with him, keep him alive, but I felt so tired.

Then nothing.

I shake my head, but a flame of hope shimmies in my core. If a flash came when I held his traveling companion, perhaps that explains why nothing like that happened when I touched Pike. Maybe this blue-eyed friend is the one I seek.

“Yeah, it was probably just a product of my own fear, but a word of advice? The dean is a scientist at heart, and he likes ones with interesting stories. I don’t know your background or anything, but if you can impress him somehow, he’ll probably let you stay, and”—he wrings his cap, gaze shying toward the windows now on our right as color blossoms on either side of his nose—“I’d really like you to stay.”

I puff my cheeks. Yes, I need this dean to let me stay. A place this big surely has plenty of humans. It at least has two candidates to help me win the bet. I would rather not waste more time trying to find others elsewhere. Most of my first day has already burned.

“I do not think I have a story yet. It is just beginning.”

Pike laughs again, and the sound grows on me, gentle like leaves falling in the wind yet bold like a wolf calling for the moons. “He likes those that will have a story, too. At least, that’s what he told me.” He flashes a grin, footfalls pedaling faster. “And I’m sure you will have one. I mean, the way you moved? You evaded every attack, and you didn’t even try to fight back.”

I jog to catch up, but no grin comes to mirror his. Dread is too heavy. It fumbles my steps. “What happened to the bear?”

He stops, smile fading like a sunset.

No, oh-no. I must know the truth, but I do not wish to hear it. This hallway of cold light and metal is too bright for such dark words. Windows line the right wall as squares of white canvas. I cannot see through them. Doors queue up on the left, every one of them closed.

Pike whispers what I have already guessed. “It’s dead.”

He is a blur, unrecognizable behind a wall of tears. Suddenly, I am against his chest, and his arms encircle me.

His voice is tight. “I know it would have killed you both, and me, too, probably, but we shouldn’t have been walking through its territory in the first place. If I hadn’t been making such a ruckus…”

I wait for the sentence to end, but it never does. It dangles in front of me as if I am supposed to know how to complete it.

Slowly, I slide my arms around him. If he is so willing to touch me, hold me as in the stories, then maybe he is the one I should focus on after all.

“The bear would have heard you regardless,” I say, lips aligned with his heart, “but I might not of. I came because I heard your flute and I liked it.”

A jolt yanks him an arm’s length away from me, hands on my shoulders. “Really? I mean, I’m not even that good, but you…you liked it?”

“Your song laced a hook through my heart and pulled me to you. I would love to hear you play again.”

Though it is the truth, perhaps it was not the right thing to say? He lets go of me to rub the back of his head.

“Wow, okay. Too bad I don’t have my flute with me now. And the dean’s office is right here, but you know what, talk to him. Whether or not he decides to let you stay, make sure you come by dorm room four-twelve this evening, and I’ll play a song for you.”

“Deal.”

I seal the agreement with an enthusiastic nod as he knocks on a door, and even in that I hear a simple melody. Song courses through him, and the more I look for it, the more I see.

Black wood embellished with brass circles swings aside to reveal a curvy young woman with a green uniform, pointed glasses, and strawberry hair swept into a bun.

As she beckons me within, Pike backs away with a big, goofy grin, arms rolling in some mockery of dance. “Remember, room four-twelve.”

I wave at him until he reaches the stairs at the end of the hall, striped with columns and deep shadows.

Just as I am about to turn back to the door, another patch of blue snares my eye. Spine against the ticking pillar at the bottom of the staircase, a slender girl dressed in the same azure as Pike stares through messy curls. Far outshining the brilliance of the uniform, her eyes are the cerulean of the clearest sky, but as our gazes meet, she slides out of sight.

Continued in chapter 5: The Dean

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