Pearl Before Swine ch 9: Sea and Sky

~THE PEARL~

Beyond Tulip, an unfamiliar young man stands in the hallway, washed out by harsh lighting above. He reminds me of a birch tree, frame tall and skin pale. His tousled brown curls are the leaves, and peeking through that foliage, his eyes are patches of sky, the same azure as his crumpled uniform.

He says nothing, too-long limbs held stiffly at his sides and jaw working before snapping shut.

“What, do you expect me to read you?” One hand falls to Tulip’s hip while the other remains holding the door. “You’re the one who knocked at my room in the middle of the night. Don’t you have something to say?”

His small nods are so forceful, I fear his head might shake right off his shoulders.

“Out with it, then.”

His mouth opens, lips jerking awkwardly, but no sound emerges.

Hands appear on his shoulders, joined by Pike’s face a moment later as he jumps in from the left. At the sight of him, a smile stretches my face and a greeting leaps to my lips. Then I recall his invitation and how I did not come, and I lose the power to move. Does he notice me here in the shadow beneath Tulip’s bed? The door remains more closed than open, and I doubt he can even see all of Tulip’s face.

“We want to borrow the shower.”

“You have a shower in your own room,” Tulip deadpans.

“Yes.” Pike distends the high pitch, then lets the rest of the words all tumble at once. “But it’s Vidal’s, and I’d rather let him have it.”

“Vidal has to share with his roommates just like everyone else.” Tulip waves them off. “Go stand up for yourselves.”

“Normally, I’d agree with you, but Vidal has been a student here for years, and I don’t think he’s cleaned the bathroom in all that time.” Pike shudders. “I would have to take another shower after showering in that shower.”

“You just said shower so many times, it lost all meaning for me.” As Tulip runs a hand over her brow, the door falls open a few more inches. “No boys are allowed in my tub unless I invited them there and”—her gaze flicks between their expectant faces—“nah, y’all aren’t my type.”

Eyes wide and face turning a sickly yellow, the birch tree squeaks, “We would wish to borrow it separately, for separate shower-taking occasions.”

“Right, I’m a shower in the morning kind of guy.” Pike points at himself. “He insisted on coming over here right now.”

Tulip’s eyebrows hide in her bangs again. “The middle of the night. What if we were all asleep?”

“Issoria.” The birch tree’s voice sounds like stone scraping stone. “This is Issoria’s room?”

“Ah, so that’s it, huh?” Tulip perches both fists on her hips. “I don’t think that girl sleeps, honestly. She’s always off working on her top-secret experiments, so try the science hall.”

The tree bends, branches gracefully curving over his head. “Thank you. I am Halcyon. Tell her.” He scurries off to the right.

Pike shrugs, and Tulip closes the door.

“See how weird humans are?” She clucks. “Sure you want one to love you?”

“Weird and fascinating are not that disparate.”

She laughs warm but hollow huffs, and I take that as agreement. Heat grows within my core. Day one has ended, the second sunset already gone, but at least I have made a friend. Humans surround me. Surely it will not be too hard to convince one to give me his love.

~THE SWINE~

I lean against the wall outside the Pearl’s room, though the thin wood and thinner paper can’t take too much of my weight. Hand-painted flowers break up the off-white color, each one unique, but I’ve been staring at them for so long, I don’t see their illusion anymore. They’re just blotches. My mind is elsewhere.

The Pearl is nothing like I expected. Beautiful, yes, but I saw that in the cave. Terra gave her a face not unlike his own, carved with sharp angles, yet hers has a softness and a curve that makes me want to touch it. Her skin is dark, yet it gleams as if she is the surface of the sea at night reflecting the stars.

None of Mare’s creatures lack beauty in some form, so I didn’t expect anything less. She should be like the corals, pretty, durable, and with a flighty mind. I’m disguised as a human, and she should be too simple to see through it. I’ll make her think I love her. On the seventh sunset, she’ll take me back to Mare, and the Pearl will fail. I’ll be rewarded with a permanent transformation and my freedom.

Or that was my plan. Instead, the Pearl is brave, fragile, and thoughtful. If I’m not careful, she’ll see right through me. What is more, young human men have already noticed her. She’s surrounded by them.

That bear should have killed the islander. I should never have let her save him. She healed him, I’m pretty sure. It took all the strength she had, but she did it, and then he refused to leave her behind. He had to get to this school because of some complicated treaty thing, and he brought her. Maybe I should have called the attention of more forest beasts, but I feared the Pearl would get damaged.

So, I enrolled here, too, and wove a backstory. The dean seems too eager to have a Creature of Essence at his school. He even let me use his surname. I’m trying to seem as human as possible, but I’ve seen the way Jun looks at the Pearl, as if she is a star fallen from the sky. If she brings him back to Mare…

The words of my Essence titter through my mind. “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.”

But if she brings a Koa? Killing him will be the kindest thing Mare does.

If it comes to that, it would be kinder for me to do it first, better for him, better for me. But that’s only a last resort. I’ll wait a while, see how things go. I still have other tricks up my sleeve.

“What is your objective, Swine?” The voice comes from behind me like a growl. With how he charged off when Tulip told him to look for Issoria in the science wing, I didn’t expect Halcyon back so soon.

I turn to face him. “Objective? Swine? Is it your intention to insult me, or are you simply an idiot?”

He is a powerful being, even in human form. I have no shell to protect me, no tusks with which to fight, but these long limbs are quick, and he is young, inexperienced. Like me, he is a Creature of Essence, and that kindred part of him calls to my core while at the same time pushing it away. Just like the moon, pushing and pulling at the sea.

I step into his space, and he stops.

“Drop the ruse. We can see each other for what we truly are.”

“Can we now?” I grin. “You think you’re hiding from the humans, too? Skin the color of clouds and eyes to match the sky. At least I blend in.”

“I want to know why you lurk outside Issoria’s door.”

“Nothing to do with you, Dragon.”

He’s not that different from Gemini, Mare’s pair of serpents. Yes, they have the same name, and no, I doubt they can even tell each other apart. Unlike Caelus, Halcyon does not possess feathers of shuriken and spears, but his true form has teeth larger than my whole body. My skin now does not bear the scars, but it remembers. Though covered by the thin cloth of this school’s uniform, I feel naked without the weight of my shell. My back tingles.

“Are you here for the Pearl?”

My ears perk. “You’ve heard of her already? Wait.” My eyes swivel back toward the door. “Is Issoria one of yours?”

With a sigh, he droops, spine sliding against the papered wall opposite me. It bevels, about to rip beneath his weight. “You are an old one?”

I cross my arms. “By your standards, I suppose. I spawned when your Essence was very young. Terra was still raising him. Mare thought he was a toy. That didn’t work out so well.”

His eyes leap to mine, a desperate set to the twist of his jaw. “You were there when she killed one of her own?”

I hear the long ago squeals of ‘the one whose name shall not be mentioned’ as the serpents rip him apart.

“Do not be scared, my baby,” Mare whispers in my ear, holding me tight. “He was defective, but you will always be mine.”

I find another memory, trying to banish the first from my thoughts. “Your name is interesting, actually. Caelus’ first complex creature was called Halcyon.”

Those sky blue eyes flash, and their tint doesn’t return in full, as if storm clouds load them now. “He and I are not the same.”

“I know.” I shrug. “He was a bird who had a bad habit of riding the waves of the sea. Mare ate him.”

I can still hear his squawks, too. This memory is little better than the first, except that I had gotten a piece of the feast. This dragon’s namesake didn’t taste that bad.

His gaze is on the floor. “It is true then.”

“A million truths and a million falsehoods are spoken every moment. To which one are you referring?”

“Caelus let one of his own be killed. If I fail here…”

“I’m not here to fight you, Dragon. If you mind your own business, I’ll mind mine.” As I push off the wall and stand straighter, a second thought occurs to me. “Unless you want to help. Then I could be persuaded to help you as well.”

Mare’s warning rings in the back of my mind. She likes the denizens of the Sky little more than she likes humans, but having another Creature of Essence here evens the odds a bit. If one of us can convince the Pearl we’re human and we love her, and she takes us back to fulfill the bet, she will lose. Doesn’t matter which one because neither of us is human.

A sly look narrows his eyes somewhere beneath his mess of bronze curls. “I am not sure Caelus would approve of me helping a Creature of the Sea.”

My lips peel to one side. “But you see, my goal is to get away from Mare.”

He tilts his head. “Why?”

“Because ninety percent of me hates her.”

“H-how can that be?” Rising, he paces, and the back and forth rhythm sets a nervous thrum through me. “As Creatures of Essence, we are born of our master’s desire for companionship. That is our purpose, to serve at their side. How can we not want to be with them?”

I roll my eyes, and every part of me droops in a frown. “Just because we weren’t given a choice doesn’t mean we can’t wish we had one.”

“Maybe you can help me.” He halts too suddenly, hands outstretched as if he might grab my arms, and I steel my knees to keep from backing through the wall. I’m the one in charge here. He should fear me, back down first. “You understand what it is to want to leave, to defy your Essence.”

My brows lift. “You want to leave Caelus?”

“I would rather die.”

“Then there’s someone else.” My eyes drift back to the closed door. “Issoria. You’re trying to protect her.”

He hunches. “I do not want to lose her, and I do not want her to get hurt.”

With a slow nod, I step between him and the entrance. “Is she human or another Creature of the Sky?”

He stubbornly sets his jaw.

“For crying out loud, I’ll know as soon as I see her.”

Though I stand at my full height, he looks down at me. I liked it better when he was sitting on the floor.

“I don’t trust Mare.”

“You shouldn’t.”

And if he knows part of the bet will bring him in contact with the Essence of the Sea, he won’t want to go, nor should he. She’d probably make a feast of him and laugh at the irony of his name.

“Full disclosure: I’m here to keep humans away from the Pearl because if any of them get close to her, Mare will kill them. And I hate to think what she’d do if it was that islander. If you can help me with that, I’ll see what I can do about your Issoria problem.”

He smiles, but confusion remains in his eyes as he blinks at me. “How does this help you leave Mare? Are you defying her?”

I swallow. “She’s promised me freedom if I succeed.”

“She is your Essence, so you must believe her, but from the outside looking in, I do not.”

I grant him another slow nod. “Nor do I, really. Mare’s whims are like the waves, sloshing to and fro. You can’t expect to remain dry as they crash over your head.”

Continued in chapter 10: Second Day

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