SSCS 02: Installment 4 of 32
How to Catch Flying Pigs, and Sea Monsters
This is Installment 4 of this year’s SSCS. If you want to start at the beginning of ‘How to Catch Flying Pigs, and Sea Monsters’, go here! If you want to know what the heck an SSCS is, go here!
Previously…
Still, Mina grinned wickedly. “Not afraid enough,” she sang. “You need to bring the las– ”
Just then, a bone-shivering, ear-shriveling shriek slashed the morning air. Though perhaps the stone walls should have muted it, it was very clear that it was coming from up above.
…How to Catch Flying Pigs, and Sea Monsters
Installment 4: 19.0309, 22.0410
Screeching from up above had to mean gran-Tom with her tentacles in a twist over something, or in one of her moods again. Not waiting for Hedwin, Mina leapt back for the stair.
Any other day, even while running to go see, Mina would have thumbed her nose and stuck her tongue out at gran-Tom’s hollering. But one of gran-Tom’s moods plus pig shit literally overhead might just be enough to break this stupid spire in two – or actually call up a good, strong gale to do it for them. And then where would they be? Drifting in the waves and covered in crabs until next-month’s supply drop showed up to (maybe) rescue them.
It wasn’t until Mina feet had carried her halfway back up the stair that she realized that that shriek really hadn’t sounded much like gran-Tom at all. There’d been no heart-call in it for one, and as Mina paused to consider this, her feet didn’t itch and pull to keep running forward, to follow the holy bidding. And even though in Mina’s mind gran-Tom’s screeching could cut right through you, the spire priestess was an old sea-woman, and there were some actual limits on her vocal chords. While that shriek…
It sounded again, another bone-peeling squall. This time it was much closer and there definitely was no heart-call in it what-so-ever. Mina knew this, because her feet really rather itched to turn her around and take her right back down in the other direction. But Hedwin was just behind her, and they were both nearly to the top of the stair, and it was just too late. Because even though she’d unconsciously frozen and ducked down into a half-crouch with this second shriek, right this minute Mina realized she could see a bit of what was screaming. Silhouetted against the pale sky, one eye-stalk was just visible poking up over the top lip of the stair. And if she could see it, it could see her.
“Stupid fucking, fucking pigs!” Mina felt her knuckles turning white in her need to grab something and rend, and it was a very near thing that she didn’t reach back and shake Hedwin half to pieces in place of that. Because she knew what had happened, and it was just the sort of thing a stupid, stupid pig would do.
Because of course, just because a pig could fly, didn’t mean it would fly, …or keep doing so. And what happens when a greedy pig that’s eaten flying fruit flies up over the spire well, stops flying (for no logical reason what-so-ever – pigs are stupid!), and falls down to be eaten by the kraken? Well now it seems the kraken’s eaten some flying fruit, too.