SSCS 02: Installment 7 of 32
How to Catch Flying Pigs, and Sea Monsters
This is Installment 7 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…
Just then, though, they became aware of a low, sweet-edged humming throbbing through the air, slowly building in volume, as some sort of mist (or bits of dust?) spattered down around them. Then they both jumped as the kraken, now directly above them, let out not a shriek, but a chirp. And it kept chirping. And now Mina was quite sure that wasn’t some mist falling around them; the bits were getting noticeably bigger.
“Oh, sh–”
…How to Catch Flying Pigs, and Sea Monsters
Installment 7: 19.0404
Eventually it passed, or passed over them, the shower of grainy not-dust falling off to the side of the spire as the kraken drifted leisurely away and temporarily out of sight, still chirping. When Mina could make herself move again, she shuddered, then shook herself hard, staggering the rest of the way up the stair while flinging the chunky, grainy bits away, trying to rub them out of her hair. At least it wasn’t goopy. Why a sea creature should have dry shit…. But it was truly everywhere, a fine layer of it like greyish snow. And it smelled like kraken. Every time Mina shook her hair out more it just smelled stronger of kraken. She sucked air in through her teeth but it didn’t help a drop.
“What is it with illicit flying fruit consumption and shitting everywhere?!” she growled. Then wheeled around and glared at Hedwin for good measure. He’d come up the stair too and now was jangling around also trying to shake himself off. By this point there was no way to know whether he’d actually been crouched down behind her when the kraken was straight overhead. But he was still good for glaring at. Also, that beat checking again what direction the kraken had gone – or seeing whether it had happened to pause over the garden (still shitting itself…adding to the shit that was already there).
“Why are you looking at me for?” Hedwin gaped at her glare before darting a quick, nervous glance past her shoulder.
“Well, I’ve never got to try any, have I?” Which was true. Flying fruit was supposed to only be used for official purposes, by adults, and even though Mina thought Hedwin still only barely counted in that category, gran-Tom apparently thought differently and had practically taken to using him as her personal messenger service ever since he’d turned eighteen. Not that there were many places to messenger to, even with flying fruit to help. The spires were all spaced half-a-day’s flight apart, and each contained social elements only just as interesting as the super-limited selection currently available on this one. So Mina couldn’t bring herself to really mind. That, and Hedwin always came back sunburned.
“Now that –” he started, the tiny scales around his eyes flashing a brief gold. But before he could say anything else, the kraken gave another of its bone-grindingly loud and terrifying screams, and a black shadow ran swiftly over them. When the great sea creature heaved itself into view once again it was with something large and messily bloody clutched in its tentacles, and while Mina’s hind-brain held her very, very still and dripped a line of pure, cold fear down her spine, her fore-brain noted with great annoyance that stupid Primsickle’s death meant the demon kraken was going to be airborne even longer.