SSCS 02: Installment 21 of 32
How to Catch Flying Pigs, and Sea Monsters
This is Installment 21 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…
But she wouldn’t believe the platitudes anyway, and she didn’t dare. True she’d never tested it, but there was always a hard fear in Mina’s gut after every time the Other One had gone, that doing anything out of the ordinary would bring it rushing back, would punish her for breaking the illusion it had commanded. So instead she picked up the teapot and handed that over next. It was wrapped in a cozy and would still have a little bit of warmth to offer. Then, duty accomplished, she fled. Time to get back to Hedwin, anyway.
…How to Catch Flying Pigs, and Sea Monsters
Installment 21: 21.0107
She found Hedwin upside-down, hanging from one of the few trees the spire had, trying to reach a piece of pig-shit that had landed on the kitchen roof tiles and that was just a little bit too far away from his hand, still, to be reached. He was starting to turn purple, had probably been up there long enough he’d run out of strength to right himself.
“Hedwin! Tool use, Hedwin!” Mina chided, dashing into the kitchen to fetch the broom then back out, and using the broom to knock the pig shit down from the roof tiles. When it fell, Hedwin swayed, as though he were just about ready to fall down too. There really wasn’t going to be a good way to catch him.
Except…
Hurrying down the stairs to the next-down level, Mina went straight to the larder and the flying-fruit bin. Normally you couldn’t expect even a tiny scrap of nothing to be left after the pigs got to it, but flying fruit could be somewhat distracting, even for a pig.
And she was right! There were still a handful of the fruits left knocking around at the top of the bin, though most had bites taken out of them and all were covered in pig drool. Mina grabbed the most mangled one. Hedwin didn’t need much.
Back upstairs, she dunked it quick once in the wash basin, then stuck it hard on the end of the broom and shoved it up toward Hedwin where he dangled, now making little moaning sounds. At first he didn’t seem to notice it, but Mina poked him with the broom a few times until he responded, then bopped it as close into his face as she could get it. Groaning really loudly now, Hedwin at last flailed his arm to grab it, and stuffed it in his mouth.
“Grab the filthy broom, fish-head!” Mina called, upon realizing he was just going to keep hanging there until the flying fruit took effect. What did he think was going to happen? That the tree was still going to catch him when he started drifting up? He had trouble controlling the flying on a perfectly sober, well-rested day.
And he did almost miss the broom, starting to drift up and flail around some more before he managed to grab it. It wasn’t a good grip, but it had been just a little piece of fruit so he wasn’t too buoyant, and Mina was able to pull him down in a trice, grab his foot that was still waving up at the sky, and sit on his leg. He didn’t seem to notice at first, just gave a huge sigh and flopped backward on the ground. But it didn’t last; soon he was struggling to get up again, still making that pathetic moaning sound. Mina sat firmer, not letting him go anyway.
“Hedwin?!” she asked sternly. “Are you still going to keep trying to clean up pig shit?”
“Yes,” he groaned, with a groan that was a bit too close to a sob.
Mina pinched her lips together, and punched him in the shoulder, hard. “Well don’t!” she snapped. She couldn’t fix this without his help, and his brain was obviously not in helping mode. “If you keep on trying to clean it, I’ll go open that gate. I’ll bring all the rest of them back out here and make an even bigger mess for you!”
“But I can’t,” he gasped. “I can’t…”
She punched him again. “Breathe, stupid. You definitely can’t if you don’t breathe.”
Hedwin tried to punch her back, a line of yellow flashing across his cheekbones. That was better.
“What did she actually say, Hedwin? Tell me the words.” The Other One could make a compulsion without words, but the loops always had words attached.
“I don’t know. I have to clean it all. I can’t stop. Mina.”
He was panting now, in funny little gasps. Mina scrunched up her nose, trying to decide if she should punch him again. Decided to leave it for now.
“You can stop if you’re done, Hedwin. If you decide you’re done. What were the words? You’re in a loop. But not just that, you are the loop.”
“I think…” Hedwin shuddered a breath, but he wasn’t struggling against her so hard anymore. “It was something like, The girl is away, but the spire’s not to rights. Put it to rights. She was pointing at all the shit when she said it, so I know…”
“Stop,” Mina cut in. “You’re making that part of the loop. She only said words.”
Hedwin flopped back down again. But just for a moment. Soon he was struggling up again. “Why is it burning?” he whispered.
“Because you haven’t put the spire to rights, Hedwin,” Mina whispered back. Without meaning to, still sitting on his legs, she reached out and smoothed down his hair where it was all sticking up on one side. “What does Hedwin do to put the spire to rights?”
“I mend things,” he whispered back after a moment. “And make sure the pigs are fed, and the chickens.”
“Are the chickens fed?” Mina asked. Obviously no need to ask after the pigs.
“Yes. That’s what I was doing when…”
“Then you just need to mend something. The actual thing that’s broken. Let’s go figure out how to fix that stupid latch on that stupid pig gate. For good this time.” And when Mina stood and hauled Hedwin to his feet, he didn’t resist this direction, just hoovered, somewhat dejectedly, a couple inches off the ground as he followed her down to the pig pens.