Heartworm

“You may feel a slight pressure on the back of your skull, Ester.” Nessyndra relayed her disclaimer as I pushed myself against the wall as she had asked me to.

“I’ll be the judge of tha-AHHHHHH!” My entire world dissolved into a visceral concoction of colors and white hot pain. Nessyndra had plunged the crystal into the back of my head, shattering bone and piercing flesh. One of the strange revelations that I had made in my somewhat extensive experience of head trauma was that the brain itself lacked pain receptors. I was thankfully spared the additional pain as the crystal pierced my skull. The only mercy of a death like this, was how mercifully short the excruciating pain was. Moments into my screeching misery, everything suddenly went dark.

*****

“Be back soon, Cydri. Ryss wants to dine before seven.”

“Of course, sweetie. It won’t take long at all.” I replied, before slipping through the barrier of the fourth whorl. The slick and pliable barrier allowed a simple transition from the inside of Uroro into the depths of the lake. I was honestly shocked that my daughter had permitted me to leave with how tight of a leash she held. It was charming, the lengths that she went to in order to protect every possible inch of her mother’s scales. Her compassionate protection needed its limits, however. I had told her time and time again that my age did not diminish my responsibilities. I had foraged for our food since I was a babe, and I had no intentions of shunting that responsibility onto others in my old age.

Though, with the strict time limit she had placed around our evening meal, it was best if I foraged from the nearby viss corals. The strange interlocking corals existed in symbiosis with Uroro. They caused abundant biological growths along their lengths and resulted in the majority of Uroro’s foraged vegetation. The strange corals thrummed with an ancient kind of magic, overflowing with abundance. You could harvest one week, and return the next to an entirely new arrangement of vegetation. Blessings from the Stars, surely. I was thankful each and every day that the Drylings on the surface were ignorant to the existence of the viss coral.

I suspected they had yet to travel down far enough into the Uroro lake to discover the whirling reefs. By all means, the existence of such a thing in the depths would make no sense to them. If it prevented any expeditions into the depths, so be it. Centuries have passed without visitors, and if the elders' wisdom rang true, we were lucky for the absence of Drylings.

It hadn’t taken long for me to scavenge enough viss tendrils for our evening meal. Best to get back to Ryss before his stomach protests anymore. He managed to eat enough for two Crutia on a daily basis, like he was still somehow growing in his old age.

A shimmer out of the corner of my eye gripped my attention. Was that… a body? It was pale and barren, like an ivory amalgam of limp limbs. Curiosity pulled me towards the sinking mass until I was close enough to examine the strange sight. It was a body, but not one of a Crutia. It lacked the scales, our three digits, and the webbed appendages. It was small, like a child. Was this a child? It looked like a Dryling from the few times I had surveyed the surface. But no human I had seen was this pale, and they certainly hadn’t had claws like this.

Suddenly, the eyes of the creature flung open, revealing sickly green pupils that dilated rapidly. A bubbled scream wrenched its way through their throat as they desperately flailed their limbs about. The horrifying display of fear ended just as quickly as it began, the life draining from the eyes of the creature as they went limp once more. Was it dead? No… it had just been alive.

This child was drowning. I needed to help it. I needed to save it.

Without a moment's hesitation, I dropped the handful of viss tendrils and wrapped my hand around the wrist of the creature to pull it along behind me. Dinner could wait, this precious life could not.

*****

“Cyndri! We have no idea what it could do to you!”

“Ryss, please. I doubt it could do much to me while unconscious. How could I have possibly let it drown out there? You wish for me to be cruel to some kind of infant?”

“How can you know it’s an infant? We don’t even know what it is! Any normal creature would have been long dead at this depth.”

“I will give you that, Ryss. It’s unusual to have survived at such a depth, but unusual does not inherently mean dangerous!” I did my best to plead with my husband. I had very rarely seen him so animated, but I could tell it was stemming from care. A fear was dancing in his eyes that I had rarely seen before.

“What of the elders? The entirety of Uroro? You know the kind of fear they hold for Drylings. What happens when they find out that their king is harboring an unknown outsider all because you wanted to bring it inside to our bedroom!”

“I do not know. But none of those concerns would have stopped me from trying to save this child. You know the woman I am.”

“I-” Ryss stopped at the beginning of his sentence, stealing another glance towards the mysterious child that lay on our bed. “I understand. I will think of some way to address this to the public. In the meantime, I need you to investigate this creature with care. If it presents any kind of threat to you, it goes. I will not allow any kind of harm to come to you, darling.”

“Of course.” I shot a smile back towards Ryss as he left the room, a simmering stench of anxiety permeating off of him.

It didn’t take long for the creature to awaken. It awoke with the same panic as before, clearly expecting to once more drown in the abyss. Once a few moments had passed without water in their lungs, they stopped their squealing and looked around the room. Their large green eyes locked onto me, confusion melting into fear seamlessly as they pushed themselves backwards against the wall that my bed had been positioned against.

“It’s okay! I’m not going to hurt you!” I spoke gently, moving my arms behind my back, hoping that the peaceful gesture would be recognized. The creature pulled their legs towards their bare chest as I spoke. Perhaps the slithered tones of Crutian was frightening to it?

“Don’t hurt.” The creature spoke. It could speak! I couldn’t understand its words at all, but it managed to speak. It was shaking, clutching its pale arms around its entire body. Perhaps it was cold? The only clothing the child had were tight black trousers made from some kind of unfamiliar material. Most likely a Dryling made clothing article.

“Are you cold? I can find something to keep you warm.” It was shocking that the creature had managed to survive the freezing depths in the first place, so it was no shock it was still cold. There wasn’t much I could think of to warm the creature since the Uroro climate was perfect for Crutia. I could find some ceremonial clothing that was thicker than average wear in Uroro.

“I’m scared.”

Again, the creature spoke as I searched through my clothing for something thick. The words sounded different than last time, but it still had no correlation to Crutia, no similar sounds that I could tie to any of our words. “Ah!” I exclaimed, pulling out a long ceremonial dress that I had worn long ago for my husband’s coronation. I doubted it even fit me anymore, not that I’d ever wear it. I approached the creature slowly and held out the garment. With shaking clawed hands, it slowly reached out and snagged the dress from me with frightful speed and wrapped it around their body, not even attempting to put it on normally. I supposed it might not know what normal was for Crutian clothing.

“What’s your name, little one?”

“Snug.” It said, its hand petting the garment that was wrapped around its body.

“Is that your name, little one?”

“Snug.” It said again, wrapping the clothing tight around its body and smiling brightly, the first positive emotion that seemed to cross its face.

“Okay. S-Sn… S-sna-gah. S-nug. Snug?” I tried my best to twist my tongue in such a way to replicate the sound that I heard come out of the child’s mouth. When I had finally replicated the name, the creature smiled again, nodding its head. Snug was an odd name, but then again, I had no baseline to operate on for Dryling names. The smile on the creature’s face was enough to fill my heart then and there.

*****

My senses swirled in a nauseating whirlpool. I was utterly shocked I had yet to throw up the fish I had just eaten. My body felt hellish, like it was being shunted across itself. Doubly present, yet utterly absent at the same time.

“Keep going, Ester! You’re doing great! Just keep powering through!”

I heard Nessyndra’s voice to the side of me as I quivered and seized in a pool of my own blood. Why had I agreed to this? Who held those memories? Cyndri? Me? I remember meeting Snug. But it wasn’t me at all. Why was my granddaughter- no. Why was Nessyndra here? I was in jail. In Uroro? My muddled thoughts were silence as I passed out once more on the floor of the cell to return to the visceral memories.

*****

“I’m hungry. I want food please now.”

“Almost, little one. I’m hungry. I want food now, please. Can you say that?”

“I’m hungry. I want f-food now, please.”

“Yes! Good job, Snug!” I pulled Snug towards me, wrapping them into a tight hug, the type that they always appreciated. It had taken some time to get used to the strange feeling of claws resting on my back whenever we hugged, but I had adjusted to the feeling over the past six months. I was more impressed with how good Snug had gotten with Crutian.

“Well, since you’ve asked so nicely, I’ll let you pick any place you want to eat.” Positive encouragement had worked wonders when raising my own daughter. Though Kyrsta would never admit it. She was too prideful to remember all of the times that she had gleefully ran ahead of me towards the market whenever she finished a lesson. I couldn’t find it in me to blame her too much. She was to be queen in a few years, and that expectation had caused her to round off all of the sharp edges of her personality. She wanted to be perfect for Uroro, and I could hardly blame her for that. What else could you expect from a child that was raised with the burden of royalty ahead of her?

“Danuit cake?” Snug asked, struggling to manage the slithering sounds of the words. Snug had truly defied my own expectations in learning our language. It is designed for Crutian tongues, forked and textured in ways to allow the specific tones. But the little one had picked up a shocking amount of the language in just six months.

“Danuit cakes? Absolutely, darling. Come with me. Let’s go get you enough to fill your every desire.” I gave Snug the widest smile I could manage and led the way towards the market. It wasn’t far, located down on the fifth whorl of Uroro, just one level below the fourth where I lived. Snug pushed their way through the barrier of our room, something which they still seemed to be getting used to despite months of practice. They had voiced how strange it was to them. The barriers had their uses to Crutia of course, but Snug didn’t share any of the uses. The slick plenda, the mucus-like barrier, just made Snug uncomfortably wet. For Crutia, it was designed to preserve the moisture along our bodies. Our biology necessitates regular moisture for comfort and safety, something which is not a problem out in the lake itself. Inside of Uroro, the plenda barriers between rooms and within hallways are a convenient way of replenishing the moisture along one’s body, the slimy plenda sticking to our skin to provide us much longer moisture than simply being drenched in water. Snug had simply gotten used to walking through the barriers with eyes closed, having said it stings their eyes, unlike Crutia. Afterwards, they spit out any plenda around their mouth and keep walking. In the first months, they seemed to really dislike the texture and feeling of being wet constantly, but being down in Uroro quickly adjusted the little one to the feeling.

It didn’t take long at all to descend a whorl and reach the market. We headed straight for the stand that sold the Danuit cakes, soft and rich threaded viss tendrils that were knitted together into a delicious lattice. They were delicacies that I didn’t often indulge in, but Snug seemed to love them, so my intake of them had certainly increased lately.

“Cyndri? I need to speak with you.” My husband's voice was easy to recognize. Why he was around the market at this time, I had no idea.

“Go ahead and get some Danuit cakes, Snug. I’ll catch up in a second.” I watched Snug nod and run ahead into the market. “What is it, Ryss? You have no business at the throne?”

“I do, but I figured I would take some leave to find you. I thought you should know what the elders are discussing.” Ryss spoke slowly, like he was about to offer me some kind of condolences.

“I assume it is the same as the last. They fear the child.”

“They do. Not just them, Cyndri. The people are afraid. We have not had outsiders in centuries, Cyndri. This is for a reason.”

“Snug is not an outsider anymore, Ryss. They have been with us for sixth months. You need to stop viewing a child as a threat.”

“I-I… I do not, Cyndri. I trust you. But the others… I cannot force a change of opinion, beloved.”

“Opinions will change with time. They must. I will not abandon this child.” I stated firmly, watching as Ryss closed his eyes in thought.

“I will do what I can.” Ryss replied, resting a hand on my shoulder for a moment before leaving. I assumed he had more business to attend to before the day was up. Back to Snug, then. I had some Danuit cakes to eat with them.

“CYNDRI!!!” The quivering cries of the child reached my ears as I approached the Danuit stand. My pace tripled as I raced towards the cries. Snug was knelt on the ground by the stand, shaking and quivering. Across their pale body, boils of sickly green light grew. Veins and bubbles of blight rapidly expanded as Snug hyperventilated in a panic. It looked as if they were about to explode.

I did the only thing I could think to do in the moment before they erupted. Siphoning water from the spongy walls and floor, I quickly wrapped a bubble of water around Snug and braced. In a brilliant explosion of green blight, the boils and veins erupted into the bubble. I was only barely able to contain the explosion, letting the water dissipate after the initial eruption. The sickly green blight spilled along the ground in a circle around Snug.

“SNUG!” I scrambled towards the child, stopping just as I reached the circle of blight that had formed from where my bubble had contained it. The child looked unconscious, utterly exhausted and overcome by the magical detonation of their flesh. My mind raced for answers, solutions, and all of the questions I had yet to ask myself.

“WHAT HAPPENED?!” I roared towards the fearful bystanders. Guilty expressions across a number of their faces caused my heart to pulse in a wrathful pace.

“It’s a monster!”

“We can’t be safe around it!”

“It tried to kill us!”

All of the voices spoke over one another, in a cacophony of excuses. I had half a mind to address them all when I noticed the sickly blight decaying the floor beneath Snug. The green liquid bled like death through the biological material of the floor. It turned it to a hollow black color, before sloughing off altogether. I moved quickly, pulling enough water from the ceiling to wrap a tendril around Snug and pull them upwards before the floor gave way. With my other hand I pierced the floor itself with another tendril, catching it just as it started to give way into the lower floor.

“MOVE!” I shouted to anyone on the lower floor as the chunk of hardened gnush slowly slipped from the grasp of my tendril. I held the circular cut of the floor for as long as I could until it slipped from the tendril and crashed into the lower floor. After examining the hole in the gnush, I could see that everyone on the sixth whorl had managed to move out of the way of the falling ceiling.

*****

“Steady, Ester……………….. You’re……….doing….great…”

The words lapped at the edges of my mind as my vision coalesced into various memories that I knew weren’t mine. One moment I was looking at the gnush of my cell, identifying the material with words I knew I shouldn’t have any understanding of. The next moment I was looking at Snug, the child I held dear to myself through no connection of blood.

It was entirely unlike what I experienced with Lilith. Dissimilar in all of the ways you’d expect them to be similar. Rather than feeling one with the memories, interpreting them as myself, it was like I was watching some kind of play. Stories that played out before me, a history that I was experiencing first hand. When my mind grazed against Lilith, I felt a presence there. With these memories, the life of Cyndri, there was no active presence. Instead, the cold absence of life resonated from the memories of old. I braced myself for the further onslaught of history that plunged itself into my mind. Nessyndra’s voice echoed through the room, words of comfort that I couldn’t even begin to understand as I slapped my palms to the floor and prepared for more of the story that I felt like I was living.