Heartworm

“Snug… look at momma. Don’t look at any of them!”

I did the only thing I could think of upon seeing Snug writhe and bubble with unnatural brightness. I put myself directly in front of Snug, lowering myself to its level by slamming my knees into the stiff gnush below me. I was hoping that my body would block the view of the intruding mob. The explosion that had happened before in the market had been instigated by extreme emotional distress. If emotional distress caused the involuntary burst, then surely it could be counteracted by calming Snug. I was not capable enough to protect everyone in the event of an explosion, making this my only recourse.

“I’ve got you, Snug, you’ll be okay…”

“Scared. I’m scared.”

“That’s okay, Snug. Everyone gets a little scared sometimes. It’s just a mechanism to keep you safe.”

The mob behind me shuffled closer. Curiously, I could hear the shouting begin to stop one person at a time, starting from the closest and trickling back towards the members of the mob outside of the bedroom. If they were willing to slow their movements and take a moment to think, they could clearly see the situation before them for what it really was. A terrified child being comforted by its mother.

“I don’t want to die…”

“You won’t. I will make sure no harm comes to you.” I pulled Snug towards myself, ignoring the frighteningly bright pustules and blisters that patterned themselves across Snug’s skin. I could see Kyrsta shoot me a terrified glance as I pressed my scales against Snug to wrap it into a comforting hug. I noticed, while locking eyes with my daughter, that she had finished sliding the bed away from the wall, revealing a small hexagonal plenda barrier that presumably led outside of Uroro into the lake.

“I’ve got you, baby. You don’t need to be afraid.”

Calm. A sense of calm? The mob was silent. Were they waiting for something? Had the demonstration of familial love called into question their rampage? Snug’s rapid breathing had begun to slow. I could even feel some of the blisters settling back down into the skin.

“How are you feeling, Snug? Are you still scared?”

“Not scared… warm. I feel… I feel snug.”

My child’s words caused my expulsions to cease. I had done it. I had managed to calm Snug enough to prevent a detonation of its deadly ichor. With the mob, seemingly pacified, I could take Snug with me towards the surface. The world beyond Uroro. A world that existed entirely separate to my own, filled with Drylings that spoke their own languages, lived in their own homes. Did they occupy other lakes? If not, there was a chance that Snug and I could find refuge in a different body of water until it was grown enough to understand its capabilities. We could build a home with each other and-

“THIS IS FOR MY SON YOU FREAK!”

The words pierced my ears as a firm hand slammed onto my shoulder and threw me to the side. I grasped desperately for Snug in hopes I could pull it along with me, but our hands slipped apart, the slickness of my scales causing Snug to lose its hold. I slammed into the gnush wall of the bedroom. My tail was caught between my own body and the wall as I hit it, shattering the bones within my tail as it bent at angles it was never meant to. When I looked back up towards Snug, I saw the furious man sink a scavenger hook directly into Snug’s chest. The small curved hook was meticulously sharpened to allow for easy collection of plants in the lake, which also allowed it to slide effortlessly into Snug’s heart.

“NOOOOOO!!!” My voice felt like a twirling bouquet of razors as it traveled through my throat. I had pushed every ounce of breath that was still in my lungs after the impact out in one painful screech as Snug slumped to the ground.

Every subsequent breath I managed to suck in was immediately pushed out of my chest in heaving sobs. I had reached an event horizon with my emotions, where too much sorrow had been accumulated until I no longer knew what to feel. A cold, unfettered numbness sprouted in my chest.

“It’s not dead!” Someone from the mob shouted in shock, pulling my attention away from the floor and back towards my child. Sure enough, Snug was picking itself up from the floor even with the scavenger hook lodged firmly in it’s chest. But something wasn’t right. Snug’s eyes swirled with a miasma of sickly green as the blisters began to pop across it’s skin. Snug was about to burst.

I threw my arms out towards Kyrsta, sucking all of the water out of the gnush walls that surrounded us to ensure she would not be afflicted. A part of my heart ached in knowing that I would be depriving the mob of any protection, but I knew there was no other option. Of course, in forming a firm bubble around Kyrsta, I had left myself unprotected.

Perhaps the numbness I felt had extended towards my body. As the explosion of bright green light shook the bedroom, I felt practically nothing. Acidic ichor splattered across my body as Snug erupted, causing an uproar of screams from every member of the mob that had been covered. I knew they were dying. It was the only explanation for why the screams were quickly dwindling. It meant I was next, surely. I expected to have substantially more fear in my last moments. Nobody wants to die. But it wasn’t fear that filled every extremity as I laid back on the dry gnush beneath me. It was regret.

I would never get to speak to my husband again. I filled our final conversation with so many anxieties I had forgotten to express how much I love him. Worse, I had failed him. The last thing he said to me was to “stay safe”. I would give anything to hear his voice again, even if it was only to hear him say “I told you so”.

I would never get to see my daughter grow into the queen I had always hoped she would be. A compassionate, caring leader, who would take every step she could to ensure the safety and comfort of Crutia. I had spent countless nights comforting her through her fears of failing to live up to everything she dreamed up, and now I would never see it come to fruition.

I would never get to raise my child, Snug. My beloved angel that found its way into my life by pure accident. I would never again behold its smiling, curious face as I taught it the Crutian language. Or the overjoyed leaps it would do when it was about to show me its latest sculpture or painting. Snug was extraordinary, in every way that I could see, and even more in ways I would never get to see.

“MOMMA!” The strangled, scratchy voice of Snug reached my ears just before Snug had reached me. It collapsed to the ground next to me, with an endless stream of tears and ichor streaming from its eyes.

“I’M SORRY MOMMA! I DIDN’T MEAN TO HURT YOU!” It squealed as it wrapped its oozing arms around me, desperate to extract a comforting hug from me. Not having the strength to hug my child hurt even more than the burning sensation that spread across my body wherever Snug’s ichor touched me.

“I know… I know you didn’t…” I croaked out, choking back the urge to scream out in pain. I didn’t want to make Snug feel any more guilty for its actions.

“Get up, Momma! We can leave!” Snug suggested, pulling at my arm to try to lift me off of the ground to follow. It was not nearly strong enough to lift me from the ground.

“No Snug… You need to leave now. Without me.”

“No… I don’t wanna leave without you. I want my Momma…”

“We’ll meet again, someday. But today, you need to be strong for me and swim to the surface. Can you do that?” Snug recoiled from my words. There was no desire anywhere in it to leave. Yet there was an acknowledgment. I was telling it what to do, and Snug knew to listen when I asked something.

“Where will we meet?” Snug asked, with trembling hands. Hands, which I noticed, still tightly clutched its statue. It filled me with a small bit of comfort to know that Snug would keep a part of me with it, even if it was just a sculpted version of me.

“Where flowers bloom and eagles cry. Drylings speak of such things I’ve always longed to understand.” I muttered, raising a single trembling hand to crest its cheek. I could only manage to hold it for a moment before my hand fell limp in my lap.

Snug scampered towards the plenda barrier behind the bed, holding the sculpture tightly to its chest next to the lodged hook. Kyrsta quickly stepped away as Snug passed, pressing herself against the wall to get as much distance from it as possible. The second Snug was gone, she raced towards me, stopping a few feet away.

“Mom…?”

She was afraid to come near. I could see it in every crease across her face. She was afraid to be near the sickly green ichor that puddled around my body.

“I love you, Kyrsta… Please tell Ryss that I am sorry.”

Kyrsta opened her mouth to speak, but only choked noises emerged. Her gills were expulsing rapidly as she crumpled to the ground a few feet away.

“...you’ll make a good queen, I’m sure. I wish I could be there to see it.” I gave a weak smile. It wasn’t meant to be weak, by any means, but it was all I could get my face to do as sensation left my body. I couldn’t even hear Kyrsta’s scream as my eyes closed, instead, my ears were focused on the final breath that rattled out of my mouth.

* * * * *

I was a rotted tree, yet to fall. Shedded snakeskin waiting to be blown away in the wind. I felt utterly hollow as my senses returned to me in the courtroom. The experience was visceral, and the emotions that came with the memories were agonizing. Reliving her last moments, hearing all of her final thoughts, it felt like I was slipping into a corpse to empathize. The death that followed felt unlike any that I had personally experienced. The closest one I could think of was my very first death. There was a chilling acceptance and acknowledgement of the end that squirmed in my stomach as I sat in the courtroom. She knew exactly what was happening to her, and took no steps to prevent her fate. Instead, she uttered comforts and promises to her children.

There was so much love in her last moments. The love she felt for Snug, the adoration of her daughter, and the love that both children gave back to her. Cyndri’s life was spent in service of her children. Not out of obligation, but a proud duty to offer the best life she could manage for her kids. One had died, albeit briefly, and the other was left with the horror of a massacre to process. One could argue that she hadn’t done a very good job as a mother. But Cyndri wouldn’t entertain those arguments. She felt satisfied that she had kept them both from worse harm.

In a way, I was jealous. In all my deaths, I had yet to feel like I would leave much of a legacy, let alone leave anyone to grieve. If I died down here in Uroro, who would mourn? Phern would likely leave a handful of plants and stones to commemorate me. Sebil seems like the type to orchestrate an actual funeral, but with so few attendants, I doubt it would come to fruition. Lucas would rejoice, and subsequently slink back into the life he was so close to escaping. Cecelia would likely-

Cecelia. The last I saw her, was bleeding profusely, dying slowly on the rickety boat. If I died down here, she’d never even know. If she even pulled through in her condition. If Cecelia died, would she think that she left a legacy, or anyone to cry in her wake? I would…

No. No. NO!

No. I wouldn’t. She wasn’t dying while I was down in Uroro. I told her to trust me in Urden, and it got her a knife through the chest. If she died, I was absolutely to blame. I couldn’t let that happen. Two lovers in the grave through my own actions… I could barely handle the one. I needed to get out of this fearful city and back to the surface.

“Ester… are you okay? You keep getting distant and, I believe you would call it, crying?” Nessyndra’s slick scales rested upon my shoulder. Our eyes locked for a moment. She was an attentive fish woman, I had no doubt that the sorrow on my face was as easy to read as the transcript for this trial. If the Crutia made transcripts of trials, at least.

“I don’t feel okay, but I’m done with the memories, if that’s what you’re really asking.” I whispered back, settling emotions causing my voice to quiver.

A wyly smile twisted along her lips as she leaned forward to tap her forehead to mine. A gesture that would have meant very little to me before receiving all of Cyndri’s memories. It was a kind gesture meant to express feelings of pride for one another. “Ester, you are magnificent. I truly wasn’t sure it would all work out like this, but I am so very fortunate that you work fast.” Nessyndra whispered towards me in slithered tones. I put aside the spiking anxieties that formed when she mentioned how she ‘wasn’t sure it would work’, but that was a conversation for if we succeeded in leaving Uroro.

Not if. When.

“Nessyndra, Creatu- sorry. Ester, was it?” Kyrsta asked, pulling my attention back to the proceedings at hand, and more importantly, to the mention of my name for the first time.

“Yes, Ester.” I confirmed, eliciting a quick nod from Kyrsta.

“We have discussed the majority of Nessyndra’s arguments, much of which has happened while you writhe on the floor of this courtroom. Nessyndra has assured me that her final argument will be presented by yourself. I would ask you to do that now, before I come to my final decision.”

“Argument? Kyrsta-”

“Drulama.”

“Apologies. Drulama. I apolgize for the absence of my attention during much of these proceedings. I am sure you have your suspicions on why my attention is divided. I’ll put them to rest. I have been reliving the memories of your mother in the final moments of her life as you speak to me.” I paused, to wait for what Kyrsta might say, or how she might react. While her eyes widened and shoulders tensed, she made no effort to speak. “It weighs heavy on my soul, Drulama, and believe me when I say there is enough weight upon my soul already. I am sure you’ve dwelled on the memories of that night even to this day. Which is why this trial is all the more surprising to me, Drulama.”

“Why is that?” Kyrsta asked, providing the obvious response to incite me to continue. There was a heavy apprehension that weighed on her brows as she waited for me to speak. It felt like any wrong words would cause an explosive reaction.

“Because where you sit in this room, with the words you speak, you are no different from the mob that entered your childhood room that night. Scorned, angry people that were justifiably angry at the loss of loved ones. But you saw what they let their hatred do, did you not? It caused them to invade a home and murder a child in front of their mother and sister. You lost your mother to that hatred, that inability to direct your anger towards anything other than violence.”

Kyrsta leaned forward in her chair to rest her arms on the gnush platform before her. Her hands trembled into the gnush, and her eyes flared with indignation. “You would compare me to the swathe of hateful criminals that broke into the home of the king? The very people that ripped my own mother away from me?!”

“So you do think they took your mother from you. I, along with many in this room, seem to be under the impression that you blame Snug for this violence. If the angry mob is the reason your mother died, then why haven’t you turned this scorn towards your own people?”

“Because they all died, Ester. Who would I imprison? You’d have me shackle the decaying corpses that piled up inside of my childhood bedroom? Besides, it was not the mob that killed my mother. I watched that vile Deathless spread its sickness across every inch of the room, melting flesh, decaying gnush, and stealing life from my mother’s eyes. It’s a genocidal creature! Do you have any idea how long it took Uroro to recover from that attack? That sickness became a plague. It spread to the caretakers that attempted to cure it. Only after quarantine of the sick, with many more left to die were we able to survive. You have the capability to bring that same level of destruction to my people, and I will be damned to the surface before I let that level of catastrophe happen again.” There was a painful lick to the slithered sibilance of her words. I could see an anger in her eyes that felt eerily familiar to me. I saw it in the mirror of my room in containment. When the memories of Vyra’s death had moved past sorrow and graduated into a burning hatred for the people I blamed. Myself included. I could almost see the piles of bodies reflected in the fire of her eyes. She couldn’t help but remember the blood spilled that night.

“So it’s Snug you blame? The child that was impaled? The creature with an uncontrollably vile reaction to stress?”

“A disarming description of a biological threat unlike any other. Is that how you’d describe yourself as well?” Kyrsta asked, eyes narrowing towards me with growing suspicion.

“No. I have no idea how Snug was capable of the things it did. It looks unlike any Deathless I’ve seen, so perhaps it was a different subsection? You’re not exactly asking an expert in the field.” It was times like these where the absence of Lilith was especially aggravating. She’d be able to tell me instantly what kind of strange occurrence Snug was. But instead of an occult encyclopedia of demonology, there was an unsettling silence and emptiness in my mind.

“Not an expert? A Deathless should know about its kin, no? As Crutia, I could tell you nearly everything you’d need to know about another Crutia’s biology.”

“Well I’m still getting used to the whole Deathless thing, so…” My words seemed to stall the conversation. Kyrsta seemed to be absorbed in digesting my last statement. Judging from the lack of response from her after twenty seconds, she was really trying to digest the information.

“Back to the mob, if you’ll allow me. You said that they all died? Which means you couldn’t punish them. There was no one to shift your anger onto, to soak up your scorn so that you could get it out of your heart. I know the feeling. When I lost someone, I felt like I had to blame someone for it, anything to get the venom out of me so that it didn’t eat me whole. But you know who I blamed for it? Me. I blamed the man who killed her first, but when it became obvious that blame would never hurt him, it shifted towards me. Yourself and Snug were the only two to make it out of that room. Hate doesn’t stick to a dead body very well. It sounds like to avoid blaming yourself in any way, you’ve put it all onto Snug, and every other Deathless by extension.”

I didn’t get a response from Kystra. Not for a while, at least. We were left in quite the gap of silence as the two of us contemplated the words we could say, and the words that we had said. Perhaps I could have been slower to make my point, but time was not a luxury that I felt I possessed. Cecelia could be fighting for her life on the surface, and I wasn’t spending a single minute I didn’t have to in Uroro.

“You think I should blame myself?”

“What? No! You’re still playing the game with your own stupid rules. Why do you have to blame someone? That happened when you were young! You’re focusing on the wrong thing, entirely! Do you even remember the last thing that Cyndri said to you?”

“...no. I do not remember words. I remember the blood. I remember the screams. I remember the stench of decay that never left my bedroom.”

It took a moment for me to respond. The pain instilled in her words weighed upon my shoulders. I could empathize with that pain. I felt like I knew almost every excuse that she had for holding onto her resentment. Had it not been for other circumstances in my life, I might never have moved on from that resentment myself.

“She said you’d make a good queen. That she was sad she wouldn’t be there to see it herself. For what it’s worth… I saw a compassionate queen in Cyndri’s memories. I think you have it somewhere within you. Don’t let Cyndri die a second death by burying her last wish deep beneath the surface.

“...very well, Ester. I’ll show you the queen I am.”