Pearl Before Swine ch 23: Aurora

~THE PEARL~

I fly, feet barely contacting the ground.

In the distance, Sal tells Pike to stay.

“But I—”

“I said stay.”

The forest’s shadow engulfs me. Ivy tears at my ankles, and branches rip my sleeves. Tree trunks of all sizes stripe my path, and I weave but never slow, not until I spy Jun.

He sinks into the gnarled roots of an ancient maple, knees curled to his chest and forehead pressed to his wrists. Several strands of his midnight hair have fallen from their tie and hang alongside his face, but they are not enough to conceal his scrunched eyes or that he breathes through shivering lips. “Leave me alone. Please.”

“No.”

His eyes snap open, their blue in this gloom like the ocean’s deepest parts.

I sit, legs folded beneath me, knees almost touching his toes. “Tell me what, if anything, is worse than loneliness.”

“Being tortured to death.”

“At least that has an end. Loneliness just goes on and on.”

He lifts his head, chin tilted, and it makes the slight crookedness of his nose more apparent. “You’ve experienced this never-ending loneliness?” At my nod, his shoulders hunch closer to his ears, and he hides that lovely face behind his hands again. “Look, I’ll come back eventually. Just, Pike—”

“Pike is not a pirate.” I bite off the end of the sentence so as not to reveal what Pike is: a Creature of the Sea. His presence here has nothing to do with Jun and everything to do with me.

Yet, was it Pike who attacked him last night? Why would he do that?

When we first met, I compared Jun’s eyes to arrows. Now, they are ravines, their crumbling edges devouring the landscape.

About to fall in, I repeat what so many have said to me. “He is not a pirate, but you should avoid him.”

“If he’s not a pirate, then why did he say he was? And how would you…” He swallows and looks away. “Why did you save me from that bear?”

“Because I did not want you to die.” Rising onto my knees, I reach toward his profile. I want him to look at me, to smile, to be safe. I want him, all of him. “I did not know you then, but now, if anyone hurt you—”

“Pearl!” Sal catches up. Branches break beneath his steps, less sharp than his tone. “Stop harassing him.”

My fingers halt just shy of Jun’s cheek, curling back into a caricature of a fist. “Am I harassing you, Jun?”

“I—” He turns, but his gaze focuses beyond me, beyond Sal, and he is on his feet, knife in hand. Green tints his cheeks and the trees’ grayish-brown bark. “It’s back.”

I pivot, spine touching Jun’s arm, heedless of his weapons. He will not hurt me, and I must not let Aurora hurt him. Her serpentine glow meanders through the fork of every trunk, smoke and a rain of shriveled leaves in her wake. Aqua and the faintest cyan ripple along her sides, dotted by the occasional flash of magenta.

Sal appears at my side, and a smile bursts across me like spring flowers on a hill. This is our third instance meeting Aurora. We will understand her this time, show her that we want to help her, and we will both protect Jun.

As she sashays closer, her kaleidoscope colors reflect in Sal’s steel eyes, starlight hair, and paler uniform. Music claims the pulse, a beat to be seen rather than heard—a kind of music Jun does not have to fear since no part of it belongs to Mare. This flickering art is purely Aurora’s, the Essence of the Night. Or the Essence of something else, according to Beau. Yet, how can it not be Night? The deepest darkness and the glory of distant stars grace every shadow she casts.

Her tail remains before us while her leading end circles our maple and seeps between its branches. Jun’s back presses against mine, though my head barely reaches the base of his shoulder blades. As he slips a knife into my grip, Aurora slithers above me with a curiosity as unexpectedly milky sweet as the coconut I had at breakfast.

“Huuumaaan.” Her voice rattles my teeth, a sizzle in my skull.

Jun ducks, slashing with his blade.

“Stop!” I drop the knife he gave me and throw my arms around him. “She is only trying to communicate.”

He pauses, muscles still taut beneath my hold. “How?

“Can you not hear her?”

He shakes his head, licks his lips, canyon gaze on her swirling form as she coalesces. She is a wave of light, a tsunami, a wall.

My knees no longer support me. If not for my grip on Jun, I would fall into the mercy of the ground’s embrace.

“Jun, hold onto Pearl and stay absolutely still.”

Despite his own advice, Sal retreats from a sliver of light. It undulates like a jellyfish’s string, and the longer I watch, the more Aurora resembles that graceful sea creature. A hood swells at her leading end, and the rest of her breaks into thin strands. She seems as tentative of Sal as he is of her. Yet, when his gaze flicks back to Jun and I, she lashes out at his cheek.

He hisses, flinches, but otherwise does not move. A mark appears beneath one eye, black as an eclipse: a cut and a burn. There is no blood.

She twirls around him, more strings questing but none touching him. “Waaant.”

“Want?” he repeats. “What is it you want?”

Her coils tighten. Heedless of his strangled cry, she lifts him from the ground and snaps like a whip. Sal flies, and she darts after him like a kitten playing with a mouse. As soon as he hits the forest floor, she captures him again, carries him higher, and vanishes.

“Sal!” My voice shatters into a scream. An invisible chain connects me to Aurora and pulls tighter the further she travels, trying to squeeze my heart out between my ribs. I follow, seeking to relieve the tension, but letting go of Jun renders me on my hands and knees. A shot of panic for Sal pushes me forward by another few feet before I fully collapse.

Why do I lose all strength every time Aurora arrives? I cannot help her like this. I cannot protect Jun. Protect Sal.

Get up.

I cannot.

She feeds on me.

The thought burns through my every nerve and stands each hair on end. She is an infant. In my days as a tiny stone, I devoured the sand, always hungry. To her, I am that sand, but if, like Halcyon says, it takes great quantities of energy to sustain a Creature of Essence, how much more does a full Essence need?

I am like a nursing mother trying to satisfy a baby larger than myself. Only Terra, Mare, or Caelus can meet that need.

“Great tempest!” Jun growls. He stands over me, face aimed at the sky and a knife in either hand. “Didn’t it just want to communicate?”

“She managed two words.” Several breaths pass before I can speak again. “Human and want.”

“Hopefully, she didn’t mean she wants Sal for dinner. Can you stand?” Jun guards me, back straight and shoulders square, waiting for me to press against it again. When I do not respond, he turns, kneels, and brushes two fingers along the side of my face. “What did she do to you?”

I cannot tell him. He will be angry, like Sal when I took from him without asking. I am more vexed with myself than at Aurora. I will give her whatever she requires, whether she asks or not.

“Put away the knives, Jun. I know how to get her to come back.” Sitting up is equivalent to lifting a mountain. Yet, with Jun watching and his hand still upon my face, I summon the strength to accomplish it.

Jun’s eyes narrow, the thoughts sliding behind them almost visible. “You know what the monster is.”

I whisper the answer in hopes it will land like a feather, not like a felled tree. “A new Essence.”

“What?” He draws back, halfway rises, lifts the knife.

“No, Jun.” I grab his wrist. “No, she is not Mare. She is an infant who has done nothing to hurt you.”

He looks at his arm, where his sleeve hides recently healed skin.

I sigh, closing my eyes and focusing inward. No niche goes unsearched in my quest for every drop of hidden strength. “She did not mean to, but you were shooting at her. Do you not think it unwise to frighten the Essence of the Night?”

“Basically, you’re saying there’s a new Essence, and it’s a kinky creeper who kidnaps men.”

“She is curious of my emotions.” I am not a fallen log. I must stand, must endure. I came here to prove my worth, did I not? I am a complex Creature of Essence, more than a Golem or a Coral. I will not crumble so easily.

My grip tightens on Jun’s arm, and I pull with every intention of rising. Instead, he falls, knives clattering against the roots as his palms flatten on either side of my shoulders.

His hair teases my cheeks as the sun winks through the canopy behind him. This close, he has a faintly metallic scent beneath the more herbal musk of sweat. “So, you lure it back here. Then what?”

“We capture her. Aurora’s realm overlaps with the other three, and she will be more powerful than them. We can teach her to fight back against Mare and protect the Koa, protect you.”

“You would challenge Mare.” Instead of a question, it carries the weight of an answer to something one dares not ask.

If his face is a door, it swings open, and I stare into the depths it reveals. Thoughts slither past me almost as they did when I was a stone, yet they are too liquid to hold. A strange feeling bubbles across my every nerve, a need to stay and to run, to laugh and cry and remain silent.

I cannot move, not until he retreats and I follow as if something keeps me at this fixed distance from him. As he recovers his knives, his arm brushes mine, and lightning shivers across my skin. I lean into the touch.

He sheathes his weapons, then grips my shoulders and meets my gaze. “What do we need to do?”

“I need to kiss you.”

He stills, missing a breath, two, before he gives the slightest nod. “Because she’s curious of your emotions.”

My hands slide up his arms as I shrink the distance between us. His lips press a thin line, then loosen just before mine would meet them. I stop, wait, and it is torture.

His head tilts, brows lowered and ruby rising beneath his skin. “Is something wrong?”

“You are supposed to come the last little bit. That is the secret to a good kiss, Sal says.”

He retreats, hands stiff on my shoulders to keep me from following. “Are you in a relationship with Sal?”

“I want you, Jun.”

“That doesn’t answer—”

I crash into him, and nothing about this kiss is like Sal’s. Nothing says be gentle or go slow, not his tumble backward or his grunt of surprise. Not how his hands slip behind me, tangle in my jacket, and pull me closer. Not how he steals my breath, and when I retreat an inch to draw another, he chases me. So, I return to him. Who needs to breathe anyway?

This is a deluge falling to the ground, a tiger pouncing on its prey. I weave my fingers into his hair. Leaves stick in it, scarlet against shadow, the brightest red and the darkest black, even in the waving spots of sunlight.

Red is not his color. As I touch the leaves, they crumble into blue ash.

His palms trail along my neck, my cheeks, cup my chin, and push back so he can speak words with no voice. “It’s like kissing a star. Please tell me I’m not actually on fire.”

With a whispered, “Not yet,” I kiss him again, softer this time, allowing him to breathe. His heart pounds beneath my chest, every inhale lifting me. Wonder and hope saturate each movement, and it fuels me, purer than any meal.

Under my touch, his muscles constrict, and we flip, but the flash of light behind him is too green to be the sun this time.

Aurora dives between us in the form of a fiery serpent, fangs snapping at Jun’s nose. He scrambles back, hand on a knife’s hilt. He will not outrun her, and if he stabs her, I cannot say she will forgive him.

Mouth open, she lunges at his throat, and I am there instead. As her fangs bore into my sternum with the tiniest of stings, I gather her to me. She writhes, a fussy youngling, but as I calm my breaths and lock my arms, she settles. Warmth pours over us, and the weave of my jacket melts away, though beneath it, my skin remains unharmed.

She cuddles in, snout tucked into the crook of my elbow until Jun steps closer. She snaps at him, and I hug her tighter.

“No, Aurora. Jun is—” I break off, not sure how to explain in a way she will understand. “I care about him very much.” My voice softens, and I bite my lip, where the taste of him lingers. It is like a sea breeze—crisp and almost sharp with an undertone of salt.

While he does not venture near again, his desire to teeters in every line of his stance. “It—she lets you hold her.”

“She knows I mean her no harm.” My gaze drops to the infant Essence in my arms. “Little one, what have you done with Sal?”

She squirms, neck twisting around my arm so she can look up at me. “Miiine. Mine, mine, mine.” She flickers with each syllable, likely from the amount of effort speaking requires.

Was it not the same for me back in Terra’s cave when I made Mare hear me?

As she swings back to Jun, she draws more from me. Aside from the tingle at every place her glow touches my skin, I cannot feel my arms. My toes seem as distant as the moon.

Her glow flares the same deep blue as my islander’s eyes. “No.”

I sink, and as Jun moves in to catch me, she strikes at him again. I press her even more firmly to me, willing her to understand. He is only trying to help. Do not hurt him. Yet, no matter how hard I hold her, it is not enough. Her needled teeth touch the pulse in his throat.

A hand wraps his nape and throws him back while another lifts me into a strong embrace. Aurora pounces at the newcomer’s face, but he catches her. She wiggles and squeals, and I can no longer hold up my own head.

My cheek rests on a rock-like shoulder. “Do not hurt her, please.”

“It’s sad, the infantile creations.” The newcomer’s low voice blends gravel, wind, and chimes. He continues to squeeze Aurora, though his glove melts and acrid smoke swirls around it. “Always short-lived, too taxing on their Essence’s energy. Even those that eventually live longer don’t possess too much intelligence.”

I cough. “Like Golems, Corals, and Wisps?”

“Seems you might have a brain after all.” He may lift a brow, and he may smile, but the scene is too blurred for me to tell.

Aurora’s light fizzles and vanishes, no longer influencing the highlights of his dark skin or his hair’s miasma of colors. His locks are short aside from one spear that juts crookedly across his forehead.

“Who are you?” Jun demands, and whatever the answer is, this man cradling me like a toddler makes Jun appear short.

“I’m a friend,” he says, “of Pearl’s, though she has never met me.”

“A friend she’s never met?”

Something sparks, and a hollow pool conquers my center. Jun’s knives are out again.

The man sighs, and within the space of a blink, his hand stretches over Jun’s face. My blue-eyed human goes rigid.

“Do not hurt him!” My tongue is so thick, I am not sure anyone understands me, but it is the same message I have been touting all throughout this.

“Walk straight for fifty paces, then stand for two hundred heartbeats.”

Without a word, Jun complies.

“What? Jun!” I call after him, but he keeps on as if he does not hear me.

This strange friend hefts me higher onto his shoulder and chuckles as he walks in the opposite direction from my bewildered islander. “Old Creatures of Essence have their tricks when it comes to dealing with humans. I might teach you a few, if you’re nice enough.”

Continued in chapter 24

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