Flash Fiction : The Pink Worm
Ayrt Vret Skrek had just arrived from his home across the Sea of Storms. He stood, still and focused, facing the darkened forest beyond. He came all this way to hunt a singular beast. He brought with him another from his land. Her duty was to write the happenings of his hunt on her scrolls. Eggerd was nothing special, and well past the prime of his hunting days. But he knew these woods, and he knew the value of their coin more than they. So, he served as a guide.
The three looked like a mummer’s farce here in the fire’s light. Hunter’s beaks, common attire of the Folk of this region, hung from their necks now. Tools of woodland survival looked out of place on the oversized bodies of the others, whose skins were inked in nonsensical designs. Ayrt’s were black and red and fewer than Furnan’s, whose tattoos were the colors of the summer sky. Eggerd was a mud-splotched pink dwarf in their company.
“Who in the hallow does he think he is?” Eggerd exclaimed, glairing across the campfire at the young Vret’s feather-cloaked back. He was quite sure the giant suckling knew nothing of this world but the taste of his mother’s milk. He surely knew less than nothing of these wilds. “There is nothing there. I told you. The animals will avoid us and our fires. ‘The boy stared at the darkness for no damn reason.’ Write that on your scroll.“
“I will write what is true. That is my duty.” Furnan Vret Skrek was a different story in Eggerd’s book. She knew the world. And she knew her place. Eggerd’s thoughts drifted. He was not a lewd man, but he couldn’t help but consider unsavory things when she spoke to him in her pointed accent. Imagine the children we’d produce.
Ayrt’s voice broke a pregnant silence. “You bring shame to yourself with your eyes, old man.” He had found his way to Eggerd’s side of the fire all of the sudden. Perhaps he’s somewhat keen after all.
“You know nothing, boy!” He retorted with a bite in his voice. Eggerd was indeed staring, truth be told. How could he not? She was the very specimen of Merra’s beauty. But he wasn’t about to grant that teet-sucker the satisfaction of catching him in the act. He felt his cheeks redden. Best to change the subject.
Eggerd shifted to face the boy and gestured for him to sit on a nearby perch. “What brings you here, Ayrt? Tell it true.”
“It is as I said.” Ayrt sighed impatiently as he rested his back on a tree - just far enough to appear shrouded in darkness, Eggerd noticed.
Eggerd recalled Ayrt’s earlier telling. “You seek your prah, which is a word you people use for honor and reputation. And your prah is hidden somewhere up the arse of an angler dragon.”
The boy did not offer a reply. Furnan spoke in his stead. “No Vret has hunted an angler dragon. It will be a tale worth its ink.” The tone in her voice reminded Eggerd of his own mother’s. It is the tone she took when Eggerd’s childhood ambitions far exceeded his lot. Of course you will be a king one day!
Eggerd scoffed with a shake of his head. “So be it. Seems like a fool's ambition to me. Those lizards are nothing to trifle with.”
As if suddenly reminded of her duty, Furnan readied her scroll and pen. “Tell me of the angler dragon.”
Eggerd paused a moment before leaning in. The thought of his words reaching many in a faraway land - counting for something - was off-putting. But he couldn’t deny her. “I’ll tell you, if you tell me what those markings on your neck say,” he paused, “And the ones on your arms too.”
She smiled. “Of course.”
It was Ayrt’s turn to scoff. Eggerd could hear the eyes roll into the brat’s head. Bugger him.
Eggerd began. “It don’t belong here. Much like you, it came from across the sea. The angler was once a part of the islands of the Arahetians. How it got here after their land went to ash is a mystery. Some say it swam. I think one of those dusters brought ‘em here during their exodus for some misplaced sense of purpose.”
Furnan interjected, “What of its form? Its prowess?”
“Aye. Muscular. Lean. Graceful. Colorful.” He pauses. “Beautiful. The similarities pile on in the telling.”
Is she blushing? How can one tell on such sunkissed skin?
“Can you say anything of use? That is your duty here.” Ayrt stood over Eggerd now.
“Everything I’ve said is of use if you knew how to use your damned head!” Eggerd calmed himself. Shouldn’t be unseemly before a lady. “But I will add this. It has no natural predators or prey here. So it will eat anything and it fears nothing. Not even the syringa’s musk gives it a bother. Its teeth are razor sharp, yes. But it's what’s beyond them that should keep you awake tonight.”
“What is that?” Ayrt was crouched now.
“We’ve found boar with their flesh melted through. Not a day dead and half their form was one with the blood and mud beneath it. The creature’s slobber melts you, like warm piss on snow.”
“Snow?”
The boy’s question caught Eggerd off guard. “You know nothing, boy. Rest now. Tomorrow, we snare us an angler dragon”
***
“Nock your arrow.” Eggerd whispered, pointing at a sliver of pink off on clearing’s floor, like a worm poking from behind a tree’s root. “We’ve found one.”
“I imagined something,” Furnan paused, as if searching for the proper word, “bigger.” Her voice was muffled through her hunter’s beak.
Eggerd removed his own mask. “That’s just the tip.” Eggerd replied with a wink. “We can lose the masks. There will be no syringa beasts left here.”
Ayrt removed his mask, revealing a boy’s excitement. “How did you find it?”
Eggerd felt a sudden fondness for the young man. He is a hunter at heart, arrogance aside. “Do you hear them?” Eggerd pointed to the sky, at the cacophony of bird calls from overhead. “The syringa beasts that roam these parts, their sweet stink can fell a bird from the sky just as well as it can fell a deer or a man. These birds are clever. They find the deadliest predator they can and stick to the trees above them. Big predator. No syringa beasts.”
Furnan went for her satchel of scrolls, eager to record the insight. Eggerd stayed her movement with a gesture. “I’ll tell it again. After.” Eggerd gestured to a sturdy blackbark nearby. “Climb. High.” This next part will have no place for a writer of stories.
Eggerd brought his attention back to the young hunter, to see him with his bow fully drawn, arrow pointed in the direction of the wiggling pink worm in the distance. “Relax your arm, boy. It waits for us.”
“It knows we are here?”
“Oh yes. It believes to have ensnared us. That is but the tip of its tail - a lure. What do you say, boy? Are you ensnared?”
“I am not.” With that, the vret ran, not toward or away, but wayward into the trees.
Where in the hallow is he off to now? When Eggerd’s gaze returned to the clearing, the angler’s lure was gone. As was the birdsong. Off and away. Damn. The boy has gone and spooked it. Eggerd cautiously approached the clearing. “Come back, boy. You’ve run it off. We can track it from here.”
Ayrt was nowhere to be seen, but Furnan hopped down from her perch with the grace of a lioness to approach. Could the gods have made a more perfect beauty? Even the birds return to sing her praise-
As her eyes met his, they screamed with a sudden, silent dread. No.
In an instant, Eggard was on the ground. He felt the pressure of the dragon’s foot on his chest and the rending pangs of its teeth in his shoulder. All he could see was the side of the beast's face, its dispassionate serpentine eye reflecting Eggerd’s look of sudden anguish back at him. Then it turned its head toward her. No. That won’t do.
Thunk. Thunk. Arrow in the beast’s neck. Then Its chest. It reeled its head up, taking some of Eggerd’s shoulder with it. Thunk! An arrow straight through its bastard eye. Ayrt had made his way around the clearing. His aim was sound. The beast stepped off of Eggerd, attention now on the boy. No. That won’t do either.
What was left of Eggerd’s shoulder was melting. Smelled foul already. His left arm was done for, that he knew. With his chest still cooking, he’s headed for the hallow, no doubt. Might as well save the sorry suckling before I go. Eggerd palmed his hunting blade. With heroic resolve, he rolled himself upward, lifted up to a kneeling position, and roared. Then, he fell forward fast, dropping the blade to catch the ground with his good arm. His roar became a gurgle and then bloody spew. The beast paid him no mind. His face met the bloody dirt. Then darkness.
***
A goddess stood over him. Her face reminded him of his mother’s. It is the face she had made when Eggerd’s childhood friend had died. A consoling face. He knew why.
“Not dead yet.” Ayrt’s voice sounded muffled.
“No. not dead yet. Soon.” There was sadness in her voice. Not mere consolation. That brought a bloody smile to Eggerd’s face. “He has found prah.”
Eggerd went to say something. He wasn’t sure what, exactly. Something romantic, surely. But a low groan was what he delivered. As the pain in his flesh began to fade, along with his hearing and vision, he felt soft lips touch his brow.
I had struggled to write a Vret centric story to complete the series for some time. Why? I ran into issues of exposition. The culture and way of thinking of the Vret is the most alien to our own. Previous attempts at telling their stories would stumble over the awkwardness of exposition coming from those within it, and grow bloated for that. But that recognition didn’t come for some time. This one - the one that finally broke through - was inspired by an artist’s honest mistake. When I requested a commission of a Folk hunter wearing their particular tools of trade along with the iconic Folk hunter’s beak. The artist produced an awesome piece (heading this article) of a Vret wearing this gear! This would be a peculiar situation for the world of Ash and Ruin. That clash of cultures inspired the story. To top it off, we got a viewpoint character that was Folk to present their alien culture to the reader.
