SatM: Fangs
The farm was a pastoral dream of butterflies and warm sunlight. The grass was always immaculate and the cows lazy, the sound of bumblebees tumbling through perpetual spring air elicited a feeling of natural harmony I had always found lacking in so much of the world I lived in. I always did and probably always will adore Mirror’s Edge, with its dark shadows and the promise of a thrill around every corner, but the beauty of a perfect countryside and the peace of living without walls also had its unique draw.
Septima Primus and Phantasma Ward walked arm and arm through the manicured garden, both so alike and yet so perfectly matched in their differences. Following just behind, my instructions were to maintain a perfectly still parasol over their heads so that they wouldn’t be bothered by the sun - a foot above their heads. It rankled that my first real test from her would be so lazy a shortcut, just for the heck of existing, but I swallowed my bitter pride and enjoyed the scenery instead, knowing this tour was largely for my benefit, not my benefactress’.
“They’re coming along splendidly this season,” Septima’s lilting drawl drifted over the air to infect my ears. “Practically full grown already, I would have you enjoy them in person.”
The paved path crunched under foot as we shifted out of the garden and down a small gravel path. The hills rolled out and away in every direction, the mountains of the Vosges standing in the distance with the glittering hint of a lake to send darts into my eyes. We approached a small pen, the antithesis of the environment in its close quarters and stark practicality. The musk of domesticated animals assaulted my nose before we even reached the gates, but the mistresses seemed not to notice.
“Harmony, be a dear and get the gate for us, would you?” Phantasma turned her head to acknowledge for the first time since she’d told me to “hold” the parasol. I let my head dip into a respectful not-quite bow and moved towards the pen. “No, sweet girl, not with your hands.”
I blushed and carefully traced the outlines for an opening charm over my vision of the gate. “Honestly, Phanny, how do you put up with such bud habits.” Septima audibly yawned out of my vision as the gate swung open. Both women brushed past me with their noses figuratively and literally in the air. I hurried to follow them, not bothering with a sealing charm and just shutting the gate like a normal person. “Where did you even find such a darling little thing? It’s so good to do work for the less fortunate.”
“Julius saw her destitute on the street and pleaded with me to help,” I blushed furiously, “Once I saw her, all it took was a glance to see she was brimming with potential - well as brimming as one can be when they weren’t born into the correct life. What could I do but take her in? It would have been cruel not to.”
I bit the inside of my cheek to keep from talking back to my mistress, opting instead to peer into the small enclosure they had stopped beside. An adorable clutch of furry piglets slept beside a gargantuan sow the likes of which I had never seen, even among regular pigs. Her hide was thick and wiry, unlike the downy nature of the piglets, her cloven hooves seemed larger than dinner plates and reflected the dim light around her. Most notably, however, were the two cartoonishly massive tusks that curved from her mouth.
“Septima they are simply adorable, just as you promised,” Phantasma cooed over the piglets. “Harmony, dear, did you want to hold one? They’re very cuddly at this age.” Glancing at the woman I was unsure of how to answer. Something about the way she was looking at the piglets felt off, too hard, too predatory. Septima seemed equally wary.
Before I could answer, Phantasma had me by the wrist and tipped me over the barrier and into the surprisingly clean pen. I only had a moment to be winded before the sow’s giant eye blinked open, a dark bloody red with no pupils. She lumbered to her feet as quickly as she could while I did the same, running for the edge of the pen that - that should have been just behind me and was now ten feet away somehow. The rumble of the sow’s squeal started low in her body and I could feel the building noise in my bones before the shriek cut through the air. I began running, slipping and sliding over hay, trying and failing to make it to the fence before the sow could charge me. Had it always been so big?
The scrape and thump of the sow’s feet sounded within moments, my legs frantically pumping as I got no closer to the edge of the pen until it was all I could do to throw myself to the side as the sow thundered past me. My heart beat a staccato in my throat and my lungs screamed for air, if I hadn’t wanted to beg for her help, I might not have seen the smirk on Phantasma’s face and the angry, not frightened set to Septima’s mouth. Of course this pen wasn’t really this big. But how to get out of it?
First, I solved the immediate problem and felt the rune on my finger begin to tingle in a not uncomfortable way as I tried to lift my entire body off the ground without flailing and failing. I squeezed my eyes shut and poured my strength into the simple command of up.
The ceiling hurt when I hit it.
Sure enough though, I was well out of the sow’s reach until my energy wore out. I thought hard for a moment as my pulse raced, trying to puzzle my way out of this, picking up and putting down ideas that raced past my mind’s eye. Finally, I settled on the simplest thing: look for the edges of this curtain of an illusion and yank it away. I tried to picture the gestures I’d seen Phantasma make a hundred times while she scryed for the location of whatever it was she needed, a simple rune of interconnected lines over her eyes.
My first attempt, I nearly lost my concentration and lurched a foot lower in the air before catching myself. The second my fingers shook badly enough that they didn’t quite form the lines correctly and nothing happened. Finally, on my third attempt I moved my hands from my face and saw the shifting multicolored lines that penned in the beast I was stuck with. Reaching out with my mind I peeled at the edge of the thing like I was peeling off a sticker, raising the edge just enough that I knew if I wanted to I could yank the whole thing off. Instead, I held it like a rope in tug of war and took a deep breath, preparing for how silly I was going to look and feel.
On the count of three, I pulled myself forward as quickly as I could, gliding through the air as fast as my dumpy body could go, trying to stop the spell from catching me once more as I fought my way through each grasping thread until I slid from under its net and onto the stone floor at Phantasma’s feet on the correct side of the pen. Behind me, I felt the cracks in the spell as the sow did her best to ram through and back to me. Looking up, I saw her blink once, twice, and her eyes turned a regular deep brown, not the demonic red they’d been a moment ago.
“Very brutal, Harmony. We shall see if we can mold you into a more precise tool.” Phantasma stepped over and past me, Septima hurrying to join her. “You may go now.”
As my whole body vibrated as she sent the particles of my being to bubble through the air and back to my bedroom floor, the shock of the ordeal wracked my body. I’d met two beasts that day, and only one had fangs that could hurt me.