They call me Mud. Amu in the Wetlands tongue. Soft, clinging, easily overlooked. Perfect.
The man with the dead eyes and the rusted van wasn't looking for beauty. He was looking for desperation. Easy prey. He scanned the ragged line near the crumbling docks where the Wetlands bled into the concrete sprawl. Women with hollow stares, men with broken shoulders. Easy pickings.
I made sure he saw me. Not too eager. Just… pliable. Lost. I let my shoulders slump, exaggerated the tremor in my hands – the subtle dryness I could always summon to the surface of my skin, making it look papery, vulnerable. I coughed, a rasping sound like stones scraping together. My eyes, wide and dark, held just the right amount of vacant fear when his gaze snagged on mine.
"Looking for work? Better place," he grunted, his voice like gravel under a boot. He smelled of stale tobacco and engine oil. Human smells. Useful smells.
I hesitated, just long enough. Let the fear flicker, then be overshadowed by a desperate, fragile hope. "Work? Food?" My voice was a whisper, thin as reed smoke.
"Food. Shelter. All you need." A lie as thick as river silt. I saw the calculation in his flat, predator's eyes. Young enough. Alone. Weak. Perfect merchandise for the Bleak Peaks.
I let him see the moment I decided to believe him. A tiny nod. A flicker of pathetic gratitude. "Okay."
The back of the van was a steel coffin, smelling of sweat, fear, and something metallic. Two other women already huddled there, shadows in the dim light filtering through cracks. One wept silently, shoulders shaking. The other stared straight ahead, her face a mask carved from stone. More merchandise.
The door slammed. Darkness. Engine roar. Movement. The vibrations rattled my bones, a constant, jarring reminder of the dry, hard world outside the water. I closed my eyes, not in fear, but in focus.
Dryness. I summoned it, embraced it. My skin tightened, becoming brittle parchment. My gills, hidden beneath the illusion of smooth skin at my neck, constricted painfully. Breathe shallow. Conserve moisture. Feel the ache. It was agony, exquisite and necessary. Proof of my commitment. Proof of the sacrifice for the purpose.
Because Granite, or whatever his name was in Silt End, wasn't just a buyer. He was a vessel. A host.
The Wetlands were dying. Polluted. Overcrowded. Our kind… scattered, struggling. Reproduction was slow in the silt. Risky. Predators everywhere. But humans… warm-blooded, plentiful, fertile. Their bodies were constant. Warm. Protected. A perfect, mobile nursery. If you could… anchor.
My kind whispers of it. The ancient, desperate tactic. Only for the most determined. Only when the water turns to poison and the future shrivels. You find a host. You bind yourself. You use their warmth, their blood, their very life force, to incubate the next generation. Thousands of them. Pink pearls of potential, feeding, growing, hatching within the warm, dark safety of flesh. Not parasitic. Symbiotic, in the most brutal sense. We give them… purpose. A legacy writ in pink eggs beneath the skin.
The van hit a pothole. My head cracked against the metal wall. Pain flared. Good. Pain was focus. Pain was the cost.
I thought of the Bleak Peaks. Dry. Isolated. Perfect. Few eyes to see the changes. Fewer minds to question a "sickly" wife. Granite, buying a broodmare, would get an incubator. A warm-blooded sack for my offspring. He wouldn't understand the gift. He wouldn't survive it. Hosts rarely did, not with a full clutch. But by the time he realized, it would be too late. The eggs would be deep. Feeding. Growing.
The weeping woman beside me let out a choked sob. I shifted slightly, my brittle skin scraping against the van floor. I didn't offer comfort. My focus was inward, on the deep, pulsing core of me. On the potential stirring, waiting for the warmth, the nutrients, the host.
The journey was an eternity of jolts and stifling air. My thirst was a living thing, a serpent coiled in my belly. But I welcomed it. This suffering was the down payment. The van stopped frequently. More shadows joined us. More despair filled the metal box. I kept my head down, playing my part: Amu, the scared, dry thing from the Wetlands. Not Mud, the architect.
Finally, the road turned vicious. Steep. Rocky. The air leaking in grew thin and cold, scraping my gills raw even through my control. Mountain air. Bleak Peaks air. We were close.
The van stopped. The engine died. Silence, heavy and expectant. Then, the screech of the door opening.
Harsh, high-altitude light stabbed my eyes. Figures silhouetted against it – lean, hard men with faces like the rocks they lived among. Their eyes scanned the cargo. Assessing. Calculating value.
I made myself small. Trembled visibly. Let the dry, cracked look of my hands and lips show. Weak. Unthreatening. Barely worth the trouble. Perfect.
A shadow blocked my light. Taller than the others. Broad shoulders hunched under a worn jacket. He smelled of woodsmoke, sour liquor, and unwashed earth. His face was a landscape of deep lines and weathered skin. His eyes… dark pebbles sunk deep in sockets. No curiosity. No disgust. Just… vacancy. A void looking for something cheap to fill it. Granite.
He pointed a thick, calloused finger at me. Not a word. Just the finger. Demand. Ownership.
The man with the dead eyes grabbed my arm, hauling me out. My bare feet hit sharp, cold gravel. I stumbled, deliberately clumsy, falling to my knees. A performance of weakness. Granite watched, unmoved. I looked up at him, letting my eyes water artificially, making them wide and pleading.
He grunted. A sound like stones shifting. He nudged me with his boot. "Up."
I scrambled, unsteady, letting him see the effort it took. The pathetic fragility. He turned and walked towards a cluster of low, mud-brick houses clinging to the mountainside like lichen. Silt End. My destination. My nursery.
He led me not to a house, but to a low stone shed near a stinking pigsty. The door creaked open on rusted hinges. Inside: gloom, the smell of damp earth and animal waste. And in the corner, a cracked plastic basin. Half-full of greasy, scummed water. My designated cell. My disguise.
He pointed again. "There."
I didn't hesitate. I shuffled towards it, my movements slow and pained, the picture of broken submission. Inside, the water was lukewarm filth. It stung my cracked skin, tasted of rot and pig. But it was wetness. My gills fluttered instinctively, sucking in the foul liquid, filtering what oxygen they could. Relief warred with revulsion. I submerged my arms, letting the illusion of relief wash over my face. I looked up at Granite, standing in the doorway, a dark monolith against the harsh light.
He spat into the dirt near the basin. His eyes ran over me, not with desire, but with the cold assessment of a man who'd bought a tool. A defective, strange tool, but a tool nonetheless. "Freak," he muttered, the word hanging in the fetid air. "Work starts dawn."
He turned and slammed the shed door shut. Darkness, thicker now. The lock clicked outside.
Alone.
I leaned back against the rough stone wall, the filthy water lapping at my waist. The performance dropped. My trembling stopped. The wide, fearful eyes narrowed. The brittle dryness on my skin receded slightly, soothed by the water, though the deep thirst remained.
A slow, deliberate smile touched my lips. Not pleasant. Predatory.
Host acquired.
I ran a hand over my belly, flat now beneath the rough, stolen clothes. But soon. Soon it would begin. The binding. The anchoring. The warm blood of Granite would feed the clutch growing within me. Thousands of tiny lives, nestled in the perfect, unsuspecting warmth of his existence.
He wanted a broodmare? He'd get a queen. And his body would be the cradle for my kingdom. The pink pearls would bloom beneath his skin, in his muscles, maybe even deeper. A silent, creeping harvest.
The dryness outside was temporary. Inside, where it mattered, the warm, wet future was already stirring.
I dipped my hand back into the filthy water, scooping a little over my neck, over the hidden gills. Survival. For now. Just until the incubation took hold. Until Granite's warmth became my children's birthright.
Soon, little ones, I thought, the smile lingering in the dark. Your nursery awaits. Warm. And so very… permanent.