Zecora and the Parasite

"Reek, do you see it? Can you sense their light?
There's so many of them blooming tonight!"

Reek didn't move. He could feel the frost building on his back, seemingly goaded on by the single, wretched, hate filled eye that stared right at him. Reek tilted his head to avert its gaze, but it didn't matter. The frigid loathing that flowed from the petalled Nuckelavee was palpable. Wind passed through Reek's teeth, and with each cold breath, it felt as if dozens of thin, sightless needles pricked at the soft flesh of his insides.

"Uh... yeah. I see it."

"Really, you can see them bloom?
Oh dear, my bags may not have enough room."

Reek watched out of the corner of his eye as Zecora picked at the dark, thorny tendrils that lay at the bottom of one of the Nuckelavee's hooves. The beast was suspended in midair, leaping with as much grace as could be allowed for something so massive. a single clawed hand reached zealously into the sky, frozen in place, yet eager to cleave. The other arm was shorter. In place of a claw, there was a roughly made metal hook, dented and pocked with long gone viscera. The single blue eye stared down at the ground, and though it was hard to tell, Reek felt as if the Nuckelavee was smiling.

Reek gulped. He felt his stomach churn more and more the longer he stared at the great behemoth. He shuffled closer to Zecora, though one eye maintained a constant watch over the great glowing specter.

"Ahem... So, uh... Who-who do you see," He stammered.

"Old friends, animals too.
don't worry, they'd have no importance to you."

Reek scanned the edge of the flower patch. On the outskirts, small, twirling branches peeked out from the snow. He could make out small pieces of other individuals copied by the sage's petals. A small hoof here, a large, leathery wing there. There was even the occasional eyestalk that barely managed to burrow through the heavy layer of snow. But no faces.

Reek scowled. He didn't like thinking about what expressions those faces might have, buried deep down. What expressions of torment and horror became their final emotion, now forever remembered through the petals of a ghastly flower. He could feel bile rising in his throat. It was too much, she was too much.

Zecora nipped at a sage flower with her teeth. though she was excited, the process of wringing a sage free from its spiked vines was a delicate, slow matter. It took ample amounts of time and concentration, which meant she hadn't noticed Reek's anxiety growing with increasing haste behind her. She was broken from her duty once Reek's shallow, even breathing began to transform into slow, quiet retching.

"Reek, are you doing alright?
If you want, we could go home for the night."

Reek took a moment to compose himself. "Do we have enough?"

His eyes flickered from Zecora to something above her, and every time he looked up, she could swear he grew a lighter shade of grey. "Is it the sage that makes you sick,
or is it perhaps their nasty trick?"

"It's someone I... Well I didn't know her, but..."

She could hear the muffled chittering of Reek's teeth. She didn't quite understand what caused them to rattle so involuntarily. However, at the current moment, there was something wrong with Reek, and he likely wouldn't say any more than he wanted to until they were home. With a quick breath, she zipped up her bags and trotted off back in the direction they'd come.

"Say no more my slimy friend,
Your pleas I hear and hoof I lend."

Reek made a noise, and Zecora paused for a moment. She turned around and, sure enough, there he stood. Still as stone, eyestalks pointed up towards the sky. Her brow furrowed, and though her hoofsteps exploded across the silent snowbank, she tried her best to approach him quietly. He spoke up, surprising her.

"I never thought I'd see her in person. Well, as in person as this. She's bigger than I imagined."

"So you see her too?"

Reek and Zecora jumped at the third voice. Around them, the snow remained as it had, still peppered with hoof marks and the strange ghostly trial. Reek puffed himself up.

"Who's there?" He called out into the empty sky.

"Oh spoiled prince, I never thought I'd see you alive out here, not in times like these."

Reek squinted in the dark, but it took him only a moment to realize he didn't have to. Not fifty feet away, the snow began to shift. It rolled in thin, stringy patterns, slithering along the frost like a serpent. With a crunch of snow, the shape shifted again, raising itself into the sky. He gasped, seeing that it had never been snow, but rather a pristinely white worm.

It stared down at Reek. two pale blue eyes glowed faintly with an energy Reek didn't know the origins of, and on its underside, a viscous, blue slime sloughed off in thick globs and splashed onto the snow, where it immediately began to burn away.

The little black slug recoiled, deflating fast. He knew better than to pick a fight with this thing, noticing its body extended far into the distant snowbanks. "Who are you?"

"Oh, boo hoo," It mocked, its eyes pulsing with light as it spoke. "What a tragedy, to be dead and forgotten by my own people. Such strange times these are, though it would be foolish to say it is not an age of resurrection. The putrid lord would agree with that, no?"

The beast swirled around them, its impressive length allowing it to stay far out of the range of Reek's teeth, yet still completely circle them several times over. "But such is the way of things. The king demanded I be forgotten, and so I have. I had just hoped the little prince might show me some sympathy." It leaned in close to Reek, its aquamarine eyes casting upon him a ghostly glow. "But this is not a time for sympathy, is it?"

Reek took a moment to talk, afraid that the wrong start might set the beast off. "You're the old ice worm. Father banished you for siding with Lambton."

The beast's pearly head rose higher into the air, dwarfing Reek and Zecora and nearly meeting the petalled nuckelavee's eye. It huffed. "The old ice worm. The first, last and only resident of the lake that Sammakött's own hooves would touch. The frostfire traitor."

"The Lagarfljót," Reek mumbled.

The worm laughed. "And so I am remembered after all. This truly is the age of resurrection."

A wet squelch tore through the tense air. The white worm's ribbon-like head began to swell, until it unfurled itself, unleashing a poof of blue-green flesh, and within it, five glowing blue fangs. Before Reek and Zecora had time to react, its head launched forward with incredible speed. With fangs out and horrid mouth agape, it snatched a clump of sage and swallowed it whole. Zecora, still startled from the lunge, groaned as she heard the sage's thorns snap and crack from within the worm's stomach.

The worm turned away from them, towards something on the ground. Its coils unwound, shuffling or slithering their way under the snow. "Come," it spoke curtly, "We can talk underground. Less risk for both of us."

Zecora and Reek looked at each other for a moment, watching as the worm descended into the snow as if it were merely a pool of water. They inched closer, still wary, when the hole became clear. It was some distance from the sage, and nearly impossible to see from any angle other than straight on. Reek was impressed, the Lagarfljót had made an enviable hiding spot.

As they descended, Zecora squinted in the darkness. It took them a moment while they continued to descend, but eventually a mild aqua light revealed the tunnel was nearly at its end. At the bottom, the tunnel expanded greatly outwards, enough to fit the Lagarfljót's incredible ribbon-like body. Along the walls and on the soil floor, holes filled with its thick mucus coalesced into spots of bright blue-green flame, which lit the entire burrow rather nicely.

"This is a nice place," Reek admitted, taking in the scope.

"I have grown used to living under my frozen lake home. At the very least, this place offers me food and protection from those wretched sky-serpents."

"You've seen them?"

"Plenty. Enough to know what they're looking for."

Zecora perked up. "A lead on the lord of dead's acquisition,
This could give us an advantageous position."

The white worm tilted its head. "You're a curious one. Why do you speak that way?"

"It is who I am, and all that i've been,
but from where it might stem shall remain unseen."

The worm chuckled. A drop of mucus plopped from its chin and into a hole below, setting the fire inside alight with new energy. "How intriguing. Even more so to be travelling with such unlikely company."

Reek huffed, making his presence known. "Why did you bring us down here, Lagarfljót?"

"Ha! Little prince has forgotten so much. That word is a title. If you must call me something, I am Snjór," Snjór uncoiled himself, slithered aimlessly around his burrow, as if tired of sitting in one place for more than a moment. "And you as well as I could spend some time to reminisce, to revive the memories of our long lost world."

Reek scoffed, becoming increasingly annoyed at how often his past seemed intent on following him. "Reminisce all you wish Snjór, But I intend to rid myself of that world."

Snjór's slithering stopped. He stared listlessly at the fire below him. "Yes, you do, as you always have. What truer curse is there than a keen mind too afraid to remember?"

Reek puffed slightly. His teeth rattled in his mouth. "You are more than welcome to take the position of prince in my stead if my actions so disdain you."

"It would be no more earned than if I declared it myself." Snjór turned to reek, his eyes aglow with ghastly light. "But your cowardice affects me none. We are, both of us, removed from our lineage. We are the last of our kind. I had hoped you would agree, but perhaps you are a kind of your own. A uniquely amoebic mass so intent to stay alive it will abandon all it has ever known."

Zecora, stood indignantly beside Reek, began to notice that this enclosed space, quickly becoming cramped in the thick, tense atmosphere, was not where she wanted to be. "If I could say--"

"I am intent," Reek growled, his rage beginning to blind him to both reason and fear, "to find peace, to live in a world where I am not pursued by one kingdom or another, including my own. I would have given everything to have been banished like you."

"I am acutely aware of every privilege and fortune you would dispose of to hide away forever. But what point is there in relaying this to you? This conversation is only further depriving you of your wish, and so, there is nothing more to be said."

Reek's teeth rattled. He huffed a breath and made his way towards the exit. Zecora lagged behind, watching Snjór as he continued to stare deep into the frostfire's dazzling hues.

"If I could ask, Mr. Snjór,
you mentioned a lead? I'd like to know more."

It took a moment for the worm to respond, but after a time, he raised his head to look at her. "They're after Lambton. I'm not sure why. Perhaps some aspect of Sammakött's plan has gone awry." He chuckled to himself. "Now I'm rhyming as well."

"I'm sorry, my friend, you'll have to expand,
I know very little of the figures from your land."

"I am unsurprised, given present company," Snjór glanced quickly towards the tunnel, where Reek was already long gone. "He was a wizard among our people, as respected as he was feared. He could bend the flesh of the dead like it was water, and with it, he could heal the sick, the infirmed, those who had lost pieces of themselves. He would have been an irreplacable asset in the war, had we not all frozen over. I am sure Sammakött believes he may be of use now."

"Oh... I see... my thanks you've found,
Perhaps we'll see each other ar--"

Zecora made her way to the door, only for it to be blocked in an instant by Snjór's rapidly folding body.

"A word before you go, miss. I insist."

Zecora turned to face him, skepticism twinkling in her eyes alongside the shimmering fires that surrounded her. However, afraid as she was, Snjór remained still and calm.

"Your companion fears much of the world he once knew. I dare not place responsibility upon you to control his actions, but you must know that he has done many things, many awful things, to have earned such ire from his kin. I beg you not to let your guard down around him. I made no hyperbole before. He will do anything to find his peace."

Zecora gave Snjór a solemn nod. "I thank you, your advice I'll heed,
We'll see in time what sprouts from this seed."

"So we shall." Snjór unfurled himself from the exit. Zecora passed through without another word, away from the warm glow of the pit and back out into the darkness. Behind her, Snjór chuckled.

"Strange times, strange times indeed..."