The King of Fish

Based off a lovely drawing from Squidbiscuit found here: /Squidbiscuit/status/1124703507477610496

I wanna give full credit for the opening dialogue between Little My and Snufkin and of course the image itself to her.

Snufkin was a wandering soul by his very nature. There was something so freeing about living off the land, and traveling from one place to the next simply because you could do so. He's seen so many places during his travels, but coming back to Moominvalley in the spring time has got to be the most wonderful place in the world. The flowers in full bloom make a gorgeous abstract pattern across the hillside, the streams are bubbling excitedly, happy to not be frozen over by the frigid winter anymore, and the birds are more than delighted to share their songs to anyone willing to listen to them. The villagers though, are the most important of all. Moomintroll was without a shadow of a doubt, Snufkin's truest friend. And he, and the rest of his family have been so kind as to treat him as one of their own that it would be too much to bear to not come visit once in a while. Snufkin would miss them terribly.

Going on long trail walks and simply chatting the hours away with his best friend made the day in Moominvalley a perfectly ordinary one, and Snufkin enjoyed every minute of it. The time escaped from them easily, as it was already about the hour for Moomin to return home to help Moominmamma prepare supper. Bidding farewell to his cherished friend, Snufkin decided it was a excellent time to catch some supper himself.

The fishing proved plentiful to a fault. The fish were so eager to snag the bait that they would bump each other out of the way just to get a chance at the line resulting in quite a bit of waiting. Snufkin was close to considering just asking the Moomins if they had a spare net on hand, until an unusually large fish swam into view. This fish had to have been considered a king with how quick the others were to avoid his path. If Snufkin hadn't been paying attention, the strength of it pulling on the line could have very well pulled him into the river. Putting up an incredible fight, the king wriggled and splashed trying to get his way, but Snufkin was too stubborn and much too hungry to be outdone by a fish. With a few minutes of patience and a quick jerk of his fishing rod the king was successfully captured by the hungry traveler. Credit to where credit was due, it was an excellent match, but Snufkin was famished by now and wanted to eat as soon as possible.

This, might have been an oversight on his part. The fish was delectable for certain; there's always been something about catching and cooking food for yourself that makes it taste all the better, but eating the whole fish in one sitting probably wasn't the best idea. It wasn't too noticeable when standing up, but when sitting down it was obvious Snufkin was conspicuously bloated in his middle. His stomach was understandably upset with the overindulgence, and made itself known with loud gurgles and distressing groans. Snufkin was perfectly resigned to just ignore the obnoxious murmurs and wait out the digestion, until a extremely sharp and intense pang hit his stomach accompanied by an unusually loud grumble. Snufkin visibly winced at the pain, finally deciding that now might be a good time to try to quell the ache in his gut with some soft belly rubs instead of outright ignoring its protests.

It seemed to be too little too late unfortunately, as the belly rubs didn't seem to do much to silence the noise or ebb away the pain. If anything, any time Snufkin tried to so much as change to a more comfortable position, he would be punished with a hard twinge of belly pain that rendered him winded. Ruefully, he sat stock still by a large rock, continuing to rub small circles onto his stomach. Grimacing at the cramping and listening to the cacophony of horrid noises his insides were making all the while.

"You didn't cook it well enough." a small voice from beside him teased. Snufkin jumped slightly at the voice, causing more of a fuss in his belly. It was his little sister (in actuality, his older sister) Little My. A very observant girl and always speaks her mind, nothing really gets by her too often. Unfortunately for him at the moment, she is also a bit of a trickster, stirring up people just for the satisfaction of simply stirring them up. There was no way he was getting out of this without some form of ribbing involved.

"Just full is all." Snufkin replied in a quiet yet dismissive tone. In all honesty, the less he talked, the better off he was. The cramping was picking up some and it was getting frightfully hard to not groan back at his stomach whenever it chose to groan at him.

"Sounds like it's come back to life and is flippin' about in there." Little My said ominously with a tiny smirk set on her face. Oh Lord no, that is not helping at all. A quick mulling of those words made Snufkin's belly lurch forward followed by a small burp. His only reply being a deadpan "Hush" in Little My's direction. Yet, she decided to continue-

"Biding its time, just waiting to burst forth like a-"

"Would you stop!?" Snufkin exasperated. He couldn't really focus on keeping the nausea down with all these thoughts of the king of fish making a uninvited comeback appearance. His stomach whined irritably and this time he couldn't help a small whine himself. His belly was in agony now and as horrid and disgusting as it would be, he might seriously have to consider just chucking this up and out of his system just to make the pain stop.

"Alright, alright ya big baby. How 'bout I go see Moominmamma and get you some medicine to help out that gut rot of yours?" Little My relented, Snufkin was in too disagreeable a mood to be messed with any further, it would just be torturing the guy at this point, absolutely no fun at all.

"I-Oh, well, if you find something that would be…helpful I guess…?" Another cramp ripped through his belly, causing Snufkin to pause and bite the inside of his cheek. "But I also do not want to bother Moominmamma with something so…..trivial, so if you can't find anything that's fine, don't worry about it. I'll be okay I promise!"

Little My just rolled her eyes at the pitiful stubbornness of it all. But decided on being a good sister for now and humor him.

"Yea, alright "Bluffkin", stay here and I'll find something to get ya up and running." And with that, Little My scurried off to the Moomin's house, without giving or hearing another word.

Snufkin was honestly surprised by just how fast Little My was running to help him out. But the surprise was quickly replaced with embarrassment that he was seen in such a state in the first place. He would have to have her swear to secrecy, if not bribe her to never speak of this again. Oh well, he was much too miserable to think about it right now. Sinking a little lower, he placed both hands on his belly and decided to wait out his fate,

the fish was delicious though.

-SinningSheep