Okay, was anybody going to tell me that the Atla hybrid of a sheep and a pig isn't called sheep-pig or pig-sheep but wooly pig and fashioned after real life Mangalitza pigs, or was I just supposed to find out by seeing a Tumblr meme about it?
I mean, how adorable is that?!
Without further comment, I present to you the fic that was supposed to have a serious title like "By Any Other Name" but ended up with a funny Jane Austen reference instead. Enjoy! :D
Snouts & Sensibility
The fence had broken for the third time this month and Shin was done. His nerves snapped like pea pods as the plank he'd tried to reattach splintered where he'd hammered the nail in. Woodworm, mildew, left too long in the rain, he didn't care. He just wanted the thing to finally stick where he wanted it to keep his wooly pigs from escaping.
That was the danger of having a free-range pig farm with just a wall-less shelter for rainy days. One nick in the fencing and it didn't matter if he could claim cruelty-free wool; the animals would scatter like any other pigs. He'd already lost one the last time they'd found a breach in the enclosure.
This week, the animals were too occupied with the new piglets in their midst to spare much energy for anything else, but Shin had to replace the missing planks in the fence or the pigs wouldn't be able to produce offspring fast enough to make up for the eventual loss.
Well, almost every wooly pig was occupied with the babies. Lola, who right now nudged him in the back with her snout was the exception. The silly thing always had to stand out. She either believed herself to be a house pet, the way she tended to wander after him, or a wild hog, as she always stared longingly through the fence. But Shin wasn't ready to find out which one was true by letting her roam outside of the enclosure and hope she came back.
Gently, he pushed the pig's head away, his hand drifting through the curly wool around her ears.
She snorted and went to sniff at another part of the fence a few paces further down, which gave Shin the chance to pick up another board.
He frowned at its moldy surface and resigned himself to his fate of having to hack more boards from the tree logs behind the shed.
Just as Shin was eying Lola to determine if it would be safer to tug her with him to the shed, he heard feet stomping on gravel and looked up to find a man leading an ostrich horse up the dusty and winding pathway past his farm. Rarely came anyone along this way. The locals knew to take the shortcut behind the creek and visitors, more often than not passersby, were far and few between.
Upon closer examination, or as much as Shin could see due to that ridiculously outdated straw hat the stranger wore, he was more of a boy than a fully grown man. His chin was still softly rounded, the region of his mouth and his cheeks hairless. He was undeniably too young to wear a look as hungry and hollow as a wraith, and depressing as it was, the gruesome burn mark on the left side of his face just added to it.
Shin could see the kid in him, a teenager traipsing alone over uneven ground, but sure-footed enough to have come a long way in this not so kind world. The burn wasn't enough to distract from that lingering softness, and frankly, Shin had seen worse. They had a war going on. You couldn't throw a stone without hitting someone bearing scars. Children were no exception, sad as it made him to say. The swords strapped to the back of the ostrich horse's saddle were just another testament to that.
Checking the plank in his hand once more, Shin called to the boy before he could go past him, "You, over there!"
Shin tried to get his attention by waving his free hand, but all the kid did was tug his funny hat lower into his face, as if it could block him from sight or, which was even more ludicrous, pretend to not notice Shin. And Shin wasn't a small or even inconspicuous man. His mum had fed him well and his stature was proof of that. Didn't hurt either that he had a voice like a foghorn.
"Hey, boy, here!" he shouted and stood up, trying to be as obnoxiously loud as he could, which was very. "Could you, just for a quick second, give me a hand, son?"
At Shin's words, the boy stumbled and almost pulled the poor ostrich horse down with him. He caught himself in the last moment, just to straighten up and stare daggers at Shin.
Ah, not so invisible now, was he.
"So, able to help an old man?" Shin grinned, feeling cheeky. The boy could see as well as anyone with two working eyes – or one, Shin wasn't sure of how much use the scarred one was – that Shin was not, by any definition of the word, old. He was, with a spring in his step, only starting to head in the direction of middle-aged.
The kid focused on Shin's face, the plank in his hand, the hole in the fence, and asked, surprisingly raspy, "With what?" He squinted, suspicious, and stayed a good distance away, keeping the width of the dusty road safely between them.
Pointing at the sad piece of wood in his hand, Shin explained. "Need to patch the fence, as you can see, or the animals will get loose. But the planks are all rotted, won't stick there for anything. Nails go through the wood like butter."
The boy's eyes trailed to the mentioned wood, his nose crinkling when he spotted a spattering of green mould.
"I need to make new planks. Behind the shed, right there," he nodded at it, "are logs and an ax. I don't wanna leave here in case one of the pigs makes a dash for it." He looked meaningfully at Lola, who came closer to oink a friendly Hello at the stranger through the space between the fence's still intact panels.
"Could you, instead? Just two or three." He tried to smile winningly.
The boy took his time to process and decide, his face scrunching up in concentration, which was not kind to his scar, and his gaze sprang from Shin to the wood and finally to Lola.
She tried to help by being especially cute, pressing her snout through the gaps and oinking in short intervals at the kid while her eyes glazed over in instant love and her floppy ears quivered in excitement. Might be that Shin didn't need to worry about her running away today, if the boy decided to stay.
To sweeten the deal, Shin tossed the plank he still held away and grabbed the lunch box he'd hastily thrown together this morning.
"There's yesterday's stew and a peach in it for you, son."
He could hear the boy's vertebrae snap as he reared back at Shin's offer so fast his hat slid a good few inches back. His eyes were big and round, almost like Lola's, just a little less wet, and, now that the damn hat wasn't throwing shade over them, almost golden. The scar made even more sense now. Poor chap.
And going by his reaction, he hadn't been offered anything nice in a while if Shin's old stew was freaking him out that much.
It was clear to him that the kid still intended to say no, albeit with an air of apology.
Hadn't the loud and angry sounding rumble from his stomach interrupted, the boy would have gone his way instead of turning crimson and gnashing his teeth.
Shin shook the lunch box invitingly at him.
With slumped shoulders, the boy sighed, and said, grudging, "Fine," before he closed the distance between them to stand on the other side of the fence.
He secured his ride's reins around the nearest post, finishing off with an impressive sea man's knot, and made to step over the fence. Rather, he jumped over the fence with a single hand planted on it, nimble, graceful and envy-inducing young.
His second foot hadn't even touched the ground when Lola bowled into him, squeaking excitedly. He was new and shiny. His presence was ambrosia for a bored pig, she apparently wanted to say with the way she rubbed her white curls all over his legs, the hussy.
Shin tsked in the back of his throat and tugged at Lola's neck wool to stop her from pestering the new help.
Reluctant, she let off but stayed close.
"If Lola gives you any trouble while you're working, don't hesitate to push her away or shove her in my direction," Shin told him.
The kid's fingers twitched at his side. Wanting to bury them in fluffy wooly pig fur was a natural reaction, in Shin's opinion.
Instead of reaching out, the boy snorted and asked, "Lola?" And by Oma and Shu, did that sound wrong out of his mouth. Teenaged disdain plus a voice like a cheese grater plus Lola resulted in unintentional hilarity.
Shin patted the pig on her fluffy head. "Yes, Lola. Why, what do you call your ostrich horse?"
Looking contrite at the mentioned animal, which huffed a gust of stinky breath at its owner in answer, the boy said, "Loot."
"Honestly?" Shin belly-laughed. "That's brilliant."
A rueful and despairingly careful smile tugged at the right corner of the kid's mouth. "Yeah."
Clapping his hands once, signaling dilly-dallying time was over, Shin thrust his thumb at the shed. "Everything you'll need is just around the corner. The planks should be as long as the logs, so you just need to chop lengthwise. Try to make a few moderately pretty ones, so they fit into the fence and the rest can serve as fire wood. Any questions?"
The teenager shrugged. No surprise there.
"Okay, then. I'll look after the animals in the meantime. The piglets should still be under supervision."
Attention grabbed, the boy noticed for the first time the groups of wooly pigs standing around the field and smack in the middle of them tiny baby fluff balls, their wool downy and a match for clouds.
In case it hadn't been clear enough before, it now became indisputably obvious that his new traveler friend had a soft spot for animals. He didn't say aww or cooed, or any of the other things the neighbor kids did around Shin's herd, but his face went a bit slack, the rigidness his muscles had held lessened.
Shin smiled.
A baby pig darted around his mother's legs and ended up sprawled on its side when its front legs couldn't keep up with its hind legs. Mama nudged the youngster's head with her snout and Shin saw from the corner of his eye how the boy's face crumbled. When the apparent papa boar came over to sniff at his offspring, Shin tried to usher the boy to work, giving him something else to focus on. The little hitch in the kid's breath had sounded too much like a swallowed sob for his liking.
"Okay, chop chop. I've left the ax beside the logs."
The kid blinked and tugged his ratty hat lower into his face, bringing it back to where it had started out – shielding his eyes. He nodded and walked to the back of the working shed.
Lola, amorous and not to be left behind by her flame, toddled after him.
Shin let her.
For the next hour, Shin leaned against the fence post and blocked the open space in the fencing with his legs. The stranger's ostrich horse went to sleep as soon as the boy had left their field of vision, giving Shin one more reason to relax.
He studied his herd, marked down in his head which of them needed to get another trim, whose feed should be changed because their wool was looking a bit lackluster, and how much money he still had to go on for the rest of the month. He'd have to hire a few day workers again for the next shearing. Things were tight right now, but when one of the piglets toddled past him, not able to decide between oinking and bleating, Shin snorted. This was worth the hardships.
All the while, the hacking behind the shed continued, interrupted by angry screams and lots of swearing. Apparently, the kid wasn't used to chopping wood.
Sometimes, in the little moments of silence between sailor-worthy curses, Shin could hear Lola's grunts of notice me, notice me.
Though, when the sun was standing high, midday by Shin's estimation, and all of the pigs stopped rolling in the grass to take a nap in the shadow of the stable, the boy trudged back with arms full of wooden planks. He'd been diligent, despite the obvious frustration marring his already haggard face. The stupid straw hat hung down his back, only held by the ties around his neck.
The kid plopped the planks down next to Shin's hips in the grass and acknowledged him with a gruff, "Done."
"I can see that." Shin picked one of the pieces up, inspected it with a critical eye and nodded. "Not bad. Has the right width. Won't look too patchy when I'm done."
Lola, slow to waddle after her love interest because it was time for her nap as well, oinked and plopped herself right between Shin's outstretched legs, her corkscrew tail falling over Shin's knee.
Making a grab for his lunch box, Shin tried to keep from jostling her. "Lunch break, I guess. The Empress has spoken." He held the box out to the boy, who raised his good eyebrow.
Weary, the kid lowered himself into the grass and gingerly took the container, extracting the chopsticks from its top.
Shin leaned back against the post and scratched Lola's head. She only snuffled once and went back to staring with hooded eyes at their ancillary worker.
Now, with the kid occupied, shoveling vegetables and rice into his mouth, and the hat out of the way, Shin took the time to study him. He was scrawnier than Shin had thought. The hollows of his cheeks were stark in broad daylight and his skin almost bleached of life. The burn scar wasn't new, that much was obvious. The scratches and scabs all over his hairline and upper face, though, were.
Without thinking, Shin went to touch the biggest scab, positioned at the boy's left temple.
The motion of Shin's hand nearing his face alerted the kid before Shin could make contact and the boy flinched, hissing.
Shin should have known better than to bother a wild animal trying to eat.
"Sorry, sorry," he said, holding up both hands to show he wasn't stupid enough to try a second time. "I just wanted to check the scab you have right here." He pointed at his own temple. "Looks a bit like you have gravel stuck in there. Nasty fall, huh?"
The kid still watched him, all eagle eyes and distrust, but swallowed the piece of mushy carrot in his mouth before reaching for another one. "Something like that," he mumbled into his next bite.
Three whole words. The kid was starting to get chatty with him.
And as fast as Shin had thought that, the kid clammed up again and continued swallowing mouthfuls of stew. No one had ever wolfed down Shin's cooking with such gusto.
No further dialogue forthcoming, he dropped his gaze to the boy's clothes, sturdy but hanging too loose for comfort, all dirtied up by travel dust and, thanks to his current environment, splotches of mud.
Seemed like Lola wanted to contribute to the dirt on the kid because she stopped sleepily snuffling and rolled over Shin's knee to tumble against the boy's criss-crossed legs. Stemming her stubby legs against the ground, she rubbed her whole back against his shins, up and down, up and down, scent marking her lover boy and leaving lots of bright strands of hair behind on his trousers.
While the object of her affection was occupied with staring down at the pig with a fairly besotted expression and the pair of chopsticks was hanging out of his mouth, Shin stretched his arm to pet Lola's exposed tummy with the back of his fingers.
"Who's a menace? You are," he fondly told her.
She oinked in agreement.
The other pigs still couldn't be arsed to come over and, instead, kept dozing in piles in the shade.
In the meantime, Lola had herself a party by being the sole focus of their guest's attention.
Absentmindedly, the kid took the chopsticks from his mouth and laid them on the empty lunch box, putting the box down. He lowered his right hand slowly to his shin, inching it a few millimeters forward until the tips of his fingers vanished into thick white ringlets.
Shin bit his tongue to keep from smiling. It would have looked condescending to the boy, he was pretty sure. Everything looked probably mean-spirited to a kid like that, accustomed to ill intentions hidden behind every word and corner.
And if he made the kid stop petting Lola now, she would gnaw Shin's big toe off during the night, no question.
In pure bliss, the pig slowed her movements and thrust her back directly into the kid's tentative hand, silently encouraging him to pet more, scratch harder. Which he did.
The shyest smile, if Shin could even call it one, spread over the kid's face as he complied with her ladyship's command, rubbing harder along her spine.
Then said lady farted like any good farm animal and Shin couldn't contain his laughter anymore.
The boy scrunched his nose so hard, his scar puckered up like a woman's skirts. Interestingly enough, he didn't stop patting the pig.
"No flowers, I'm afraid," Shin laughed while the boy's fingers carded through Lola's neck wool.
"I've smelled worse," the kid said, his free hand scratching at his head, his pinky skimming the edge of the burn.
"Worse than a pig ripping one out? Pray tell, son," Shin snickered.
The fingers at his hairline stopped, splaying a bit into the scar, as the boy froze and Lola kicked her hooves in frustration at being denied his tender ministrations. The smack against his leg woke the kid from his daze and he jerked his elevated hand down to give Lola a ten-finger message, to concentrate on her instead of Shin's confused smile.
"Old men's sandals," he kid ended up saying, the look on his face not much better than the previous one, just sadder and less frozen boy in the iceberg. (Rumors were starting to make their way to even Shin's neck in the woods. And that touring music troupe's song about The Avatar Who Thawed had been catchy. Not as catchy as Secret Tunnel, though. Shin had demanded two encores.)
Shin quirked an eyebrow. "I can take my shoes off, if you'd like."
The boy peered up from Lola's content face to ask Shin with his eyes if he was as idiotic as he made himself sound. The answer was probably yes, if the assessment of Shin's brother, father and the lovely lass two farm's over could be trusted. Shin preferred to think of himself as an acquired taste.
The boy grunted and turned his nose up, done with the conversation. He was obviously much more interested in continuing to cuddle Lola.
Same, she seemed to say if the manner in which she nosed her way into his lap was any indication. She flapped on her back, bold as can be, and wiggled her hooves at the boy.
Shin leisurely grabbed one of the wooden planks, hammer and nails from his side.
"Now that she's occupied, I think it's best if I patch up the fence. Use the little time I have before she's getting underfoot again." His way of saying 'cuddle the pig, kid, you need it' while pretending not to watch them. Just something to give the kid the illusion of privacy. Shin gathered that was something the boy wanted, the way he acted. Don't look at me, don't talk to me, let me be on my way, I'm nobody. Peeking at his golden eyes, that was hard for Shin to believe. Definitely not a nobody, that boy, even if he wished it so. The kid had already too much attention foisted upon him during his travels, and none of it good, Shin would bet. Yellow-eyed people rarely had a good time in these parts of the world.
So he turned his back on the cuddle session and went to work. Nail for nail, he hammered them in, securing the planks in a neat row while Lola snuffled happily, accompanied by the sound of shifting wool. The way she piggy-sighed in ecstasy, they were at the belly rub stage in their relationship.
Biting the corner of his lip, Shin concentrated on the next board, lining it up in a, hopefully, symmetrical order and set the nail on top.
During his hammering, there was a shift in the atmosphere, his farmer's sense rearing up, and he didn't have to look to know that the piglets had awoken from their nap and were crowding the newest scratch provider in their midst while their parents were keeping guard.
He could imagine how they bumped into every inch of their guest they could reach and begrudged Lola her prime spot on his lap. There was much more noise now going on behind Shin's back, squeaky high-pitched baby cries and disgruntled Lola-oinks, and it took everything out of Shin to keep silent.
The hubbub decreased slowly, but it did, and if he had to guess, Shin would say that the kid was now a certified animal bed. From the lack of grumbling, Shin figured the kid was familiar with that position. Worked with animals? Had some? Had a soft, gooey core a mile wide? Probably, possibly, and heck yes.
Shin rattled the planks set in place, testing if they would hold up over time and not just the next week, and, satisfied, put the hammer down, extra slowly to give the kid a moment to go back to being stoic and uncuddly.
When Shin turned, however, he found the boy exactly like he'd imagined – sitting cross-legged with one middle-aged pig and three piglets on his lap, vying for his attention by jostling the others out of the way and burying into whichever part of the boy they could get to. And he let them, switched from piglet to piglet, both hands scratching at all times, and then went to the next two pigs. He didn't even notice Shin turning around.
Only when he realized that some of the sows were growing fidgety, stamping their hooves and creeping closer, deemed it Shin time to cut the sweet moment short.
"Mommas are getting nervous. You might want to set the piglets down."
The second he said that, the sows ran forward, ushering their babies with grunts and nudges away, as fast as possible, leaving the kid with nothing but white hair all over his dark clothes and Lola standing loyally at his side, her head butting his knee. The kid's knuckles grazed her head, and she sighed, settling for half a pat if she couldn't get the full treatment anymore.
"I should be on my way," the boy said with a look at the blinding sun and wandered over to rouse his ostrich horse from sleep.
If Shin was feeling optimistic, he would say that the kid seemed a bit less morose, less trodden down by the world than when he had set foot on his farm. Pigs sometimes had that effect, for which Shin was glad every day of his life.
Before the boy could saddle up, Shin snatched the piece of fruit still lying untouched next to the lunch box in the grass and called after the kid.
"Don't forget the rest of your payment, son!" he bellowed and threw the peach.
The boy caught and crammed it into his saddlebag.
Back turned to Shin as he closed the bag, he rasped a short, "Thanks."
Somehow, he made the word sound more profound than the giving of an overripe peach deserved.
The boy nodded at Shin and jumped on his ostrich horse, spurring it on with a tug on the reins.
Lola, in contrast, was sent a tender look and, here Shin had to grin, a short wave.
It didn't keep the lovelorn wooly pig from running up to the mended fence to oink at the boy while he and his mount disappeared behind the next bend in the road.
As he crouched to gather his tools, Shin paused, a thought striking him.
At no point had he asked for the kid's name. He had just kept on calling him the same thing the old men in the village used when they couldn't be bothered to remember if someone was related to them or not.
He had just kept on calling him son.
For some reason, Shin was unable to decide if that hadn't been a blessing in disguise for both of them.
*sings* Who let the pigs out? Oink! Oink! Oink!
Feedback is love!