THUCH'S JOURNEY

Once upon a time, there lived a pig named Thuch. She was, for the most part, an ordinary pig who lived an ordinary pig life. She made her home in the deep south of the Un-united Piglish Dominions, among the muck-filled swamps and swaying ferns. She slept every night under the weeping willow, and every morning went to work at the big rectangular toy factory, for toys were what the Piglish Dominion of Doothi made. While she was working, she'd get a chance to see the fourty or so other pigs who lived in the dominion, including her best friend, Rooch. Thuch lived a happy, simple life in her time here, and was quite content with it.

That was, until her secret was found out.

Or, well, her first secret.

It had started off a usual day, even a pleasant one. She'd awoken to the rare smell of fresh food and the distant bustle of the traveling merchants. That had gotten her up quick, rushing to her hooves, dashing quickly through her mud wallow, and off towards the factory. It was the center of their dominion, a block of concrete walls a hundred paces wide and taller than three pigs on eachother's shoulders. Everyone lived in a rough circle around it. And so, the merchants always gathered alongside it.

There were maybe twenty of them today, climbing about the wooden carts that carried their wares. Merchants tended to go a little wild, spending so much time far from cities, and these were no exception, with heavy footfalls, smells of fires and foreign plants, and dark, thick, coarse fur. Most of the early-risers were already about, wandering among the wares laid out for display. Thuch let her nose guide her as she admired various treats, books, and devices. Merchant days were always so strange and wonderful.

Thuch found today a step beyond wonderful, however, when she successfully located a merchant selling dry-cream sticks. They were a more-durable form of her favorite treat, ice cream, that could make it down to these perpetually-warm swamps. Only a few carried them, because it took a trained hydromancer a few hours to successfully extract the water from the ice cream, removing its reliance on cold.

Rooch was already here, sniffing at the sticks. They had deep pink fur, compared to Thuch's pale near-white. Their coat almost always smelled faintly of sap and blood and had a few ripped patches, from Rooch's many "adventures" out into the woods beyond the dominion. It had been on one of these, before Thuch had met them, where they'd lost one tusk and splintered the other. They claimed they liked the look; making them look "terrifyingly tough". Thuch disagreed, but she'd also seen Rooch be completely laid low after eating an entire bush of overripe berries.

Rooch paused when they detected Thuch's scent, swinging their low dark-green gaze around to meet her. "Hey there!" they said, in a voice rough like rocks rubbed together. "Thought you'd wander over here."

"Oh, I wouldn't miss these for the world." Thuch agreed. "How much?"

The merchant nodded toward a signboard propped against his cart. "Two chomps for the pair of you."

Thuch and Rooch looked at eachother. "Shorter stick pays?" Rooch challenged, and Thuch nodded. This had been their game since they first met and discovered a mutual love for dry-cream. Each leaned their snout into the cup containing sticks, and drew one out. Unfortunately, Thuch gripped hers a bit hard, and the stick fell neatly in two. She swallowed the half in her mouth, sighed, and began to root through the satchel around her neck using her snout. This was how it often worked out.

"Ha! Still need to work on that bite strength, huh..." Rooch stopped abruptly, staring at the object in Thuch's teeth. It wasn't one of the flat wooden disks - chomps - used as currency. It was a bone. A pig's bone.

Thuch let the bone fall loose. "What?" she asked, noticing the sudden silence spreading around her. She looked down, and noticed the bone. "Oh no..." she whispered. She felt her heart speed up, and, out of her control, the bone responded, shivering and dancing in the soft earth.

The silence was broken by a single cry from somewhere behind her. "A necromancer!"

Thuch bolted, darting out of the scattering crowd, shoving at any flesh that blocked her path. Behind her, she could make out a set of light, fast footsteps chasing after her. She splashed straight through a wide mud puddle, crashed through a thick shrub, and leaped a long-dead log. By now, she was well out of sight from the factory, outside the borders of Doothi. Still, the footsteps followed.

"Hey! Wait up!" her pursuer called, and the distraction of Rooch's voice was all it took for Thuch to miss a step, crash headfirst off a small slope, and roll down its side. At the bottom, she landed in a small stream, water crashing over her snout. Shakily, she climbed back to her hooves. Standing in front of her was Rooch.

"Holy Doori! What a good run!" Rooch panted, breathless but smiling. "Where to now?"

Thuch looked at them with confusion. "I thought necromancy was regarded as unforgivably dangerous... why aren't you ordering me to a Cliffing, or something?"

Rooch laughed. "You're my only real friend in this world, I care about you more than some old religious practice." In the distance, an Old Piglish chant picked up, accompanied by the beat of a marching drum.

"However, I don't think they'll be as kind to a Dark Practitioner." Rooch added, nodding towards the sound. "So, where we running?"

Thuch cast her glance around the small valley the stream had carved out from the swamp muck. "Hmm... by the look of the sunlight through the canopy, this stream heads north. I don't know much about the north, but we'll at least have water, and these riverside plants to shield us from the sun."

"Let's go, then!" Rooch cried. "Adventure, ho!"

And so, the two friends set off down the stream. The sun was hot, but the water around their bellies kept them cool, and the plants offered them spots of shade. The wet ground was soft under their hooves, which sunk in a few inches on every step. Insects buzzed loudly and birds called from the trees, filling the air with an oppressive cacophony of unpleasant sound. Neither had the stamina to run any further, but apparently their pursuers didn't either. The drum beats slowly faded behind them as they made their way up the river.

The stream ended eventually, shrinking down as it dried up. The pair continued roughly north by the sun, though Thuch still had no idea where she was leading them. But they kept putting one foot in front of the other, clambering through low vegetation, and weaving around trees in the path. Thuch's mind began to wander as the endless hiking went on and on, lost in the drone of the swamp.

How long would they walk for? Nowhere here would be any friendlier to a her being a necromancer than her own town. They'd probably have to march the practically endless distance to the Great Walls, the mountain range dividing the Un-united Dominions from the rest of the continent. Thuch had never heard tell of anyone crossing them, but perhaps the lands beyond were more friendly.

Eventually, Rooch spoke. "So, how long have you known?"

"Huh?" Thuch said, snapping out of her thoughts.

"Being magic! Being a drought-cursed necromancer, of all things!"

"Oh! A while." Thuch replied, evasively.

"Hmmm... longer than you've known me?" Thuch nodded, but didn't reply. Rooch's questioning was raising old memories, the times before Doothi. Times with the Crystallers.

"Longer than you've lived in Doothi?" She nodded again. Back then, she hadn't kept secrets. And that had ended with her seen as a monster by most, just like now.

"Wow. That must have been quite the secret to keep."

Thuch sighed. She knew that Rooch could be sweet and sensitive, but never when something had their curiosity. "It's not that I didn't want to tell you - or don't want to talk about it now. It's just so..." she struggled for a moment to find words Rooch would understand. "...taboo... and weird. I don't know why I'm like this or how it works; all I know is that it's not acceptable."

"Pfft, not acceptable, my splintered tusk. You're a mancer! That's truly adventure worthy. How about we figure it out together?"

Thuch smiled, the best a pig could. "Sure. But I think we should track down some food first. It can't be good to do magic on an empty stomach. And I haven't eaten all day, have you?"

"No, but..." Rooch paused, and stuck their snout up in the air. The pink disk of their nose wiggled as they turned in a slow circle, sensing the full mixture of incoming scents around them. "I'm getting something... that way!" They turned and marched off, about twenty-five degrees from the trail the pair had been following. Thuch obediently trotted behind. Within a hundred paces, a small fenced-off farm came into view. Inside the fence stood rows and rows of trees - fruit trees, Thuch guessed, from the round bulbs growing beneath their low branches.

And next to the fence, there stood a few short barrels, ready for transport by some merchant. Rooch wandered right next to one, drew back, and bashed their side into it. The wooden barrel fell to the earth and cracked down the side, sending the unsealed top rolling into the woods.

"Rooch!" Thuch cried. "I thought you were tracking something buried in the ground, not some random farmer's crops!"

Rooch ignored her and rooted their way inside to inspect their treasure, and reemerged carrying a dried-out lime.

"Here." they mumbled around the lime, then spit it towards Thuch. "Food!"

Noticing her lack of action, they added. "We're on the run! We don't have time to hunt a whole meal from the ground, we gotta keep moving!" they paused, then added, "And anyhow, I think to these pigs, you crossed the moral line long ago."

Thuch sighed, and nodded sadly. "Alright, I see your point. Let's just eat and get out of here."

And so, the two friends munched their way through the dried-out limes. Like the ice-cream, they'd been packaged like that so they wouldn't decay in the oppressive swamp heat, but unlike the ice cream, these were probably not meant to be sold. They tasted a little funky, like they'd been left on the trees too long. Still, Thuch didn't mind too much, and they filled her empty stomach. The friends were just finishing when they heard a shrill voice cry out, "Hey!"

They both turned, seeing a pig staring at them from beyond the edge of the fence. He called out, "We got some thieves in our field!"

A swarm of footsteps followed from somewhere behind him, drawing closer. The farmer pawed the earth, then before Rooch could even finish a curse, charged straight for the pair of friends. Thuch turned away, trying to escape, but felt the earth shift under her, and a sharp tugging sensation in her heart. Right in front of the farmer, the ground erupted, and a swarm of disconnected arm bones flew out and struck the farmer in the face. He grunted, and shook his head. Rooch and Thuch took advantage of his distraction and set off at a run into the woods.

After nearly twenty minutes of running, the two pigs collapsed on their sides with their backs against a tree. "Whew, that was a bit close, haha!" Rooch laughed.

"Hot sands, yeah, guess you got your adventure in today." Thuch replied

"I'm sure we'll get more of that later. On the Exciting and Evil Journeys of Thuch and Rooch. For now though, while we've got a quiet moment, let's get to the less exciting Naptime of Thuch and Rooch."

"Good plan."

With that, the pair dug into the cool mud beneath the tree and tried to get some rest. Rooch was snuffling and snoring quickly, but Thuch stayed awake. She had summoned those bones earlier, without meaning to. When the other pig had charged, her mind had gone blank, and primal instincts to avoid harm had taken over. She needed more reliability than that - she needed to know she could protect herself if something worse happened; there were a lot of pigs looking for her, by now.

And so, Thuch lowered her snout to the earth, and tried to feel the same tremor she'd felt before. When nothing came, she closed her eyes, took a deep breath, and tried to imagine it. She imagined bones sitting in the earth below her, rising to the surface. The wind rustled in the tree's leaves above her, and a frog croaked in a nearby pond. The dirt didn't shift. She remembered the strange feeling in her heart, and tried to feel it again, to push the magic outwards and down, into the soil beneath her hooves.

Instead of magic, Thuch felt the disk beneath her chest shift, and she instantly stopped. She looked down at her hooves, then glanced around furtively. There was no one to see her but a few birds in the trees and that frog. She sighed. It had been so long since she'd felt that... but it was even more dangerous of a secret. A lot bigger than some forbidden magic she didn't understand but had ended up with. This was about choices.

Her worries started to spiral further out of control, and so she took a deep breath, and focused on the movement of air, in and out of her lungs. Then another breath. It'd be ok. She had a friend with her, and they'd make it somewhere safe, together. There'd be time for thinking about this all later. This got her settled enough that she finally drifted off to sleep.

Thuch wasn't sure at what point the drums chasing her shifted from dreams to reality, but when she snapped her eyes open, they already boomed from the trees all around her, muddling together in a confusing echo of heavy beats. The night had well set, and all was dark and cold. She climbed out of the mud, and could smell at least twenty different pigs moving in from the trees around her. Hurriedly, she walked over to where Rooch had buried themselves and placed a hoof sharply against their side.

Rooch woke up with a jolt, sending clumps of earth flying as they stood up. "Huh? What?" They shook their head forcefully, then looked at Thuch with concern. "Those drums aren't in my head, are they?"

"Nope." Thuch said. "I think we have to..."

"Prepare for battle, then!" Rooch cried.

"Make a break for it." Thuch finished.

"Oh yes, that works too." Rooch said, quietly. Even with a pig's poor vision, they could now see their opponents, striding purposefully towards them through the trees. In the direction where the friends had arrived here from, something smelling woody creaked along behind their adversaries.

"Bolt past the fellow over there with the scarred eye." Rooch whispered, jerking their head towards a pig to their left.

Thuch nodded, and took a deep breath. "On three then?"

"Sure."

"Alright. One... two... three!"

And so they ran for it. Thuch spearheaded straight for the outside of the circle, slamming straight into the side of the pig with the scar. The other pig squealed and winced back, blinking her good eye quickly. Just as she moved to charge too, Rooch bulldozed her over, stomping her into the dirt. The other pigs had followed the friends' movement, and now charged in to intercept Thuch's path. A brown pig got right in front of her, and Thuch tried to headbutt them out of the way. But the other pig just slammed right back harder, knocking Thuch head over tail. Rooch jumped off the scarred pig and rammed into the brown one. Together, they wrestled heads and tried to bite at eachother.

Thuch rolled back to her feet and looked around. There were three more pigs closing in around them, and the brown one Rooch was wrestling. She knew she'd be no good in a fight without magic. Desperately, she closed her eyes and tried to feel the earth beneath her. She reached out, and felt something stirring there - something that wanted to help. She imagined speaking to it, come on out, see the surface, help us. She could feel it tugging at her heart, wanting to move, if it only had the strength. The ground shifted a tiny bit, then a little more. just a little further, come on...

Another pig ran into her, sending her into the dirt, losing all grip on the underground creature. It settled back into a dreamless sleep. The pig who had attacked her came over and stepped on her back, to ensure she wouldn't get up. The scarred pig had recovered and also limped over to help hold her down. Thuch couldn't focus on much besides the pain in her side, but she could hear the creaking drawing closer, as well as what sounded like several pigs now all fighting Rooch at once.

But soon, they were both forced down, and the wooden structure - which turned out to be a cart outfitted with sturdy wooden bars - made its way over to them. The pigs around them blocked any escape, and pushed them up into the cart, snorting and singing their strange Old Piglish chants. A cheer went up among them as they tied shut the cage door, then three pigs took up the cart's harness and began to pull.

Rooch stumbled a little as they approached the side of the cart, and tried the bash against the bars. This resulted in nothing but them reeling back in pain. "We'll have to be ready to surprise them at... wherever they're planning to let us out." they said defiantly. "When we've had a chance to... catch our breath!"

"I hope so." Thuch replied, and the two pigs laid down, letting the rest of the bumpy cart ride pass in silence.

The cart rode through the entire night, several teams switching off pulling. By dawn's light, their destination started to come into view - a short, lonely mountain, pushing up out of the swampy muck. With the rising sun silhouetting it in pink and gold, it would have been a very pretty sight, if Thuch didn't have a very good guess why they were headed there. Somewhere off to their left, she could sense the sea burbling and spraying salt into the air. To their right, the Great Walls rose up, an impossibly high row of greyish-brown peaks blocking any from continuing on. This peak ahead would then be the mountain range's start... the Sacred Rock that Pierced the Sky.

The ride up to the top of the mountain was equally uneventful, though Thuch's heart was racing as they went up. Back home, hushed voices spoke of the punishment for those who were found to be in league with the dark god Chidi. Given that they were true, it was rather terrifying to think that the beautiful view over the swamp, farther than Thuch had ever seen, would be passing by at terminal velocity within the hour. Rooch had somehow managed to catch some sleep during the night, so Thuch awoke them again.

"How are you feeling?" Thuch whispered.

"Ugh... still a little battered. But no matter! We shall go down fighting."

Thuch nodded, but thinking about it too hard made her feel sick, so she instead forced herself to breathe deeply and admire the view. It was not long before the chanting picked up again, and the summit drew near. It was a twenty-foot-square patch of flat bald rock, dropping off steeply opposite the well-worn trail. The cart came to a stop, and an oldish pig approached the front. He turned, and addressed the others in plain Piglish.

"Fellow holy members of The Cycle, I welcome you..." he went on, reciting words he had clearly heard many times before. The service drew on for minutes, broken only by the rustle of wind, and birds calling out in the morning light. Eventually, the time came where the religious leader turned and asked the two friends to meet their fate. Another pig stepped up and unlocked the cage, and that was when they made their move.

Rooch sprang into action before the door even opened, bashing through it and slamming it into the old leader, sending him flying. They then jumped the edge of the cart and tackled another pig to the ground, biting at their sensitive ears. Thuch had been prepared this time, and with the cart still, she had time to latch onto remains lying beneath the earth - very old remains. She called them to the surface, and they answered. A cloud of bone fragments erupted from the ground across the area. They knitted together in midair into three full, unusually large pig skeletons and attacked the guards waiting to escort the prisoners. Color flashed in the morning sun from the flawless jewels embedded in their bones.

Realizing that Thuch was just standing in the cart controlling the skeletons, a few pigs got behind it and started to push, attempting to roll over the others in their way. Thuch noticed the movement, and jumped clear. She whispered to the skeletons and they dove out of the way, tackling opponents with them. Some of the other pigs were not as lucky, and the cart bashed into them in its momentum, leaving them dazed and crushed. Still, the pigs pushed, not seeing that she had escaped, and the cart tipped over the edge of the cliff. The pigs let out a cheer when the cart crashed into the cliffside a few seconds later, only to turn and see the fight still raging around them.

Rooch had managed to subdue their first quarry, and charged back against the wave blocking the safe path down the mountain. Thuch tried to stay behind them as they and her skeletons headbutted and hit through the barrier. But the pigs kept coming back, and soon they packed into a tight formation, repelling the attack. Now they pushed, driving the friends closer and closer to the edge.

A pig in the crowd called out "We've got ‘em! Get the Dark Practitioner!" The other members of the crowd took up the chant.

Keeping track of telling three skeletons what to do with the chanting echoing through her ears was costing Thuch all her focus. She took no notice of how far they'd moved until Rooch called out, "Hey, we're getting awful close here!"

A cheer went up among the crowd, and they only pressed harder. The two friends fought with all they had, but were realizing that it wouldn't be enough. No matter how hard they hit and slammed, there were more pigs to swarm back in. They could feel the updraft of the cliff on their tails, then, in one final push, Rooch was forced one step too far, and slid over the edge. Their hooves scrabbled at the rock for a moment, before the crowd shoved them, Thuch, and all of the skeletons over the edge.

It's funny how certain death racing towards you inspires the mind. As she fell through the cold morning air, watching the side of the mountain rush toward her, Thuch remembered she had one more card to play, and she took it. As she had done accidentally the day before, she reached out with her heart, and felt the disk sitting just under her pig's skin, warm and humming, ready to do as she asked. At her command, it began to slowly turn, and her form began to shift. With a loud crackling, her legs drew in, her neck pushed out, and her body thinned. Feathers shot out of her now-hairless skin, and finally, a pair of giant wings sprouted from her back. She was now in the body of an eagle.

She dove headfirst and grabbed Rooch, who was cursing, with her new talons. Now the hard bit. Remembering how to fly. It had been so long since she'd taken another form, even this one, an old favorite. But her muscles didn't forget, and slowly, her wings caught the wind and she and Rooch began to rise once more into the sky. Rooch was clearly trying to say something, but without the form of Thuch the pig, she couldn't understand the earthy grunts of Piglish. She tried to smile down at them, but it probably didn't come through with a beak.

She had nearly made it to the nearby mountain when Rooch managed to squirm far enough to sink their teeth into her claws. The pain caused her to falter for a second, but she regained height, and then dove for the ground. She dropped Rooch, then perched on the sands. They stood back up and, while she still couldn't understand them, she knew Rooch well enough to guess the curses they were forming. She ignored the rageful sound, and instead focused, breathing deeply, and feeling once more her Heart Disk. Once more it turned, and in a matter of moments, she was again Thuch the pig.

"...offspring of a vampire bat and a..." Just after Thuch regained her Piglish understanding, Rooch stopped mid-sentence, then said, confused, "Thuch?"

"Yes, it's me."

"What?" Rooch said, "But... there was an eagle... and it just... turned into you?"

"Yeah... I can do that. It's a long story, which I swear I'll tell you later."

Rooch blinked again. "I know one thing; that's not a necromancer's magic. My friend is doubly magic! A super-duper-hero!"

Thuch smiled, thankful for having such a good friend. "That was a pretty painless reveal. I think we have some company coming."

Behind Rooch, a goat was making his way down the mountain. He smelled of clear water and campfires. He jumped to make his way down the sheer cliff face, his hooves clopping against the rough rocks. His gray-furred body was strangely built, made for this exact movement. He now stood in front of the pair, regarded them, then looked beyond them, at the Sacred Rock that Pierced the Sky, where the disarranged pigs were still in chaos after the friends' departure. The goat looked back at them, and nodded. Then, he turned and headed back in the direction he'd come - but along a gentler, pig-followable path.

"I think we've got a place to stay, for now." Thuch said to Rooch.

"How'd you know?"

"I spent a little time up here, before coming to Doothi. These goats, they worship chaos, and allow any who live by the same standards. And I think... we've impressed them."