Face-Slapping14 min read
The Night I Licked the Emperor's Finger (and Became a Walking Piggy Bank)
ButterPicks12 views
The moon was a cold coin over the shore when I sat on a black rock and wrapped kelp around myself like a sad scarf.
"I keep asking, System, how long until I can be human again?" I whispered.
"You have about one hour," the System replied, voice flat as a ledger.
I scowled and pinched the kelp. "An hour. An hour and a half of seaweed and sharks. Great."
I moved my tail a little, testing the water. A cherry-red fin flashed out of the darkness and slapped the sea like someone stamping out a spark.
"Of all the things a person in another world could become," I muttered, "I had to get a fish body."
"You have ten points left," the System said. "You need true dragon blood or points to live. One point feeds you a day. A drop of true dragon blood buys you three days."
I stared at my hands—hands that had no business being fins—and then at the single round pearl in my lap that had once been a tear.
"I earned pearls. I have pearls," I said, fingers worrying the chilly bead. "Three days. That's three days of being allowed to be alive?"
"It is what it is," the System said. "Also: your eye-pearls are cherry-red. Economically favorable."
I sighed. "Thanks. Very flattering."
I hauled myself—awkward, wobbling—into a fisherman’s thin shirt I’d swiped from a shack. The salt smell clung to me. I limped toward the cheap inn tasting warm meat in my head like a dream. Food was a small miracle. The Systems can be cruel; the stomach is crueler.
"Check, please," I called when my mouth finally stopped swallowing that pig knuckle whole.
"Here you go," the server said. I handed him my pearl casually. "Keep the change," I lied, though I felt like a queen for five seconds.
Then I tripped on a split board and ate the dust. The server stifled a smile. I got up, checked my dress and my dignity, and hobbled into the night toward the palace wall.
"The emperor," the System said suddenly, voice sharp. "He's nearby."
I saw the palace then—stone high and black against the moon. Guards were posted like teeth along the gate. I thought: I can't get in. I am a newly-legged mermaid with two cracked toes and a debt to the world. I thought: where do you find true dragon blood? The System didn't help. "I do not know," it said.
I slumped on the cold stones and clutched the wall until something heavy hit the ground with a thud, like a sack of silk being dropped.
I froze. Then I crawled to the thud.
There he lay, face cut, chest bleeding, a thin robe torn and ridiculous under the moon. He looked like sculpture left out in a fight.
"Is he—dead?" I asked the System.
"He is the emperor," the System said. "You saved him. You are required by mission to save emperor-class targets. Also: he is named Edgar Berg."
Edgar Berg.
He looked barely out of his teens. He looked like someone who had never carried a burden he didn't choose. He looked like a ruin you wanted to sit inside and fix.
I checked the chest wound. It was deep. "I don't have bandages," I told the System. "Do I have hands big enough to tear this robe?"
You would think the robe would rip like paper. I tugged. It didn't budge.
I ended up carrying him awkwardly and dragging him into a ruined house because the guards were sweeping the streets and men in black were hunting like wolves.
"Keep still," I whispered when he moaned. "I can't even rip your robe. Why don't robes in stories rip?"
"Because actors have strong arms," the System snorted.
I finally sat him up and got the robe off. He was warm and smelled faintly of something like pine and old winter. He was alive. He breathed shallowly, then deeper. I wrapped pieces of cloth around his chest until the blood slowed.
He opened his eyes like someone waking from a bad dream.
"Pretty sister," he said in a voice that made my knees feel soft. "I hurt."
"Pretty—what?" I said.
"Pretty sister," he repeated, as if I had read him a title. "I am cold. Who are you?"
He blinked and looked lost. Edgar blinked as if the world had swapped its script.
"You're the emperor," I said, absurdly.
He blinked farther, then smiled like a child who finds a new toy. "I have a sister?" he asked. "You—did you come to my house?"
He said it in a voice that made me buckle, because I had expected an old, stern emperor. I had not expected a confused, handsome boy who called me "pretty sister" and held my hand as if I was the center of his small universe.
"Don't say anything," said the System. "Someone is coming."
"Hide," I whispered. "We will go to a safe place."
We moved through alleys. Black-clad men combed the streets. At one crossroad, somebody shouted, "He's bleeding! Search!"
I ducked and pulled Edgar—who had flopped into a sleepy sort of trust—into a broken old tobacco shed. He slept with his head in my lap like a cat. I stared at his chest, and the System finally told me why the world was wrong for me.
"True dragon blood is the emperor's blood," it said. "True dragon blood is the emperor's blood because the emperor is the true dragon."
"You mean… his blood is basically a life-saving juice for me?" I asked.
"It is," said the System. "Also: you have some pearls."
I did not want to think of what I had just done: a tiny licked drop from his small finger earlier when we slept in an alley had given me three days. The System saved me with a very awkward reward.
When he woke fully, he said, "Pretty sister, I hurt. Where is my house?"
"You're staying with me for a while," I said, lying fast. "We are married."
He brightened. "You are my wife?"
"Yes," I said, and I imagined the world's rules bending to fit my bargain.
We fled to a nearby fishing village where I put him in a big jar disguised as wine because the city had posters of the emperor's face under "Wanted: escaped" and "Reward: heavy." I did not think faking him as some drunk merchant's cargo would be the smartest plan, but it worked: guards scanned carts and passed.
We met Patricio Aldridge, a sturdy, kind fisherman with a dark face and honest hands. He let us live in a spare room. He accepted the little cherry pearl I handed him as a promise.
"You keep it safe," I told him. "If anyone asks, it's nothing."
"I will keep it safe," Patricio said, and the pearl sank into his pocket like a promise.
That night, in the dark, Edgar—my so-called husband—called me "Nonna," or rather "Pretty sister" in a soft, childish voice. He did not know who he was. The men who had stabbed him had poisoned him with something that scrambled memory. The System said the poison was not in the blood, so the drop I licked did not harm me. The System said we had time—only a little.
"Your face is lovely," Edgar murmured. "Can I kiss you? Are you my wife?"
I choked and laughed at the wrong time. "No kissing," I said. "We have a better plan."
We lived in Patricio's house, and the small village stared. People gawked the first day. Cats stopped mid-groom. I pretended to be a tired newcomer; Edgar wore a mask I had given him—a feathered mask that turned his already impossible face into a secret. He liked to call me "Nonna" and hold my hand like it was the most natural thing in the world.
"Why do you hide your face?" villagers asked. "Is he ashamed?"
"He is shy," I said. "He only lets me see his face."
We ate. Patricio cured small wounds. He told us about a neighbor woman—regular gossip, a woman who came by every day with a sharp tongue and a larger mouth. I kept my eyes on the road.
Her name, I learned, was Katharina Figueroa.
She was loud, round-shouldered, a hands-slapper, a woman who had held too many plates and not enough secrets. She asked questions. She wanted to know where we came from. She wanted to know what we had brought.
"Does he have any gold?" she asked once, leaning over our bowl.
"He's poor," I said.
She smiled like a fox. Her husband—someone called Jayden Phillips—ambled behind and said things that made my teeth itch. Jayden was a lazy man with a wide mouth who liked to throw insults like pebbles.
"You two look like you hid a bag of grain," he said to Patricio. "Rich people can hide things. Where is the wealth?"
"We left everything behind," Edgar said obediently. He meant it the way a child accepts a rule.
There were small cruelties. Katharina pressed her face to mine like a hungry bird. Jayden pointed. Remarks flew like netting. We were small and they were many.
"I don't like their eyes," I told the System. "They're greedy."
"Keep your pearls secure," it said. "They are very valuable."
"They're my tears," I said, and Patricio took the pearl to his chest like it would warm him.
Days passed. Edgar slept and woke like a child. He smiled and said things like, "Pretty sister, your hair looks like a tide." He called me his wife across the room and meant it like a game.
Sometimes I would go swimming at night to keep my legs from wanting to change shape. I would slide into the water and feel my tail bloom and my lungs forgive me for a while. The sea steadied my mind. On shore, the village moved like a slow fish.
Then Katharina tried to take what she could not have.
One afternoon, the village market was noisy and hot. There was a tie-of-the-village festival—dances, salted fish, a small bell that was rung when bargains were fair. Women lined up with baskets. Men traded nets. Jayden swaggered and drank and told a story about someone who had hidden something in a house.
"Someone brought a rich thing to Patricio's," Jayden said loudly, slapping his thigh. "A jewel! A pearl!"
People froze. "What—who—" murmurs flew.
I stayed calm and smiled because I knew what was inside Patricio's trunk: my pearl had been returned to him for safekeeping. I had only given him one; I still had one or two tucked in my sleeve because of course I did.
Then Katharina raised her voice like a bell and called, "Patricio! What is that in your satchel? Let us see!"
Patricio tightened his hands. He looked like a man who had never been asked to argue before.
"We have no need for spectacle," he said quietly.
"Show us!" Katharina demanded. "If there's treasure in the house, I demand a share. You married your daughter into wealth once; don't pretend you're poor now."
The crowd angled toward the house like insects toward light. Murmurs grew.
I saw the plan unfold like a trap. Jayden had seeded the rumor and now Katharina wanted to take the treasure. She wanted to expose Patricio and claim the pearl for herself. That would mean she knew nothing of law and everything of greed.
I could have hidden. I should have hidden. But Edgar—the emperor who was a child in a king's body—was asleep in the small room and could be seen. If Katharina forced Patricio to unveil the satchel, the mask might slip. I was not only surviving; I was responsible.
I stood up slowly.
"Stop," I said.
Heads turned. A woman with a basket of anchovies turned and stared like I had insulted a god.
"Claire," said Patricio—he had called me Claire on the third day—and his voice shook. "Why—"
I lifted my head.
"Katharina," I called, and the market went very quiet. "You have said many things. You have called my husband a fool. You have said my guardian lies. You have said Patricio holds treasure for himself. All of that is easy to say when you have hands ready to grab."
Katharina's face puckered. "What are you doing?" she snapped. "You are not of simple blood."
"Maybe not," I said. "But I am the person standing here. You have been trying to get what you were not given. You have stolen gossip and fed it to Jayden. You have been loud about another's things, and you have eyed the pearl."
"Motive!" Jayden barked. "She—"
"Shut up," I said, and my voice was sharp.
Then I did the thing people do not expect on a market day: I told the truth in pieces.
"Yesterday," I said, "you came to Patricio's and asked to look in his chest. He refused. You said you wanted to bring food to help. Later you told Jayden to start a rumor about treasure at his house. Jayden told the fishermen by the docks. You told him what to say. You told the mayor's wife. You then showed up this morning with an accusation on your lips and a coin in your palm."
I named small facts. A woman who had been selling sea beans nodded—quick, subtle—at something I had said and then looked away. A boy with a pet crab had seen Jayden whispering to a man by the well. My fingers found evidence in others' eyes—small details that fit together when someone listens.
"Are you accusing me?" Katharina snapped.
"I am not accusing you," I said. "I am showing you what you have shown my back. You touched Patricio's satchel last month. You lifted the hem of his blanket. A child saw your hands."
"That is a lie!" she cried. "I would never—"
"Look at Jayden," I said. "Look at the man who called for your bravado. He points fingers and laughs. You would like a share, and you have lied to make one."
I reached into my sleeve. The pearl hummed, warm and foreign. I could trade it and live in comfort for months. The System would applaud me for shrewdness.
"Do you want to see the pearl?" I asked.
That was blasphemy for a crowd. The market gasped. Eyes shone with simple greed and simple need.
"Yes," Katharina said, too quick. "Yes, I want to see."
I held the pearl out like something ordinary. It was small and red and ridiculous, a tear with too much meaning.
"That is not Patricio's," I said. "It was given by Patricio after I begged him to keep it safe. He did. He refused you. Jayden and you set this up to make him open his satchel in front of every neighbor and let you have what was not yours."
"That's not true!" Katharina screamed. She stepped forward. "Patricio—tell them!"
Patricio did not need to speak. He reached for the satchel, put both arms around it, and said simply, "I keep what is given."
Then I did something I had rehearsed in the dark: I told them the whole story—how the man with the dangerous plan had stabbed a youth with a poisoned blade near the palace; how I had found Edgar; how I had licked a small wound and saved my life; how I had a pearl that was my tear and that Patricio was keeping it for me. I spoke about money, yes, but I spoke about truth more. I described Jayden's whisper, Katharina's stoop, the boy's crab, the woman at the well.
Faces changed. Some were ashamed. Some were outraged.
Then I accused properly.
"You set the rumor to strip Patricio of dignity and take what you did not earn," I said. "You used gossip as your weapon."
"You're a liar!" Katharina shouted. "You come into our village and lie about my name."
"Do you deny you lifted his blanket?" I asked.
She answered like someone who had nothing left to lose: "I deny everything."
A woman near the salted fish stall—an old woman with one tooth—bent and whispered something to two men. They left for the mayor's house. Voices spread. People started to pull out phones—still strange little boxes, but enough to capture a moment.
Then came the collapse.
"Enough," said a man with a lined face. He was old enough to be anyone's father. "You have caused trouble. If you are innocent, you will say so and apologize."
Katharina had been smug a moment ago. Now she looked smaller. You could see the smugness slip off like wet cloth. Jayden's face paled; he shuffled.
"Apologize," the old man repeated. "And leave what you take from Patricio's house. Whoever coerces a man with lies will pay in shame."
People do not always like humiliation. They are eager for fairness more often. My voice was small but steady.
"If she is innocent," I said, "she will apologize now."
Katharina's face flickered. She glared at me like someone seeing a mirror for the first time. Then she laughed, a high, brittle sound, and said, "You think you can make me apologize? Who are you?"
"I am Claire Alston," I said. "And I will not let you bully Patricio."
Her laugh stopped. She glared at her husband, at the crowd, at the sky. Then she faltered.
"I—did not mean to harm," she started. "I—" Her voice quavered like a rope before it breaks.
"Tell the truth, Katharina," I said softly.
She looked at Jayden. He looked at the ground. The crowd leaned in. For a breath, there was silence. Her mouth opened and closed. The first step of truth is like waking from a lie.
"Fine," she said. "I did it. I hoped—" Her voice collapsed into a whine. "I thought if I made Patricio look poor, the village would—things would come back. I thought—"
"Why?" I asked.
She sputtered. "Because we are hungry. Because they have food and I have none. Because I'm tired of being told to go home. I wanted what was in his chest and I asked Jayden to say it. I told him where I had seen signs. I didn't mean—"
"Then own it," I said. "You will stand here and say it."
She tried to lift her head. At first she was defiant. Then her face went blank and she begged. It happened like this:
First, an old pride. Her shoulders straightened. She spat denial. Then the market's attention weighed on her. She scowled to denial again. Then, as a young mother stepped forward with a child she could not feed that week and said, "If you steal from the honest, what hope do we have?" Katharina's eyes moved from the mother to the child. The child's small hand gripped her skirt.
The smugness crumbled. Her voice turned raw. "I am sorry," she said, voice shaking. "I am sorry for making lies. I am sorry for trying to take what did not belong to me."
The crowd exhaled like a sea. People pulled out phones and filmed. It was a human thing to record. They whispered. Some clapped. Some hissed. A child laughed at the absurdity. A fisherman's wife threw a small fish tail at Katharina's feet as if to say: you ate envy and belched ash.
Then the old man stepped forward. He barked out what would be the punishment: "You will kneel. You will return the coin you gave Jayden. You will apologize to Patricio and to Claire. You will publicly promise not to do this again."
Katharina sank to her knees like a willow dropped in the mud.
"Please," she begged, tone thin with shock. "I will do anything. Please don't send me away."
"Say it," the old man snapped. "Tell Patricio what you did. Tell Claire why. Tell the market. Apologize for your lies."
She told them in a voice that broke. She cried. Her apologies came in waves, each one washing a little more color from her face. Jayden watched and then, for the first time, he tried to help. He said, "I did it because I wanted more from life." His voice wavered as well.
People reacted like people always do. Some spat; others lifted their eyebrows as if they had read the end of a novel. Someone took a picture. Another person clapped. A little boy shrieked and then ran to his mother. A woman with a battered apron wiped a tear and nodded. The town recorder wrote everything down in shorthand.
Katharina's transformation was not swift. She went from smug to shocked to enraged to pleading to empty. Her hands trembled. She hugged her knees. She begged. "Please," she said, again and again. "Forgive me. I can't—" Her words dwindled to a whisper.
When the crowd's attention turned to the child she had touched with greed, the woman who had spoken earlier stepped forward and placed the child in Katharina's lap.
"Hold her," the woman said. "Keep this as a reminder."
Katharina looked at the child, at the child’s chubby fist, and then she started to cry in a way that had nothing theatrical in it—only real, ragged grief for what she had chosen.
"Enough," the old man said finally. "We are not kings. We do not burn houses. We teach and we correct. You will work three months for Patricio without pay. You will help him mend nets. You will not leave the village for a year. If you break this promise, we will take the oars from you."
Katharina nodded like a puppet. She had no choice. The crowd watched as she was led to the fish sheds, where she would string fish and stitch nets publicly until the story of her greed was retold like a lesson.
"Is this public enough?" she whimpered at one point, voice small enough for only me to hear.
"It is," I said. "And fair."
She lapsed into silence. The market resumed. People returned to their bargaining and story-making. But the taste of justice was salty and bright. Jayden’s face was red with shame and the way he avoided people's eyes told me that this moment would not leave him soon.
Later, when the village lights burned low and the fireflies stitched the dark, Patricio sat me down and took my hand.
"You did right," he said. "You saved us the cost of a fight. You kept what is ours honest."
"I keep what I need," I said. "And I keep the rest of my tears for the sea."
Edgar slept in a little room upstairs and called me "my wife" in the night. He smiled in his sleep like a child. He pressed my fingers to his mouth and mumbled, "Nonna."
I laughed softly and pretended not to be counting days. I knew the System was a ledger at heart: points, blood, time. I also knew the truth of my choice.
"Edgar," I said once in the dark, when his eyes were awake and clear like windows, "if you get your memory back, and you go back to the palace, do you promise me—you will remember the little pond behind the inn? The wooden board with the nail we used as an excuse?"
He blinked and then nodded solemnly like a prince who agrees to ransom a cat.
"I will remember you," he said. "I will remember the girl who licked my finger."
"Good," I said. "Because I need you to remember so I can keep eating for a while."
We laughed. The sea kept its old, greedy rules. The System kept counting. But for a little while, in a crooked fishing village lit by an oil lamp and the moon, we were safe.
I put the pearl back into the little cloth. I could have sold it for a year's comfort. Instead, I put it into Patricio's hands and let the village know where the truth lived.
It was a small act of mercy and a careful theft from fate.
In the morning, when Katharina stood among the nets with a fish scale in her hair and people shook their heads at her, Edgar climbed the wooden board in our room and tapped at the small nail as if to check if it had loosened.
"Do you feel stronger?" I asked.
He smiled, and for once it was not lost. "I do," he said. "Because you are here."
And I—Claire Alston, born of brine and awkward luck—smiled back. I had stolen the emperor's sleep and saved myself. I had given away a pearl and taken a village's trust. I had watched someone be humbled in a market with cameras and salt, and I had felt the world tilt toward fairness for a little span.
At night I still go to the water. I still remember the taste of his finger and the warm pulse that let me live. I still plan the next step: find a doctor, cure him, keep him safe long enough to be useful. The System calls it a quest. I call it a greedy plan with a brave heart.
"Keep the wooden board with the nail," Edgar tells me once. He laughs as if it is a joke.
I tuck the pearl into my pocket and slide my wet hand over the nail as I walk past, touching the rough wood that once had held the trap. I hear the sea's whisper under the wind, and I think: one more day.
The End
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