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#Pisca is a big fish monger and half water monster
crayonurchin · 3 years
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Anyone who’s lived in the town long enough remembers a woman named Valerie. She was a small little thing, straw coloured hair pulled tight in a bun, a straw hat with hand sewn bows and flowers decorating it, and modest dresses with charming flowery designs.
She took ownership of a small building and set up a fish mongers operation. Without ice it was only ever open for a few hours at the crack of dawn before the heat beat down, but there was always enough fish for people that were buying. And that was her secret she never shared- how such a tiny scrap of a person could catch so much fish by herself. She had no family, no partner, nothing.
Then one day she opened shop with her daughter. She was only 6, but already a good 5ft tall- strong and hearty. She had thick, wiry hair pulled into tight plaits, wore a frock that would be a size too big one week then a size too small the next, with a scarf wrapped up to her face. Valerie introduced her daughter as Pisca.
Pisca was a good kid, delighted to talk to anyone who came to buy. She also had the strength of an ox, more than once lifting massive loads of fish where groups of men struggled. She loved to show off her pretty dressed mama sewed, was always excited to talk, and was forever being yelled after by her mother to stay close and keep your scarf on.
This arrangement continued for 14 years, day in day out. They’d come to town with fish, sell out by 10am, then either leave or, if Valerie needed to shop, give Pisca time to run about and socialise. By now the young woman was at least 8 ft tall- it was obvious she wasn’t entirely human, but the topic never came up and was never mentioned. Valerie had always been incredibly private, for all she was friendly, and it was understood that if she didn’t want a subject spoken about, then it was not spoken about.
The one day there was no fish. None the next either. No Valerie, no Pisca. The shop doors stayed closed for a month.
When the shop opened, there was only Pisca. Her colourful dress had dulled, her hair pulled into plaits that were now a little less neat, her cheery expression sullen.
“My mother is very sick. I have to provide so we may find medicine or a cure.”
It’s been 10 years, and the town lost a little bit of light. The shop still opens early every day, still with fish to sell- but the joy the little mongers brought died. Pisca, now 31, is a quiet, dark person, who hardly says a word. She still wears her scarf- no matter the heat, covering the lower half of her face. Sometimes she buys strange things- sometimes she asks strange questions 
“have the new men spoken of mutterings in the mines?” “what time of day are the vultures now flying?” “Who last saw the dandelions?” There’s a few people she’ll speak to. Her mothers’ friend the barkeep at the Two Horn Inn, or the local cryptid elf- though those meetings are scarce seen.
Should you follow her out of town (and believe me, she’s hard to follow) You’d find her not returning to a home, but to the lake. There, she removed the once vibrant dress, folds int carefully and hands it tenderly in an old, low tree alongside many other articles of clothing- some her size, some the size of a petite woman, before diving below the waters.
You will not see her resurface until the next day.
And if you were stupid enough to get close enough to look, then you’d watch this huge woman transform into a bull shark. One who swims down, down, down to the bottom of the lake, then disappears through a cave entrance.
Anyone with the power to breathe underwater and a serious death wish would see inside, the lost woman named Valerie. She’s alive, but very much sick, and encased in an enchanted air bubble. Blue skin lines her lips, a dark colour pulsing in her veins. She is always asleep. Once in the bubble, Pisca is once again human- and without her scarf you see her rows and rows of shark teeth. She tries mixing elixirs, potions, anything- but nothing seems to be working.
When the bubble begins to shrink, a tentacle as long as a train carriage emerges from the lightless depth and replenishes it.
If you were close enough to see all of this, you’d never see who that colossal tentacle belongs to. Because if Pisca hasn’t killed you by now, then her second mother has.
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