A Pink Lion

“It is a roy­al sport, Clemen­sa,” said a dark and sun­baked man. With man­i­cured fin­gers, he thumbed sabot­ed flèchettes into a squat mag­a­zine. Sweat bead­ed on his fore­arms and brow.

Across the fold­ing table, Clemen­sa, clutch­ing a thick demi­tasse of cof­fee, nod­ded slack­ly. He looked out under his pith hat into the jun­gle, blink­ing against heavy sun amidst dark trees’ fronds. Their camp, attend­ed by two tan and pith-clad ser­vants, lay along­side a mud­dy and algae-slicked path through the steam­ing labyrinth of trees.

He blinked away sweat. “So you keep repeat­ing, Elizar.”

Elizar pursed his lips, know­ing­ly. “I do, I do. Those haughty Firls, for all their queer­ness, have dis­cov­ered even in our own coun­try the best sport.”

“Yes, where it is spoil­ing hot.”

“Drink more espres­so. You will sweat bet­ter.”

Clemen­sa har­rumphed and swal­lowed his cof­fee. Cre­ma stuck to his mous­tache. He curled his lip, frowned into the thick­et. “And they are in there, Elizar? The storks?”

“Yes, but high­er up the slopes.” He took up a long gun­spring fur­nished in wal­nut and fil­i­gree from the table and worked the action. “We will go to meet them after lunch.”

“At sies­ta,” whined Clemen­sa.

“Yes. When they soar low to hunt. The islanders sleep inside, to avoid them.”

“How wise.”

“Ai, you will not com­plain so, with a giz­zard stone for your man­tel­piece and a great beak for your wall.” * He grinned. “In any case, your beau, my dear sis­ter, will find you a more impres­sive hus­band, for it.”

Clemen­sa’s look did not improve.

Down the path, a bur­ble of grum­bling voic­es and slosh­ing boots swelled. Clemen­sa watched them approach, dul­ly. 

They were grim, sweat­ed folk. Eight in all; all ragged, poor, bit­ten red by the sun and slick with cease­less jun­gle steam. Many wore blotchy ban­dages on fresh wounds. Four in the lead sup­port­ed some­thing slung heavy and sway­ing neath two poles—a large car­cass hid­den by tarp. Two fol­lowed, car­ry­ing bun­dles of long clubs. And after them fol­lowed two more. They lugged a limp, brown woman in their wake, slashed through her leak­ing bel­ly as if by claws.

Clemen­sa’s eyes widened. “Lord,” he said, run­ning a thumb over his mous­tache. “Look, Elizar. What are they?”

Elizar turned to look, briefly. “Oh, hunters,” said he, turned his eyes back to pol­ish­ing his gun­spring.

Rapt, Clemen­sa watched the small parade go by. He craned to look neath their tarp. Naught but a sliv­er of smooth, taut flesh showed below, smooth and mat­te pink as a rose petal. “Of what? What beast have they caught, there?”

“Lion pop­py.”

“A flower?”

“Yes, but more leop­ard than pix­ie.”

“Are they maneaters, those lions?”

“They kill a few dozen farm­ers, year­ly,” said Elizar, dis­in­ter­est­ed.

Hair rose on Clemen­sa’s arms, lift­ed beads of sweat. “Sounds right­eous prey. Fero­cious, too. Look what it did to that woman,” he ges­tured.

“Fero­cious? Yes. Refined sport? No.” Elizar blinked at him. “Do not tell me you are think­ing what I think you are think­ing.”

“But, Elizar,” said Clemen­sa, rais­ing his hands. “Look at them. They are poor, they hunt with clubs, and yet they take more right­eous prey than us.” He opened his palms. “We aim to shoot down sil­ly birds while they bet­ter the jun­gle for all of us.”

“Come, now. The storks are maneaters, too.”

“They eat near­ly no one, these years.”

Elizar frowned. “Bah, the lion pop­pies are policed well enough.”

“But not yet well enough, so you admit­ted. Why do we not join in hunt­ing them, Elizar? Why do you dis­ap­prove, so?”

Elizar set down his gun, point­ed a hand, palm up, at the retreat­ing parade and their kill. “Because, Clemen­sa,” he said. “Pop­py hunters are des­per­a­dos. Lowlives.”

Clemen­sa frowned. “But, they are so brave.”

“Theirs is the courage of greedy men,” Elizar said, lean­ing for­ward. Clemen­sa frowned, lis­ten­ing.

Elizar walked two fin­gers over the table­top. “They go to the pop­py’s haunt with but clubs, and they do not track; they do not stalk.” He shook his head. “They play the lion’s roulette.”

Clemen­sa’s lips part­ed. “They act as bait?”

His friend nod­ded. “They wait for the beast to come. All know they are bait, but all are com­fort­ed that only one will become prey.”

“And when the pop­py strikes?”

“They strike, too. Leap and pum­mel it down before it can take one of them away.” Elizar crossed his arms. “Often, it works. Often, a suc­cess­ful hunt requires a trad­ed life.”

“But why clubs? Have they no oth­er weapons, they are so poor?”

Elizar shook his head, drummed his fin­gers over his elbows. “Clubs, for they do not wish to pierce its petal-hide.”

“So they do not spill its blood?”

“Exact­ly.”

“What blood is worth a life?” Clemen­sa looked offend­ed.

“The pop­py’s blood, of course. Pink blood—” said Elizar. He squint­ed down the path where the hunters had gone. Naught remained of them but foot­prints and drib­bled gore. “Is worth its weight in gold.”

“Oi, Borl.”

A boot nudged Bor­l’s mid­sec­tion. He did­n’t respond. “Your watch, green­horn.” Her tone was gruff, ade­noidal. Loud in the night. **

On the stick-strewn for­est floor, Bor­l’s scruffy head emerged from a pile of blan­kets. He looked bleari­ly up, groan­ing, shut his eyes again, yawn­ing abun­dant­ly.

“Ewgh. Can smell your breath from here,” said the boot’s own­er,
a pasty woman in a woolen hat tugged over a steel skull­cap.

“Shove off, Jen.” Borl blinked away sleep, frowned mis­er­ably.

“Shoosh,” said Jen, point­ing about. “Ye’ll wake the mates.” Near­by, hud­dled round a ket­tle on a fire of waver­ing coals, dozed more snor­ing piles of blan­kets.

She nudged him again. “Git up, yeah? Yer wast­ing me turn in the sack.”

Borl moaned, crawled gin­ger­ly out of the nest. He tot­tered to the fire, hunched there. A moon­lit halo of fly­away hairs ringed his dour expres­sion. Beside, the ket­tle pinged and creaked, cool­ing.

Jen flopped atop the vacant blan­kets, sighed. Both her knees popped. She loos­ened her cap, stretched. “Yer boots,” she grunt­ed, tugged the sor­ry, creased things from midst the blan­kets.

Borl took them, word­less. Slow­ly, painful­ly, he tugged them over socks stained by the weep­ing of swollen feet. Winc­ing, he laced them loose. Jen watched, frowned.

“Yer havin’ a bad time of it,” she stat­ed, some gruff­ness gone from her tone.

“M’fine.” Borl avert­ed his gaze.

“Got te take ’em off more often, ‘spe­cial­ly after swamps, like yes­ter­day,” nod­ded Jen. “Dry ’em off ‘n rub some whale grease on. Pre­vents the gan­grene.” She dragged over a scuffed leather back­pack, unbut­toned it. “Here, bor­row some, fer now.”

She rolled him a fat, oily tin. “And get ye new boots, when ye can afford it. Boots are impor­tant.” She nod­ded, know­ing­ly.

Borl took the tin. “Thanks,” he said, undo­ing his laces.

“And these, I s’p­pose. Don’t pay me no favors back.” Jen tossed him a pair of balled socks.

Borl looked at them, askance. “Got some angle? Why’re you being so gen­er­ous?”

“Got no angle,” said Jen. She fid­dled with a strap, shrug­ging, look­ing out at the woods. A coal popped in the fire.

“ ‘Cept there’s no school for the tricks to cut­ter­ing,” she said, frown­ing. “An’ most who know’d rather eat’ye than teach ye, so there’s no harm ‘n teachin’.”

She scratched a scar on her chin. “S’p­pose I’ve seen too many of you green lot wast­ed.” She nod­ded. “S’p­pose that’s my angle.”

Borl nod­ded, slow. He took the socks and, winc­ing, undid his boots and putrid socks. Care­ful­ly, he propped his raw soles to dry beside the waver­ing coals.

“How many ven­tures’ve you been on, Jen?” he said qui­et­ly.

“Twen­ty two,” Jen said, flat. “Two years. Lot o’ debt to pay.”

Borl shiv­ered. “This is my sec­ond.”

“Yer luck­i­er than lots, then.”

“Don’t feel it.”

“Nor do I, meself.”

They sat qui­et, a moment. Jen looked out into the black and grey trees, twig­gy in their autumn bare­ness. Borl shift­ed a few sticks into the coals and shift­ed clos­er, half shut­ting his eyes.

“Any brew left in th’ket­tle?” mut­tered Jen.

Borl nudged it with a toe. It sloshed. “Aye.”

“Pour me one, aye?”

He did, passed a tin cup over.

“M’thanks.” Jen rum­maged in her pack, removed a square, small bot­tle. A pink lion reclined on the stained label. Dull fire­light flick­ered in its curves of brown glass. She bit off the cork and applied four drops of shiny flu­id, so red as to be black, to the sour cup of brew. 

Borl watched her, inquis­i­tive.

Jen looked sheep­ish. “The old lion, for me sleep,” she explained. “Twen­ty-two ven­tures don’t afford ye muchrest.”

“What is it?”

Fast, Jen swal­lowed the doc­tored brew. Its astrin­gency drew a gri­mace from her. “A trick te cut­ter­ing I’d not rec­om­mend.” She set down the bot­tle, laid stiffly to ground, rolled a blan­ket over hunched shoul­ders. “Enjoy yer watch, green­horn.”

Borl grunt­ed in return. He remained at the fire, attend­ed to his sor­row­ful feet with a slather of grease and a new pull of socks. He replaced his boots, and then sat, lis­ten­ing to the wind. The click­ing of dry branch­es, the mum­bling of sur­round­ing sleep­ers. Soon, Jen began to snore.

Near­by, the lit­tle bot­tle lay on its side. Borl watched the sparse glow of breath­ing embers swell and fade in its sur­face, warm. He shiv­ered. Qui­et, he crawled over and picked it up. Under the lion, stained in brown, were a few type­set phras­es: “Buschmacher’s No.1 Lau­danum: 11% Tinc­ture of coqueli­cot.”

Chary, he pulled out the tiny cork, sniffed it, frowned at the smell of raw alco­hol and spoiled spices. Shiv­er­ing, glanc­ing fre­quent­ly at the sleep­ers around, he poured the last of the ket­tle’s brew, dropped four gleam­ing dots of red-black lau­danum into the cup. 

Borl replaced the cork and replaced the bot­tle. He returned to the fire, sip­ping the drugged brew. He coughed, looked at it with dis­taste, then swal­lowed the rest hur­ried­ly.

And there he sat, intent, at first, look­ing dul­ly into the sur­round­ing woods. He turned his head to lis­ten to the sounds of the night; for the wind, the rustling branch­es, the snor­ing of his fel­lows. In short order, he tucked his chin and looked dull into the dying coals. He nod­ded, lolled into a list­less slum­ber.

The wind hissed, brush­ing brit­tle boughs. Blan­ket­ed mounds of cut­ters mum­bled in sleepy tor­por.

Not far off, hun­gry and shrill, a wolf spi­der called in the unheard night.

In the deep and steam­ing jun­gles of Illa Cor­voy, there roam pink lions.

Not cats, but flow­ers: Queer pix­ies giv­en large and preda­to­ry form. They have not fur, but rosé flesh. Not tails, but trail­ing stems. Not eyes, but rip­pling petal-manes and sta­men-whiskers girdling tooth-rung mouths. They are lion pop­pies, and they are the jun­gle’s direst hunters.

A lion pop­py walks with soli­tary pur­pose. It requires nei­ther mate nor pride. With­in mere hours of unfurl­ing from its moth­er-stem, it insti­tutes a hunt. Its pur­pose: Bring down a sin­gle quar­ry for use as fer­tile ground.

Like its name­sake, a lion pop­py will seek out its tar­get, pre­pare an ambush, then lead an assault with aban­don. Unlike its mam­malian coun­ter­part, how­ev­er, the pop­py pos­sess­es no mor­tal fear, only a sin­gu­lar dri­ve. It would rather die with its prey than take no prey at all. 

After slay­ing its tar­get, a lion pop­py curls up, sleeps atop it. Quick­ly, it with­ers away, leaves naught but black seeds and a husk of dried flower petals. This con­tin­ues the lion pop­py’s life cycle, pro­vides its seeds a fer­tile car­cass on which to sprout a fresh crop of moth­er-stems.

Year­ly, lion pop­pies slay scores of Illa Cor­voy’s poor bluet farm­ers, seize them from their orchards and drag them to great char­nel-beds of moth­er stems deep midst jun­gle vales. † They take many enough trav­el­ers, too, and count­less fool cut­ters delved too deep in the ruin-choked inte­ri­or of that swal­low­ing isle.

And despite this, many seek will­ing­ly the fero­cious pop­pies. They go trepid into the hot and drip­ping woods, armed with but hick­o­ry clubs, deign to hunt a hunter. They use their own warm bod­ies as bait, aim to lure a sin­gle-mind­ed pop­py into a brawl it can­not best. Once beset, they beat the beast, crush the sim­ple dri­ve out of its rude plant-gan­glia. They club it down even as it draws the throats from their ambushed fel­lows with rings of thorn-teeth.

The hunters club their pop­py ’til its toothy bulb-maw no longer bites, ’til its capac­i­ty to stalk and kill is extin­guished. They bun­dle up the crea­ture, then, along with what­ev­er num­ber of casu­al­ties it inflict­ed, take them jeal­ous­ly home. There, in the hid­den cel­lar-facil­i­ties of the guard­ed under­bel­ly of Port Cor­voy, they hang the beast for a long and tor­tur­ous pro­cess­ing.

For months will a good lion pop­py live, bereft of will, dan­gled by its limbs with its stem-tail fed into bar­rels of nutri­ent rot. There, it will have its pink flesh slit, cut just right so the pink latex blood comes clot­ting out. This pre­cious spill, the ichor of the pop­py, is worth its weight in sil­ver. It is scraped, scabbed and sticky, from count­less inci­sions in the lion’s hide, allowed to run out and clot again for fur­ther col­lec­tion. In the Coast’s most pro­lif­ic pop­py-hous­es, trained prepara­tors tend dozens of hang­ing, bleed­ing lions, draw months of fresh pink juice from their ever-thin­ning husks.

This pink stuff, the pre­cious blood of the lion pop­py, is the source of the Coast’s most heady nar­cot­ic: Coqueli­cot.

In its tra­di­tion­al form, coqueli­cot is a dark pink gum; the prod­uct of dehy­drat­ing raw lion pop­py blood. It is smoked in shad­ed, pil­lowed dens through­out the South, and even by the rarely-lux­u­ri­ant in the North­lands. Small beads, tar­ry and bit­ter, are set to smol­der in chim­neyed pipes a meter long. They burn incred­i­bly hot, are held at arm’s length by reclin­ing, deliri­ous users who draw mouth­ful after mouth­ful of hot, foamy pink smoke into resin-coat­ed lungs.

Sticky, sweet­ly-bit­ter coqueli­cot, whether smoke or oth­er­wise, induces a tor­pid, euphor­ic seda­tion. In new users, its effects are incred­i­ble. Even slight­ly too-high dos­es may induce a per­ma­nent sleep. In tol­er­ant users, the stuff brings on a peren­ni­al, elat­ed dream-high so long as it is con­tin­u­al­ly used. Those who do not use it con­tin­u­al­ly suf­fer great­ly and fre­quent­ly the drug’s after effects: Som­no­lence, stained lips, and ter­ri­ble night­mares. They are doomed to expe­ri­ence these fre­quent­ly, for coqueli­cot is hand­i­ly addic­tive.

The rag­men of South­ern and mid-Coastal climes are the Coast’s best-known users of altered coqueli­cot. They have learned to roll the stuff, in an old Mapoli­tan cus­tom, into a sug­ared, low-per­cent gum which they hold under the low­er lip. They call this gun coqueli­cish, and they enjoy it plen­ti­ful­ly. It caus­es them to spit pro­fuse and col­or­ful sali­va, even drool­ing, for its anal­gesic effects, earn­ing them the nick­name “pinkspit­ters.”

Coqueli­cot’s anal­gesic and seda­tive effects, cou­pled with its rel­a­tive ease of phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal obtain­ment, make it a pop­u­lar ingre­di­ent in mod­ern med­i­cine. While its pro­duc­tion is nowhere whol­ly with­out secre­cy and crim­i­nal­i­ty, it is only vague­ly con­trolled by Coastal gov­ern­ments. As a result, it is read­i­ly incor­po­rat­ed in mod­er­ate or even high dos­es in a mul­ti­tude of drugs, elixirs, and tinc­tures. Sleep­ing draughts, cough sup­pres­sants, even spe­cial bit­ter­sweet salt ton­ics adver­tised to uplift the mood and calm the sens­es. 

Most com­mon­ly, med­ical coqueli­cot occurs in the form of lau­danum. An alco­holic, bit­ter tinc­ture of high­ly-dis­tilled pop­py blood. A woe­ful­ly pow­er­ful con­coc­tion sold in lit­tle brown bot­tles for mere­ly more than a shilling. Adver­tised as an ame­lio­rat­ing ally against the woes of any­thing from back­ache to flu, the tinc­ture is com­mon­ly known and uncon­di­tion­al­ly habit-form­ing.

This lau­danum, often pejo­ra­tive­ly or fond­ly known as “pink lion” by its ben­e­fi­cia­ries and depen­dents, for its print­ed label, is among the com­mon cut­ter’s most favorite vices.

A ven­tur­ing life, regard­ed as among the most per­ilous of all pro­fes­sions, tempts fast those who lead it to tamp down their rapid­ly flar­ing smoul­der of night­mares and things best for­got. For this, lau­danum is many a cut­ter’s friend. Delves time and again into the unspeak­able and ancient are made, for a short while, more bear­able by the com­pa­ny of a lit­tle brown bot­tle.

But coqueli­cot tinc­ture, for how­ev­er long it works, does always in the end wear down the mind or the cof­fers.

Nag­ging foes’ faces and remem­bered mon­sters, once ame­lio­rat­ed, will find them­selves even­tu­al­ly stronger, more fright­ful, in the com­pa­ny of the pink lion.

Note

This arti­cle is the spawn of two ideations. First­ly: To devote an arti­cle each vice in the old drug arti­cle. Sec­ond­ly: To pro­vide sup­port­ing lore for one facet of the opt-in hor­ror and night­mares sys­tem in the Incunab­u­li Sys­tem playtest. The for­mer, hor­ror, is present in the doc­u­ment. The lat­ter comes lat­er, and will find as com­pa­ny rules for the pink lion.

This arti­cle was made pos­si­ble by Incunab­u­li’s gen­er­ous sup­port­ers on Patre­on. To join them and read arti­cles avail­able only to sup­port­ers, sup­port Incunab­u­li on Patre­on.