First World

Here is my attempt at the first chunk of this sketch. Let me know what you think!

Scales fell to the floor as Skwim offered yet another tribute to his overseer, Lord Blu.

This was a tribute well deserved by Lord Blu, who towered over Skwim’s tiny form. Hardly looking past Lord Blu’s orange kneecaps, Skwim kept his tiny eyes pressed shut in the customary manner. To look upon Lord Blu invited further tributes, tributes Skwim had delivered many times before. Those tributes made the delivery of this fish look easy.

Lord Blu’s eyes looked past Skwim, through him in a sense, as his beak parted in the slow, boom speech that matched the presence of his physical form. “This is what you have brought me?” The sound of his voice made the eyes of others in the court either wide with anticipation, or pressed closed in empathy for Skwim.

“Yes, your greatness.” Skwim gently rested the fish on the floor, not even peering through his tightly closed eyes to check for its accurate positioning. Time and practice had made the nose-first display of the fish something Skwim could accomplish in his sleep. “It is the best of the-”

“Silence, fool!” Lord Blu bellowed. He shook his body with a delicate vibration that adjusted the perfect alignment of his smooth wings about his body. “I know well from where your tributes come. You have brought many before. You must know by know that I surely tire of such tributes?”

Skwim was unsure if he dared reply. Every time, every fish had been one that Lord Blu had accepted, swallowed down with the same ease that Skwim consumed his daily ration of Wuku seeds.

“I await your answer!”

A thin film of perspiration began to coat Skwim’s gray head. A tiny drop moved sideways along his head, connected with the modest gray ear to his left, and ran forward to the shoulder of his thin, worn blue overcoat. Skwim thanked his Oork that the sweat had run to the left—his right ear was the ticklish one. “I…have…” Skwim swallowed hard and said something different to his Oork. “…None.”

The sound of claws grinding the floor cut the air and Skwim looked down in time to see the fish leap aside with a slimy, spattering sound. Lord Blu never kicked a tribute aside. Or, rather, Skwim had never seen Lord Blu kick aside a tribute that he had delivered.

“You have defied me for the last time, Skwim.” Lord Blu paused, the slow rhythm of his breathing resonating throughout the court chamber. “Now I must select another tribute.”

Skwim’s hearts seized in his chest. Sweat reached his right ear. Violating protocol, Skwim looked up, just in time to see the open beak of Lord Blu descend upon him.