patted his nail telling him,
“I'm full, you have the rest, sweet cheeks.” He made a rumbling sound in his chest that reminded me of a demonic purr, as if he liked my reactions to him. After this, I belched one more time and relaxed back against his fingers that were still curled up protectively as if preventing me from falling off.
Amazingly, it was the first time in a long time that I actually felt contented.
“You know, I think that's the most full I've been in ages, we don't get fed much upstairs,” I said, shaking my thumb to point upwards where he must have known the rest of the workers were. He too looked up as if he could understand me, and I was starting to believe that maybe there was some truth to this.
But then he started to twirl his finger around as if he wanted me to dance again, making me laugh.
“I can do more than dance, you know, I can even sing and whistle too,” I said, putting my lips together and blowing out a tune which really startled him. Enough to bang his head against the rocks making some break away and land on him.
I suddenly shot to my feet and held out my hands telling him,
“Oh shit… I'm sorry, I didn't mean to make you do that.” He shook his head and grunted as if the pain barely registered with him and for all I knew, he didn't feel it at all. Then suddenly he tensed and before I knew what was happening, his fingers curled round me once more holding me tight in his fist. Then I felt the vibrations of anger rolling through him as he started to growl.
“Whoa!” I shouted, knowing now that maybe I had been wrong about him treating me so well. I mean jeez, but he could have just been trying to fatten me up first seeing as I was so skinny. Making me now question, had I been foolish thinking that I could survive this with just a dance and a little conversation.
“Stupid, Pipper!” I shouted at myself, and I was suddenly kicking myself for not taking the opportunity when he was relaxed to try and make a run for it. Sure, he was big and would take no effort at all in catching me, but then again, I was little and could surely use this to my advantage. After all, it wasn't always so easy to swat a fly buzzing around your head now, was it?
I heard him growl and snarl, making me shake and think that my time was numbered for he had obviously growing tired of me, and the whistling had sent him over the edge! I decided my only option was to slowly crawl out of his palm and use the bumps under his skin as footholds to cling on to. So I climbed underneath to the back of his hand and the second he raised it up, I started to climb down his wrist, before getting to his elbow so I could start running up his arm.
But then I looked back to see him open his fist to find I was no longer there, and in his anger, he fisted it. Then, with his other hand, the one I had just escaped, he slammed it into the rocks as he roared. But that's when I saw it! A creature now held in that same fist that he smashed against the mountain wall. I knew what it was,
A Tsuchinoko.
Those snake-like creatures would sometimes travel too far down in the mountain and never be heard or seen of again. This quickly had me wondering if this had been what had sparked his anger and not my whistling at all. It was obvious now that his reaction to my whistling must have shook the Tsuchinoko loose from his burrow and Abaddon had sensed it. Had he then considered it a threat against me?
I was at his shoulder now and having no choice but to hold on to one of the bulbous parts of his head as he twisted and turned trying to look for me on the floor. He had dropped what he had considered the enemy, one now nothing more than a bloody mass that stuck to the rock wall it had been slammed into.
Then he continued to look for me and when he couldn’t see me, he started to make that same whining sound he had when I had been out of his reach.