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Things had gotten kinda tense at the House Blossom meetings ever since the demon had showed up.
To be fair, they had always been pretty tense, since Jimmy’s first meeting with Lady Katherine’s other alliances had been her attempt at mediating an argument between him and Sausage. The original spread of corruption was also pretty bad, since it was nearly impossible to get rid of, unless you were Lizzie, who barely had anywhere above the water to corrupt, or Joel who had been treating the entire thing with denial. Jimmy had been tempted to join him in that method if not for the fact that the demon behind the corruption had been taking joy in showing up themself to torment him. It's hard to pretend someone isn’t real when they’re breathing down your neck once a week. The corruption was terrible, ruining farmland, destroying the structural integrity of buildings, and Shrub, the one time Jimmy saw her, warned that it could hurt people with prolonged exposure.
But the corruption wasn’t the worst of it. No, the worst part of it came soon after the dragon was killed. Because the sudden increase in Xornoth’s power had greatly affected their acolytes, and Sausage had taken to randomly murdering other rulers. This entire meeting was set up with the question of what the next step of getting rid of Xornoth and subduing Sausage and Joey was. It wasn’t going well.
Jimmy had already been having a long day. There was always work to be done in the Cod Empire, wheat to harvest, fishing to do, citizens with problems to solve, business with other empires to negotiate, the list went on and on and never seemed to shorten. And unlike the other rulers at the alliance meeting today, Jimmy did not have an abundance of advisers and servants to push his work off on, so he was unable to clear his schedule before the meeting and had been collecting slime all morning. He was practically dripping slime since he’d taken a hit to the mask right before he had to leave and he hadn’t had a chance to clean up. He’d thankfully had the Codfather’s helm and his veil tucked into his inventory that he could change into, but his clothes were going to be just too slimy to be comfortable until he got home and took a swim to wash off, which left him feeling vaguely uncomfortable.
In general, Jimmy was tired, and the arguments over what to do next were getting exhausting.
“I don't know why we spend so long discussing,” Jimmy finally spoke up, “The ocean knows how to handle parasites."
Count Fwhip stood up with a bang as he slammed his clawed hands against the meeting table, wings flaring out behind him, “How dare you, you slimy little-”
High Wizard Gem laid a hand on her brother’s shoulder and pushed him back down in his chair before he could leap across the table to attack Jimmy. But her glare was stuck on him, and her voice was like venom.
“I never expected this from you, Codfather. I invite you to remember that King Sausage is still our brother despite his corruption, and that this is a slight against all the heirs of Mythland. An apology is in order.”
Jimmy was too tired to handle politics today. Far too tired. “And, Cod tell, which of my words are false?”
Fwhip growled and shrugged off Gem’s hold pulling a sword from his inventory, drawing it on Jimmy. The only thing that stopped him from jumping across the table was Lady Katherine. The fae noble slammed down on her table, a wave of magic passing over everyone.
“ No weapons in House Blossom! Stand down! ”
While the Lady of the Overgrown wasn’t typically the most frightening of people, here, in her own domain she was at her most powerful and in control. Fwhip returned his sword to his inventory and sat back down, though he continued to glare at Jimmy.
Then Katherine turned to him, “Jimmy, Gem is correct, you owe the Lost Emperor, Mythland, and his siblings an apology. I will not accept such blatant cruelty to our fellow rulers.”
Jimmy ran a hand over his face behind his ceremonial veil, glad, not for the first time nor the last, that it was there so that none of the others could see his facial expressions. Sure the helmet, with its long carved fins was a bit heavy, but the convenience of the veil that came down from the front to totally cover his face was undeniable.
“I was being serious asking for further clarification. Emperor Joey and King Sausage have been taken over by something dangerous, and now they seek to spread great death to the rest of us. Do you have another word for that other than parasite?”
There was silence around the table, and looking around the table only Lizzie showed any level of understanding. And then Joel reached around Lizzie and whacked Jimmy on the back of the head.
" Parasite-carrier, fish boy," He said the word in Ocean Common once, then again in Overworld Common for the other rulers, "They're parasite-carriers, not parasites."
Jimmy sneered behind his veil and shook his head to show his displeasure. He didn't like the new Ocean Common word. It was a stupid distinction, if you were paying attention to the context you would know what he meant. It was a word for the benefit of Overworlders and you can tell considering it was just the Ocean Common word for parasite with the Mezalean word for transfer/transport directly transliterated into Ocean Common and slapped on the end.
" Parasites ," Jimmy said in Codlish, "Overworlders don't get an opinion on words they made up."
Joel shook his head but let Jimmy have that one, instead addressing the other rulers, "There isn't really a distinction between actual parasites and things carrying or infected by parasites in ocean languages. Ocean Common has a word for it, but it came into use well after Codlish split into its own language. He's not literally calling them parasites, or saying that they should be treated as such, just that they’re infected with something dangerous."
Jimmy shrugged, “No, I am. Perhaps a bit of death would do good for them. Purge the parasite out, before they make parasites of the rest of us.”
Aaaand the meeting was back in chaos. Jimmy rubbed his temples and prepared for a long afternoon.
~
The meeting was technically over at this point, but everyone was sticking around to talk, unwilling to leave an excuse to catch up on a personal level with the other rulers. They all cleared their schedules for the House Blossom meeting for a reason. Fwhip had intended to catch up with Scott and Queen Pearl, but instead he’d been staring at Jimmy since he heard Jimmy say that Codlish word. It sounded familiar, but he couldn’t think of where he would have heard it before and it was absolutely destroying his ability to focus on anything else.
Suddenly something clicked into place, like a redstone machine turning on. He'd heard it from one of Jimmy's citizens, the last time he'd "visited" the Cod Empire. Some of the villagers had called him that in a sentence while he'd been trying to trade for more slime.
"Oi Jimmy!” Fwhip called across the room to where Jimmy was talking with Gem. When Jimmy turned to face him he kept talking. “Your villagers called me p-par -" he stumbled over an attempt at saying the Codlish word, unsure of how to make the word fit properly in his mouth, before giving up "-parasite! What gives? I’m not corrupted!"
Jimmy tilted his head, and while Fwhip couldn’t see his facial expression behind his long cream veil, he thought Jimmy was likely confused as well. Then the Codfather straightened and responded, "Oh! No they weren't- they probably weren't calling you parasite ."
The word sounded natural coming from Jimmy, coming out deep from his throat, making his gill flaps flare and close, and Fwhip couldn't help but stare, "You have uh- a title I guess? Parasite's King because you take in the Salmonfolk. It means- oh this is hard to translate. Joel help?"
He shot Joel a pleading look, who sighed and came over from where he was chilling with Lizzie to mediate, sitting down beside Fwhip to talk, "You know I'm not actually fluent in your language, right?” Joel shot a playful glare at his brother-in-law, “But yeah, Fwhip, it's a difficult concept to translate into common. Directly translated it means something close to the King of Parasites with no distinction on what usage of parasite it is. But it's got a lot of subtext behind it, and you have to consider the context- my best guess is that it's not really derogatory to you? It's more a description of the state of your kingdom. If you were any other ruler with any other empire it would just be saying you were the king of an untrustworthy, dangerous people, but since you have so many Salmonfolk citizens- it might just be directly calling you the King of Salmon. Jimmy?"
Jimmy raised his hand in a so-so motion, "With the recent war it's a bit of both? Opinions of you aren't exactly high Fwhip, but they aren’t calling you a parasite."
Fwhip sputtered, a rush of hot anger rising for his most vulnerable citizens, "Why is your word for parasite apparently interchangeable with your word for salmon?!?"
Jimmy's face was like stone, but Joel winced and responded before Jimmy could, "It's actually interchangeable with the infection aspect of the word. Jimmy, why don't you go talk with Lizzie? I'll talk to him."
Jimmy shot Joel a thankful look and ran off to tuck himself into Lizzie's side, who didn't even question the addition or pause her conversation with Katherine.
Joel turned and stared down Fwhip, "Look you've got to stop bringing up Salmonfolk around Jimmy or he's actually going to hurt you for it one of these days."
Fwhip held up his hands, "What's even the problem?! The Salmonfolk aren't doing anything! My Salmonfolk are refugees, entire tribes running up the river from Jungle Lakes so that they can spawn in peace. They aren’t hurting anyone!"
"Maybe not now but- look just stop. The Salmonfolk and Cod People haven’t had a good relationship for decades now, and the Cod are very justified in their mistrust. Jimmy lost both of his adoptive parents in the last wave of the Salmon Plague."
Pixl, who had been sitting nearby, listening to the conversations happening around him, sat up and moved his chair closer, "Salmon plague? Is that a reference to the Cod and Salmon War?"
Fwhip glanced at him, "How do you not know? Aren’t you supposed to be allies?"
Pixl shot him a small glare, "We may be allies, but the desert is quite isolated, and the Cod Empire only officially split from the rest of the ocean a few years after the war finished, and I didn’t become their allies until Jimmy was crowned Codfather. I never got to hear the full story, only that the Cod suffered great losses and that it’s what drove them above water in the swamp. You can’t say anything either, you also don't know and you take in Salmonfolk by the dozen."
"Stop fighting, Jimmy can probably still hear you. Cod, why do I have to be the voice of reason.” The Mad King shook his head and Fwhip felt just a tiny bit of shame. He didn’t want to ruin his and Joel’s alliance by taunting his allies, their relationship was flimsy enough. “Look, calling it a 'war' is a euphemism. It was a slaughter brought on by the Salmonfolk's carelessness."
Fwhip made an affronted noise, but Joel just kept talking, barely giving Fwhip a glare, "The Cod people have been isolating themselves from the rest of the ocean for centuries at this point. They had their own territory set up along the coast of the swamp, and they guarded it pretty fiercely. It's-"
Joel glanced up, and when Fwhip followed his gaze, he saw Jimmy happily contributing to the conversation with Katherine, standing on his own now and obviously not listening to them, "Look the Cod don't like to talk about it, but they are extremely susceptible to this really nasty parasite. Like, the Cod People and codfish are the only known hosts in the final stage of the parasite's life cycle and if they are infected it's a death sentence. There's no way to remove the parasite once it's burrowed in, and that parasite will kill them if it sticks around long enough. A single infected Cod could lead to that parasite creating thousands of eggs, totally destroying the viability of a territory for years. But most other ocean creatures except Axolotls are carriers of the second stage of the parasite, when they're barely worse than sand fleas. So if an infected fish swims through their territory, one of the parasites could jump off and suddenly the Cod are dealing with a wave of death and destruction.”
Fwhip could suddenly see where this was going and he felt a bit sick already. His Salmonfolk- they wouldn’t do that to the Cod People, would they? Sure the Cod were violent and savage but they were still people.
Joel continued, unsympathetic to Fwhip’s internal conflict. “So the Cod People isolated themselves, getting really good at detecting the parasite in its younger form and killing it before it could hurt anyone. But because they were so close to a river inland, their territory became contested by a tribe of Salmonfolk looking to migrate for spawning. The Salmonfolk wouldn't listen when the Cod People said that they had parasites and that even traveling through the area would kill hundreds of Cod, and tried to push through anyway. Thousands of cod died, and the survivors were chased above the water with no way to escape. Their kingdom was decimated, a lot of their culture was lost, and Jimmy, the first Codfather in several decades, is only barely holding the pieces together enough to try and rebuild."
Pixl looked vaguely sick, and Fwhip didn't feel much better. No wonder Jimmy hated his Salmonfolk so much. Oh gods, what if his people had the parasite and Jimmy was scared of catching it? Is that why he’d always been so hostile?
"Oh Cod, I built a salmon statue in the middle of his kingdom. Oh cod, I built a salmon statue in the middle of his kingdom ." Pixl sounded even worse than he looked, a feat for the normally mild mannered king, "Oh cod, no wonder his people hate me so much, that must have looked like an omen or- or a threat. Joel, how do I apologize for something like that? I just thought it would be a simple prank."
"Better question,” Fwhip cut in, “How do I check my people for the parasite? Gods, no wonder Jimmy doesn't ever come around, am I at risk of just- has he been risking death every time he visits?"
Joel shook his head, “Fwhip, you should be safe as long as you havent taken in any recent ocean migrations. But I'll have Lizzie send you her plans when she returns to the Ocean Empire, she's been developing some methods of testing for and killing the parasites, so that she can send people other than her axolotls to the Codlands, adopted from the original safeguards the Cod People had in place before the plague. And Pix-"
Joel started talking to Pix about a proper apology for Jimmy and the Cod Empire, but Fwhip couldn’t listen, too lost in his relief and disgust. He had a lot to do when he got home.
~
After he'd realized the enormity of his fuck up with the Codlands, Pix had been sitting with his head down, trying to brainstorm ideas on his own beyond what Joel had told him about how to make a proper Cod apology. Because just an apology couldn’t be enough, Jimmy’s people hated him and it was absolutely his fault, he had to fix that. And then Fwhip- who was suddenly also extremely invested in improving relations with the Cod Empire- forced Joel into a conversation about how to do that. Sensing Joel's growing frustration with the dragon hybrid, and knowing their fraught past, PIxl put his head up and joined the brainstorming.
They'd been talking for a while when Pix came up with an idea that felt good enough to share.
"Okay so obviously, I need to make a visible effort to learn about the Cod People’s culture, so what if I learned Codlish? I like languages and-" Pix was cut off by Joel, who began to laugh almost hysterically.
"Haha! Good joke Pix, I need that right now. Heh- learning Codlish as a human? Hilarious."
"What's so bad about learning Codlish?" Pix asked.
Joel stopped dead, staring at Pixl, "Pix, I grew up speaking Ocean Common as my second language, and I've been studying Codlish consistently for the past 5 years, ever since Liz found Jimmy. I'm not fluent in Codlish."
Fwhip sat up a bit, eyes wide with surprise, "You aren't?? But Jimmy went to you for a translation earlier!"
Joel rolled his eyes, "Yeah, cause he didn't start speaking Common until he was nearly an adult. I can understand it pretty well but speaking it well enough to be called fluent- save that goal for the Ocean folk."
Fwhip narrowed his eyes a bit, and Pixl found himself wondering for not the first time why Fwhip was still here when he was constantly so close to starting fights with Joel. They were supposed to be allies, but they couldn’t help but go for each other’s throats at every opportunity
"There's no way, what could possibly be so difficult about Codlish? I speak a bit of Ocean Common, how different could they be?"
Joel glared at him before turning back to where Jimmy was sitting with Lizzie and- Scott now? huh, Pixl didn't know they got along, since Scott had been part of the alliance that had tormented Jimmy for so long.
And then- Joel barked. Loudly.
Pixl and Fwhip startled and stared at the Mad King, both wondering if he'd gone more mad than normal. The other emperors also began to stare as conversations died off, but Joel didn't seem to notice. He kept his eyes on Jimmy until Jimmy let out a series of high pitched clicks, much softer than Joel's bark, but still able to be heard over the slight buzz of the room. Joel looked mildly affronted already, but started- Pixl had to describe what they were doing as talking, but it was like nothing he had seen before.
Joel raised one hand to his neck, holding it on the opposite side so that his palm faced out. The other stayed still at his side as he let out a series of grunts of different pitches but mostly the same sound, interspersed with different clicks and more barks. Pixl thought it sounded similar to Ocean Common, but he could only speak a few words of that and he didn’t recognize any of this. As though to a rhythm only he and Jimmy knew, the fingers of the hand at Joel’s neck flared and closed, and at the very end of the sentence his free hand rose and flicked to the left. The entire thing took less than ten seconds, but Pixl was already in awe about the visual complexity of it.
Jimmy looked at Joel for a moment, before making those clicks again, and responded back in Codlish. Seeing Jimmy talk in his own language made everything Joel did make sense. The sounds of the language just sounded natural from his mouth, free of Joel's Mezalean accent, which always turned his words up in an almost singsong tone, no matter what he did. Jimmy's hands played no part in the production, instead his gills flared and shut throughout his response, his dorsal fin flaring at one point, and his tail flicking hard down on his last word. It was also significantly faster than Joel’s original statement.
Joel's reaction was immediate, a harsh, low grunt from his throat, with his gill hand flared and his other hand first going up on top of his head in a flare, and then going down to hit chest in a fist. At the same time as the hit, Joel stomped his foot hard. Jimmy only tittered though, clicking at Joel with his gills closed and his dorsal fin down.
Joel stuck his middle finger out at Jimmy then spun away from him, arms crossed in playful anger.
Fwhip and Pixl both sat in shocked silence at the display, until Fwhip spoke up. "What in the Deepslate Redstone was that???"
"A real time demonstration of what speaking Codlish is like."
"What did you say?" Pix asked, feeling a heavy mix of morbid curiosity and genuine desire to learn.
Joel grumbled for a moment before responding, "I asked him how well he thought I spoke Codlish. Jimmy said I spoke like I was swimming in kelp, and then the rest was just insults."
"Swimming in kelp?" Pixl asked
Joel nodded, "it's a Cod idiom, Codlings don't gain their legs until they are a few years old- actually they look pretty close to regular young cod at that point- so to avoid getting eaten, they stick to areas with heavy coverage, like kelp forests. So he was implying I talked like a baby, nothing but babbling."
"Babbling?!" Fwhip exclaimed, "But that was so-"
He cut himself off, unable to find the right words.
"Complicated?" Joel finished with a laugh, "Yeah, it was. And that is why you won't be learning Codlish. Even if the language itself is very similar to Ocean Common, body language is a massive part of the language and you just can't express it fully without the extra appendages of a Cod. Even other Ocean folk struggle with it- Codlish can Only be spoken properly by the Cod People. Even ignoring the body language, there are words that were added or modified by the Cod People to make sounds that better fit with the range of noises they were able to make. And some of those noises are impossible for people who aren’t Cod, even past vocal cord restrictions. Barking, clicking, chirping, thumping- all are common sounds in Codlish, and even expansive human or elf vocal range can only reliably make about half of those sounds."
Pixl’s head was spinning. He knew that Codlish was its own language, recognized as the official language of the Cod Empire, but he’d always internally thought of it as just an Ocean Common child language, that it couldn't truly be that different from its parent language. Obviously he had been very very wrong. And even though his head was spinning, something stuck out to him.
"Thumping?" Pixl asked.
Joel nodded. "Thumping. The cod have a special muscle for it in their chests, but we have to stomp to get across the same point. Here, it's totally different if you hear the real thing."
He turned once more, and Pixl looked over at Jimmy's group, which was now missing Katherine, instead including Gem, and noticed that they had drifted closer to them. Close enough that they could absolutely hear everything being discussed if they paid attention. And since Jimmy was staring right at them before Joel could even call out to him, he must have been paying attention. Pixl’s face colored a bit, feeling bad about his friend knowing that Pixl knew so little of his culture.
"Ey Jiimmy, give us a thump!" Joel called to the group, oblivious of Pixl’s conflict.
A moment passed. Then- it must have been the thump because Pixl didn't know what else it could've been. It sounded like something large and heavy had been dropped onto the floor at Jimmy's feet, and even looking straight at him, Pixl did a double take to make sure the clumsy man was alright. But Jimmy hadn't moved a muscle, even though his face was slowly coloring, red just barely visible across his ear fins, the only part of his head visible past the veil. Not everyone in the room was so stoic as no one else had heard the preceding conversation. Shrub visibly jumped, all of the rulers talking to Jimmy except Lizzie looked shocked, and everyone else turned to look at the man.
Joel smirked and raised his voice loud enough to be heard by everyone in the room, "And that was a proper Cod Thump. It's used in words relating to emotions and passion, or just to show that you're feeling... a certain way. The Cod People find a loud thump really attractive in a man, and Jimmy has the loudest thump in the entire swamp. Even before he became the first Codfather in generations, he was the Cod's most eligible bachelor."
Joel said it like a joke, and Scott, always the first to join in teasing Jimmy, immediately swooned into Jimmy's side, one hand delicately at his forehead like a noble girl in a romance novel.
But- Pixl’s eyes locked onto Jimmy's arms and the way his compact swimmer’s muscles flexed as he carefully caught Scott and returned him upright- perhaps the Cod had something right. That thump sure was something. And by the way Scott's pale skin colored as he was effortlessly caught and manhandled, despite being a good few inches taller than Jimmy, and the way Fwhip's eyes remained locked on Jimmy as well, Pixl knew he wasn't exactly alone in this belief.