31 days theme exchange: "Love and death among the molluscs"

[tarigwaemir]

Love and death among the molluscs

"It crawls into open shells of clams and oysters, slips beneath the mantle into the beating heart. The mollusc closes its shell, shutting out the passing seawater, and suffocates slowly until it dies."

"Marvelous," Adashino murmured as he bent in closer to examine the specimen with his lens. "This open shell still contains the mushi?"

"At the moment of death, the muscles relax, and the shell opens. The mushi floats away again into the seawater. But you will see the unusual patterns it left inscribed on the interior."

"It seems needlessly cruel," Adashino remarked, tracing the iridescent surface marked with swirling lines.

"Is it? As the shell opens, the offspring hatch and swim into the ocean with the mushi. For every clam or oyster that dies, ten thousand more are brought into existence." Ginko leaned back and gave a lazy grin. "So how much will you give me for the shell?"

"Fifty."

"Not less than seventy."

"Fifty-five and a story that you might find to be of interest." Adashino smirked and tucked the shell into his sleeve.

Ginko shook his head ruefully. "Done."

END

Comments

[sub-divided.livejournal.com]

Really cool. I love the sciency feel of Ginko's description, especially this paragraph:

At the moment of death, the muscles relax, and the shell opens. The mushi floats away again into the seawater. But you will see the unusual patterns it left inscribed on the interior.

Also the description of the initial death, because it IS cruel (therefore interesting). I also really like the haggling at the end. I'm not sure about the "10,000 more are brought into existence" part, mostly because it exists without mentioning any of the normal details of mollusk reproduction (are 10,000-spat batches common? do the mushi only attach to female mollusks? what do spats/baby mollusks look like? how does the mushi aid in this process?), which I had to look up before I could picture what was going on. Would Adashino know about mollusks?

I'm glad I looked it up though, because it was really really interesting. Mating dances! Host fish! So cool.

[troisroyaumes]

Haha, so the way I envisioned it initially was that the mushi was like a mollusc pollinator, carrying sperm from males to females (killing the host in every case, but still aiding in reproduction). I left most of that out because I wasn't sure how much Ginko and Adashino would know about fertilization. ^_^;; I just put down 10,000 because the number is often used to mean "very many", although come to think of it, I probably should have looked it up to be sure that was the case in Japanese. (It definitely is in Chinese and Korean.) Anyway, thanks so much for the feedback; I think I'll tinker with it some more and figure out how to explain the process more clearly without infodumping.

But yeah, I want to know what baby molluscs look like too! I know that sea urchin larvae look very different from the adult form, but those are echinoderms. I saw a few diagrams while I was googling but no actual microscope images. Hmm, maybe I should have tried Google Image.

[troisroyaumes]

And Google Image does save the day: clam larvae! ^_^

[sub-divided.livejournal.com]

SO COOL. They even look like they could be mushi (probably not a coincidence, how much to you want to bet Yoshiyama-sensei spends her free time reading articles on weird microscopic animals XD).

[tryogeru.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I always wondered about this, because a lot of the times those floaty mushishi just looked like the larvae of various ocean plants and animals to me. But then again, I was taking a Marine Biology course at the time too....

[tryogeru.livejournal.com]

oops, typo. "floaty mushi", not mushishi. Though now I have a hilarious mental image of chibi!Ginko floating around with little tentacles instead of limbs.

[ambientlight.livejournal.com]

mm, i really like the feel of this - the scientific description of the mushi, against the casual dynamic between adashino and ginko. ( besides, adashino winning for once! how could i possibly protest? )

[tryogeru.livejournal.com]

I like how you captured the weird symbiotic relationship of the mushi and their hosts, and how it kind of parallels Ginko's and Adashino's.