Peepmuks
| Classification | Flying mouse |
|---|---|
| Habitat | All across Eslura, by preference inside the hollow trunks of trees |
| Size | Finger-sized, small enough to sit in the palm of a hand |
| Notable traits | Wings, glowing fur, a spit that leaves the skin itching for days |
| First appearance | Sacred: Eslura's Calling |
Peepmuks are the tiny winged mice of Eslura, cute at a distance and a nuisance close up. The bestiary appendix describes them as ball-shaped flying mice just small enough to fit in the palm of a hand, found all around Eslura but happiest where they can hide inside hollow tree trunks, and warns that anyone who falls for their adorable glares and takes a lick of their spit on the skin will be itching for days.[1] The prose bears the warning out twice, once on Alpin Loomin and once, some time before the books open, on Tabitha Glowdish.[2][3]
Appearance
A peepmuk is finger-sized and looks, to a stranger, like a very fluffy rat with wings.[2] Its fur glows. The one that hovered by Alpin's ear glowed yellow, and a swarm of them drifting over a camp at night was mistaken for fireflies before it resolved into "finger-sized glowing rat-like creatures with fluffy fur and wings".[2][3]
They have beady eyes and a twitching nose, cock their heads at whatever is looking at them, and hiss when they are annoyed.[2][3] The appendix illustration draws a pair of them tucked into a hollow, round-bodied and huge-eared, with large dark eyes, small clawed feet and long thin tails, and annotates the picture "friend shaped...not friend".[1]
Their spit
The spit is what a peepmuk is known for. It comes out as a wad of thick white goop, spat at the face at short range.[2]
Alpin Loomin took a faceful of it in the ruins of Treenode. He swatted at a peepmuk hovering by his ear, it hissed, spat and flew up into a tree, and he ran straight for the swamp water and scrubbed at his nose and whiskers so hard that Bea thought the stuff must be poison ivy. His verdict once it was off was that "A peepmuk's spit is about the last thing I would want to deal with now".[2]
Tab knows the same lesson from experience. Swatting one away from her pectoral fin outside the tents of Kantankerous Albertuous's circus, she told Reagan Hideaway that "Peepmuks may look cute, but get some of their spit on your skin and you'll be itchin' for days", and added that she had learnt it the hard way. Her name for them is little demons.[3]
They are not shy of people, which is the trap. Reagan held out an open palm and one landed on it and looked up at her, and she had just called it cute when Tab pulled her away.[3]
Where they are found
The appendix puts them all around Eslura, wherever there are hollow trees to hide in.[1] The prose finds them in the swamp forest at Treenode, where Alpin says he had forgotten the things even existed, and in the hill country over the tents of Albertuous and Company, where they gather in numbers after dark.[2][3]
They are closely associated with Treenode in particular. Barnaby Britto, climbing Alakyer in a blizzard and wondering who would choose to live in such a place, reflects that people had said the same of "the Olphins' swampy home in Treenode and its spitting peepmuks".[4]
Behind the scenes
The pronunciation guides at the back of both novels list Peepmuk under species and give it as Peep-muck.[5][6] The bestiary appendix heads the entry PEEPMUK and annotates the illustration "friend shaped...not friend". Book 2 reprints Book 1's page unchanged.[1]