The meeting commenced with its usual formally flavored banality. Wilnum kept it moving towards its universally desired conclusion, despite many asinine interruptions. Which took longer this time than he cared for, but such was his burden.
"It would be nice to have a well," Helin suggested assertively.
"As I've previously explained," Wilum sighed before continuing. "The stream is too near for such a project to be practical."
"But a well could be even closer and cleaner," she pressed.
"If you can't carry your own water anymore there are plenty of people who would be happier to do it for you than to dig a well just for you."
"It wouldn't be just for me, everyone could use it, and I carry my water by myself, it would just help if it were closer is all," she protested.
"If you can find six men willing to work on it to its conclusion I will sequester the necessary materials. But until you recruit them the proposition is definitively closed.
"What of a militia?" Corlin asked loudly. Corlin had just recently become independent the previous year, and was anxious to assert the validity of his adulthood at any opportunity. An effort that Wilum both identified with and found to be a nuisance. Rather than dismissing the young man's obvious attempt to seem strong, capable, and ever so grown-up with his imminent suggestion to lead the town's new militia, Wilum disarmed the issue using all of his available diplomacy.
"A militia… For what purpose?" Wilnum inquired.
"To protect what's ours," Corlin answered confidently.
"Of course, that is what a militia does, but from whom?"
"What do y—"
"What dangers of security are posed to us here?" Wilnum interrupted pointedly.
"Uh, anyone," Corlin confusedly suggested.
"Since you were first swaddled, there have been a total of two separate intruders, one we accepted for a season before he decided to seek his shelter elsewhere, the other was a poorly disguised footpad who was easily dealt with.
Our isolation wasn't chosen by the founders haphazardly, it was by design. Geography, Corlin, that is our greatest protection. Out there, in their curs'ed kingdom of chaos, they fight their wars, worship their gods, and hoard their gold, but they do not come here. It's too far and too inconvenient for too little. No armies, no raiders, and no brigands will bother with us. Even if they managed to find a map that we're on. They are entirely too occupied with their own conflicts to add us to their concerns. Our sanctuary is a place of order, there is no purpose for weaponry here. Trapping already provides more rabbit than we care for. Which is a skill you are absolutely free to practice independently, if you please," Wilnum concluded sternly. "Does anyone else wish to speak?" he asked.
"The apples have been marvelous this year," Meri interjected.
"Yes, thank you for tending to the orchard so judiciously, they have been most fruitful," Wilnum stated.
"My pleasure," she proudly responded.
"Then this meeting has concluded, thank you all for participating," he announced before rapidly peeling away from anyone else who might care to elongate the meeting even further for needless and communally irrelevant reasons.
*** *** ***
Lindow Roikot was a fearful man in all things except one: medicine. When tending to wounds, setting bones, or just soothing angered livestock, he was free from any trepidation. But once he removed the bandages, dressings, stints, and splints, his countenance fell. Patients stopped being patients once mended, and became people again. People who were much more complicated than a bruise or cracked bone. He preferred the sickly to the healthy. The unwell were focused only on cure. Those in pain were concerned only with relief. But the able bodied had interests of every kind, interests too complicated for Lindow to analyze with any amount of understanding.
So whenever he felt overwhelmed by the expanding branches of human characteristics, he'd go attend to the pastured animals, who occupied a form of peace that people forgot when language emerged from the primordial age. A horse could see a discarded shirt blow into its stable one morning, and the next day have no sense of its nature or origin. Seeing it again as if for the first time, taking in the observations and experiences as they came, without regard for what came before or what was coming next.
He envied the animals in that way. And used them as psychological anchors at times when the tumult of his own feelings was too uneven. However, he was also keenly aware of the caveats to such an existence. An undeniable fact of every pastured species is that they are stupid. In a strictly technical sense, their intelligence is nearly nonexistent compared to even dogs and hogs. Hunger, tiredness, affection, playfulness and anger were all they knew of consciousness. And so their company posed no risk of reminding him of the many less savory motivations of his contemporaries. Contemporaries he often wished he could be free from altogether.
Pyke had known how to steer him properly. Showing Lindow how to orient himself in pressing situations. If someone was injured in an accident, had fallen especially ill, or merely needed checking on, Pyke was there with the proper attitude and the proper words to do a proper job. But he was gone now, leaving Lindow with no one else to turn to for guidance when others were depending on him. He often felt like an imposter whenever he held the arduous weight of his master's tools in their case. Finding it wholly incomprehensible how Pyke had managed to lift it with such ease. Because to Lindow, it was the heaviest thing he'd ever carried.
*** *** ***
Fay Nagel grew a large variety of foods on her farm. Most of her neighbors rotated between the simpler ones such as tubers, carrots, cabbages, and lettuce. But she had seeds to every kind of root vegetable, many kinds of berries, and even a few fruit trees, all completely fenced off from any livestock. A fence she was currently repairing with posts and boards sold to her very cheaply, in the interest of common good. Most farms were not so well insulated from wandering animals, but her collection of seeds was the only remaining one of import. So if while waiting for a unique crop to germinate that bed happened to be overrun or singled out by anything from anything as small as vermin to as large as deer, ordering and acquiring new seeds would be a long, costly, and unreliable ordeal. Since there was no controlling the quality of the strain that would arrive or how well it would acclimate to their climate and soil.
Better to enable Fay to preserve her harvest whenever reasonable, was the shared thought; which she was keen enough not to exploit unnecessarily. Goodwill was a greater currency than coin. Many make verbal offerings or thoughtful mentions in times of bounty. But when the hail falls, the fungus spreads, or the fences are burrowed under, that's when the truth of those words is revealed. So she accepted the processed lumber at a price approaching thievery, under the mutually tacit understanding that she would return any remaining excess at the conclusion of the repair, along with a basket containing all the necessary contents for a stew. Because what was cheap for one to offer was often expensive for another to acquire, surpluses of goods being so rarely similar of type.
Use of coin was primarily reserved for the exchange of services and as nonperishable tokens of last year's harvest. It was universally understood that the town could not afford further losses, and that if one perished needlessly then so soon would they all. So excess currency was usually spent as soon as expedience allowed, under the theory that the more hands it changed each year the better. Misers had been few even during their most populous periods, and they were easily rectified when accused, usually by a compelled purchase of communal infrastructure or a large order of raw metals.
Fay detested this system, even when it worked to her benefit. A veritable hodgepodge of favors disguised as gifts. Expected reciprocity was the falsest of offerings. Much better to pay what's due and be done with it, she felt. But the fence needed mending now, she needed the boards now, and had not the time to process logs herself before her farm would be scavenged from again. But now Dale would be eyeing her at every opportunity, probing her for excusable moments to check if she needed any more wood. Were it not for the animal tracks she'd have thought he kicked in her fence himself just to oblige her inevitable request for material.
Her husband had been dead for nearly half her life by now, and there wasn't a single suitable replacement to be found. Even the young ones were too sour of temperament to tolerate. So she barred her doors at night as a discouraging measure to anyone who might think themselves worthy of ending her isolation. A needless effort, but one that still brought a sense of agency to her evenings, and smugness to her mornings.
Manerd had built this house for them both with his own hands, and no lesser men would bring theirs inside it until her bones were over his. A resolution she obstinately reiterated twice each day when she handled the bars.
*** *** ***
A girl stood at the edge of the woods. A sight she once thought wondrous she now viewed as a precipice from which she might not return. She thought of the beast from the cave, and of how fast all the animals were. It frightened her greatly what might happen if she disturbed it. But boredom eventually overcame the danger. And the wild's call beckoned her ever louder as the day progressed. So she went in again, this time resolving to avoid the cave as widely as possible.
Until she happened on one of her previous marks from the day before. It was untouched, aside from another mark which was made directly above her own. Atop her two sticks arched into each other at the top, was an identical formation much larger in scale. Two gigantic logs were anchored into the dirt on one end and leaned together, forming a point on the other, towering over her own piddling mark as if it were a sapling beneath a tree.
She stood and stared at it for a long while, stunned by confusion as to what had placed the logs there, and what could have lifted them at all. And as she started, a terrifying notion began to morph into an inescapable idea, until soon its final form was propelling her feet towards the most dangerous place she knew.
When she reached the cave's opening, she saw nothing inside but darkness. Frightened, she grabbed a rock the size of both her hands and prepared herself to throw it at anything that might jump out from the shadow. A period of preparation which was promptly cut short by a heavy thud within the cave. Panicking, she hurled the rock towards it and was troubled when it made no sound against either the walls or floor. A mystery whose answer revealed itself as a large hand emerged from inside, holding the rock. Before she could look up to observe the hand's owner it had dropped the rock and seized her wrist with its thumb and forefinger, not squeezing at all, but still closed too narrowly to pull her hand out, like a shackle.
"Who sent you?" his voice demanded sourly. She looked up towards the source of the sound. A cold and unkempt face glared at her through wide and piercing eyes. Desperately, the girl yanked and pulled at her trapped hand, trying to get it free. "Calm yourself, child. No sense in it," he stated. "Just tell me what they want and I'll be done with you," he finished. She just stared at him in response, too overwhelmed to process his words. "Did you hear what I said, child? I don't care about you, just tell me what they want," he said slowly. "Are they near? How many?" he yelled conspicuously this time, hoping to goad any observing parties out of hiding. But when he was met with only silence he went back to inspecting the girl. Something about her expression was odd, he realized. Curiously, he raised a finger and slid it towards and away from her eyes, then side to side. Her gaze followed in fear. Next, he brought his hand to the side of her head and snapped thrice in quick succession. She winced and tried to pull away from the sound. Lastly, he grasped her nose, sealing her nostrils shut and inspected her mouth as she opened it to breath. Seeing nothing amiss, he paused for a moment, considering what to say.
"What's your name?" he asked skeptically. She looked at her hand once more, still inescapably trapped by his grip, and was then saturated by regret that she had ever come back here. "Your name, child. Tell me now," he commanded. She panicked again, knowing from her every experience how mad he was about to be. But eventually, as her desperation burned out, and she resigned herself to the incoming pain, she answered him.
"G-ggg… Gi… g…"
"Galliel? Gonny? Gilli?" he pressed. And with that question, he unlocked a torrent of excitement within her she could neither understand or contain. "Gilli?" he repeated hesitantly as her thrashing wrist went suddenly limp within his hand and the belligerence in her eyes changed unrecognizably to anticipation.
"Do you understand me, Gilli?" he asked. She nodded clumsily. "Can you speak?" he asked. She only frowned in response. "Has anything ever happened to your neck? Was it injured before?" he asked. When she looked at him confusedly, he lifted her chin with a finger and inspected it quickly, seeing no signs of scars or bruising. "Why are you out here by yourself?" he mused aloud, releasing her limp wrist as he did so. "No one in that town knows what to do with you, do they?" he reasoned quietly. "Probably think you're sick of mind, not just of tongue. But I sense no dullness in you," he explained, weighing his observations carefully. Gilli looked at him patiently, before reaching towards him and attempting to insert her wrist back into his hand. The man recoiled surprisedly and scanned her motivations before arriving at a minor understanding. "My name's Cliff," he cordially informed her. "You can't write?" he asked. She looked down shamefully. "They aren't schooling you… so you're just exploring," he stated, rubbing his brow as he squatted down into a more comfortable position. She mimicked him immediately, falling at her first attempt but immediately retrying and balancing properly into the squat the way he was.
He watched her do this with contemplative eyes for what felt to her like a long time before he decided what to do next. "Are you hungry? Food?" he asked her. In response to her silence he arose to retrieve something from the cave, and returned with a folded cloth containing shelled nuts of differing kinds. He demonstrated their edibility before presenting them to her and watched. She ate one hesitantly but expressed little interest in the rest. "They must be feeding you then… Good… That's good…" he mumbled. "When I found your footprints yesterday I thought– it doesn't matter," he reasoned. "Your only problem is your voice, then… And I'd wager your parents gave up on it a while ago. Yes. Yes, that's your bane," he reasoned, watching her expression for any signs of disagreement as he spoke. "So you're out here, past the green curtain, by yourself… to play…" he sighed. "There was yesterday, there's today, is it every day for you?" he questioned. "Hmmm. Can't say that I approve, but I don't blame them much either. Parents aren't told how to differentiate ailments like this, especially not in this region…" He sifted through his thoughts for a moment before continuing, choosing his words with pronounced intention. "I understand you're not a scout, and I'm not going to grab you again," he opened his hands widely to accentuate the point. "Looks like they've deemed you as a dullard by now. I don't know what your parents— you have both parents? Good. I don't know what their plan for you is, but I doubt it's much. So… I can help you, with your speaking, if you want. Well enough so you'll be schooled with the rest at least. Would you like my help?" he asked cordially. She smiled at him with an inexperienced expression that would have been ambiguous were it not so unabashed.
"In that effort… There will be… uh, two parts to your practicing. The speaking part and the listening part. We'll start with speaking. "Start by… repeating these sounds: Ahhh, Eeee, Ehhh, Ohhh, Oooo, Ouuu," he instructed. She looked at him perplexedly. "Repeat means to say something that was just said," he clarified patiently.
"AaaAA—Agha," she muttered.
"That's alright, just start with the first one for now," he pressed.
*** *** ***
Saofor grumbled groggily next to his wife in their bed. Both were fully clothed in their nightwear and were additionally divided by separate covers that insulated them entirely from both the chill of the air and the warmth of their spouse. Little was usually said between them once the sky darkened. Their child had been grown and independent for several years now, leaving them with nothing else on which to mutually attend.
His audible emission brought her into a wakeful focus. One which she directed fully towards him, even rolling the cylindrically sealed blankets that encased her so that she could better view his profile. She stared at him in silent scrutiny and questioned how his unconscious expression could so closely match his waking one. He looked peeved, as if unsatisfied with his own sleeping mind's malformed imaginings. But he was always peeved, if not at her, than at someone else, unless he could find no immediate fault of his present company, then he'd turn to the weather, whose temperature, wetness, and wind offered countless angles from which to gripe between being too high or low in any combination of the aforementioned attributes.
His unwavering orneriness had begun to emerge when their son Sal first began adolescence, she recalled. When Sal was still a boy her husband took little notice of him, but as their heights gradually became commensurate, that's when Saofor's treatment of both Sal and her proportionally declined. Until eventually any shared activities he had with either her or their son were abandoned from lack of interest.
Whatever his reasons once were for pairing with her or siring their son had long since concluded. Now the two lived in a malaise of loosely coordinated melancholy, crossing each other's paths during the day only when coincidence dictated. Until each night, after tiredness compelled their rest but before sleepiness arrived, they rejoined again in bed. Separated only by blankets, which divided them just as distantly as a chasm between opposing cliffs.
Except this night, when his usual placidity momentarily lapsed either due to the absence of conscious hindrance or the presence of unconscious desire, his hand reached towards her precipice and touched her hair. A movement she did nothing to invite or resist, only remaining still in watchful waiting as whatever dream he'd slipped through reclaimed him. And compelled his hand to recoil from her along with his thoughts from her proximity. Leaving her to consider in her lone wakefulness what merits remained within her lot, and what trepidations she had in leaving it.
*** *** ***
There was a time when Bridan Doreer was largely held in high regard, but he did not remember it. He didn't remember much of anything anymore. His eyes were faded by a wilted mind, and his nose was reddened by his only remaining means of borrowing mental acuity. He distilled it himself from tubers he could spare from his garden. Any laws against imbibing were unwritten due to lack of cause. It was thought of by his neighbors only as a cleaning solvent for the surgeon, but to Bridan, it was so much more than that.
A weight bore down on him, it always had. During his youth he'd attempt to question his peers about it, to see if they had it too, but whenever he'd try, they'd get confused. So he wasn't sure if he was the only one, or if he was just bad at asking in a way they understood. What he was sure of, is that a single swig somehow relieved him from that ever present burden of being, for a while at least.
His proclivity was widely known, but seldom thought of by anyone else. During his binge days he would quarantine away from others, either on long solitary walks or just collapsed onto the floor of his home. No anger or belligerence was amplified in him by the practice, only a calming relief deceitfully suggesting that this time his peace would be lasting.
Two others would join him a couple times per season just for novelty's sake. But neither of them carried the weight like Bridan did, and they especially didn't understand his need for the lightness that nothing else provided. He always had a little on his person, enough for a taste for when his thoughts got too thick. But the binge days were what drove him. Most people worked four days on and used the following two to tend to minor projects or just rest entirely. Bridan only had one project, which he attended to as dutifully as a soldier preparing for battle. His binge would begin at the conclusion of his fourth work day, and continue until dusk on his second rest day, at which point he'd chug as much lightly-salted water as he could stomach to dampen his sickness the following morning.
He'd perfected the practice over the years such that his dosage was exact enough to be sustainable in perpetuity. A state he managed as routinely as many manage the feeding of their prized pets. By now he had lived this way for longer than he hadn't, to the concern of absolutely no one, his own especially.
*** *** ***
Cadi sat in her attic, thinking. Her husband Hal lived one door down from her in a separate house, but even with so many walls and boards between them she still felt too close. The couple lived their lives alone each day, except for one day every five when he would come live with her. Or during public events, which they would also attend together regularly.
No one minded that the couple took two whole houses for themselves. There were already enough superfluous dwellings that keeping an additional one occupied and maintained was easily unobjectionable. But they did judge her for being quasi separated from Hal, of which she was fully aware. He had no love for her, or even anyone else. However, there were no suitors available to her, and being unmarried at her age was so thoroughly unfashionable that she felt compelled to continue their intermittent marriage. Which suited Hal just fine, saved him from having to go scrounging for another one. By his reckoning: every day she wasn't living with him was just another day he didn't have to hear her yapping away about any old idiotic thing she might be thinking.
On her alone days she'd tend to their animals while he tended to their field, such was their arrangement. She wasn't fond of her work, but didn't mind it much either. The only aggravating element to it was in the morning when she had to scrape and rinse troughs and feed buckets before the goop from yesterday's excess food and saliva rotted too badly. A task which her dislike of caused her to always tie a thick cloth over her mouth and nose during its completion.
Her husband's needs were simple, and hers were small. So they gave no effort to expand either half of their homestead's enterprise. A little crop, to feed a little livestock, to feed them through the winter, was all they endeavored to have. Which came easily enough each year, there was nothing to spread disease to her livestock, and his crop was always strong. She didn't understand how he kept managing it, simple-minded as he was, but each year he crop kept coming in stronger, irrespective of its rotation. A fact that, although to her practical benefit, she found most annoying every harvest season when neighbors would emphatically compliment his soil and question his techniques. He'd be perking up with pride for tens of days afterward every year, and it was exhausting for her to cut him back down to size each time.
She much preferred the docility of winter; when the ground was too hard to move and the animals were too cold to be noncompliant. There were fewer parties then, and even fewer expectations from her peers. But winter also brought ice, which had to be scraped or hacked away when it formed in obstructing places, like around doors and entrances. Work that she was heavily reluctant to do.
Every season had its own sense of sourness to her, which one's was most pronounced just depended only on whichever one was presently transpiring.
*** *** ***
Gilli approached Cliff's cave with a hesitance barely overcome by hope. Upon hearing her approach, he stepped out to meet her. She couldn't help from feeling a twinge of fright as his feet planted into the ground in front of her. He was sextuple her size, at least. Larger than any man she'd seen through her shutters or from the tall grasses at the edge of town. As he came towards her a sudden concern struck her that he might just keep walking, into, through, and over her. And crush her head beneath his gigantic feet.
But relief was quick to arrive instead when he stopped and knelt down, a motion that took him longer than she thought. Once his eyeline descended from the height of trees, he spoke.
"You came back," he pondered aloud, musing the observation around his thoughts. "What a strange child…" he mumbled. "Then… Then we'll proceed. Can you say your name?"
"...." she huffed back, looking away.
"Then you can just listen to me for a bit instead," he proposed.
She nodded excitedly.
"Hmmm. What am I to say to you?" he mused. "Better to avoid questions then, since you can't answer. There's—There are The Principles. Good place as any to start. It shouldn't matter much what I'm saying anyway, as long as you understand the words," he paused. "Gilli, when I speak a word you don't understand… raise these front two fingers upwards, like this," he instructed as he demonstrated.
"||.."
"Yes, just like that. What order was I taught them in? Ah, I don't remember anymore. The fickle thieves of memory," he sighed. "Regardless, we'll start with… The Tree. Come Gilli, let's sit over there," he instructed as he walked towards the long log of a fallen tree. She hesitated confusedly for a moment, waiting for him to push or pull her to where he wanted her to move. But when he merely continued on without her, she sprinted quickly towards his heading. They both sat aside each other upon the log. "That tree is the oldest we can see from here," he said, pointing forwards a waze in front of them. There are different kinds, but they are still alike in many ways. Look at the width of its branches and the height of its trunk, then follow it down with your eyes… All the way down to the ground. Feel how long that took. Beneath the ground, that tree is still there. Its roots grow just as deep and just as wide into the soil as its branches stretch into the air. So to with all things… What was the next one… ah. Time. When you were born, you started as an infant. Then day by day by season by year, you grew. And with more years you will grow more. Just as this tree started from a seed, grew into a sapling and then to its current size. Look at the stump beside us. See how many rings it has? Each ring is another year it grew. Year after year it added another ring, growing that much wider and even taller.
To you, a day is a measurable chunk of time, wherein you move around and take action between sleeps. But to the tree, a day is just a moment, a tiny fraction of its next ring being formed. Your season is just a tree's day. The slower it grows the longer it lives, so to with all things.
What else… What else… I could recite the epic poem of Santil the Fallen Kin– no, that would be too improper for you just yet… Would you like to try your name again?"
Gilli looked down and softly pushed the front of his leg.
"What do I even say to you, child?" he whispered behind a sigh. "What might your eyes see me as?" he inquired perplexedly. "A different kind of forest creature perhaps? You know, I'd prefer to avoid your ilk. There was a time when this sliver of land was free from men. But I suppose your people saw the same appeal…
About me then… There was a great cat in these woods once. He patrolled a large swath of territory, I'm still not sure if he saw me as a threat or as competition at first, but he came for my flesh, and that I could not abide. I'd sensed him stalking me before, and so was plenty prepared. When he finally entered the cave, I netted him solemnly. He flailed and hissed in rage. Made me think of the parable of the fisherman who lost his hand pulling the hook from a shark. But this beast was no shark, he was famished and terrified. The terror was what stopped me. I'd seen enough of it.
I eventually left to fetch a deer. It took me longer to find an elderly one but eventually I brought it back to the cave, placed it in front of the netted cat… We watched each other, neither quite understanding what I was doing, I crossed behind him with my spear and went deeper inside. Once in position, I gradually cut away the net, one cut at a time, and that was a good net too… very good net. Wasn't any sentimentality about it once he was free. Just dragged that deer away, quick as lightning. Never came back. Until he got too brittle of bone and dull of tooth to hunt anymore. Then I found him here waiting for me, lying on his stomach and hiding his head under his paws. Wasn't many more deer later before I buried him. But I came to know that in the years proceeding, he'd cleared this territory all the way down to the Bent Boulder and all the way up to the Wilted Falls from any wolf, bear, snake or fiend who might have taken an interest in me. And though his scent has long faded, the sanctuary remains. I can tell you now, to a certainty, nothing will hurt you here. So, would you like to try again?"
"G–g–ggg…illeeeuh," she muttered embarrassedly.
"That's a thoroughly excellent start."
*** *** ***
Linia eyed Wilnum as he slept. He was disgustingly feeble, had been since they were children. In their years together she'd managed to mold him into being measurably more prominent, at least outwardly. But when he slept, the entire veneer she'd spent their marriage crafting fell away into the abyssal plane of their bedside, and she'd see him again for what he always was: a mouse in man-sized clothes.
Which suited her motives acceptably, so long as no one else saw. A glimpse is all it would take, one leg-lifting trollop trying to infringe on her position for a night, and Wilnum would be exposed in a nakedness so full that he'd never be able to redress himself again. Of those who were eligible, only a few would risk the scandal it might bring upon them. Among the single, the unmarried, and those loosely married out of convenience, her concerns could be narrowly directed.
It was a fragile endeavor, maintaining his status in the community without directing too much attraction towards him, but she managed it, nearly as neatly as she managed him. Except during the unwaking periods between his projections of power, when his expression betrayed his true nature without regard for who could observe its resurfacing.
*** *** ***
Faleen was sitting in her rocking chair working a spindle on her porch. The open air seemed to make better yarn, though she had no ideas as to why. Such were the highest truths, she thought; the ones which were just as unanswerable as they were undeniable. Like the coming day or the inevitable triumph of gravity over anything with legs.
A force that overtook her brother several times prior. He was older than she was, so it was sensible, but their disparity of age in no way warranted such an early defeat. He was frail from birth, and somehow stayed that way no matter how much he moved or what he was fed. Upon seeing him she always wondered how an insistent breeze never carried him away, which is what she would have imagined was the cause of his absence had she not seen his breathless body coiled on his bedroom floor.
His name was Mak, and as a child she'd revered him. Thinking his lightness of figure and thinness of bone to be due to an undiagnosed relation to eagle-kind. And that before his twenty-fifth summer his feathers would start to come in, revealing to all of his doubters that his affliction was no detriment or imperfection, only a necessary prerequisite to flying.
But when her perspective matured in conjunction with his growth, his form showed no signs of any propensity for flight, only a difficulty in lifting loads and ascending stairways. She did not blame him for this development, not consciously. Only on occasions when his physical incapabilities became too pronounced to allow her lofty childhood perspective of him to be continually held.
Upon his death, her feelings for him were purely sour. Despite no quotable cause being officially proclaimed, she could see what happened as plainly as the tail on a tadpole: his neck gave out. After enough decades of struggling to function in the most basic of capacities, the structures that held up his head had finally worn themselves to exhaustion. An occurrence that she hated him for. A hate whose reasons she would never outwardly articulate or inwardly admit. For never getting any stronger, for always needing so much help, and for letting himself die. Leaving her to live the rest of life alone without her longest confidant, whose words could fly her out of any pit in ways his body never managed to.
As her fingers spun the wool into a more workable form, she bitterly wondered why they could never manage to do the same for Mak, and hated him all the more for exposing her own helplessness of action, if only by his continued helplessness of form.
*** *** ***
Hal laid along his woven hammock, shielded by the shade of the well-trimmed trees behind his house. And contemplated his temporary commonalities with gliding birds, both being free from footedness without requiring any physical effort to remain so. As breezes flew both under and around him, the blanket enshrouding his body from toe to neck was pressed even more firmly against his body, combining with his clothes as a second skin that extended his sense of touch wide enough to differentiate each brush of open air from every other.
It was one of his preferred methods of passing a discretionary day, the other being crushing rock. There were many methods one could use to do so, depending on the size and type one started with, all of which he excelled at. It didn't matter to him whether he was using a pickaxe or hammer, each was equally satisfying. Needs for gravel and sand across the town were not high, so he always had large piles of excess. But whenever one pile regressed lower than another he was certain to restore its size. Stones, bricks, and gravel were piled in mounds, with the sand protected from the elements in a repurposed barn.
He had first taken up the task when the occasional spots of blueness on his wife's skin were becoming a point of unpopularity amongst his peers. Sal had always been good about covering up when outside but pesky peckers and nosy neighbors eventually pried their way into his familial affairs and made an issue of it. So now when bereft of laborious work, he'd intentionally exhaust himself making gravel or rest his thoughts laying between two trees where he didn't have to hear her pester him about every pedantic grievance she might have on that particular day.
He used to try to appease her when they were younger, but whatever her discontentment was either pivoted or escalated just outside the sum of his efforts to satisfy it. Until finally he'd had enough and ignored her completely, which only resulted in stoking her coals even further. She'd follow him across the house, going on and on about this or that or something else entirely until he'd have to force her to stop. Which worked for a while, but eventually he needed to force her harder, then harder still, until she physically couldn't continue to badger him at all.
But she'd simmered down a lot since then, now that they had a scheduled arrangement agreeable to them both. She didn't come into his domain to antagonize him and he didn't intrude into hers except on their designated days. It was a perfect partnership for him. So much so that now he wondered why other couples even bothered sharing an abode at all.
*** *** ***
Gilli looked down as she exited her room, careful to make her steps silent and seamless with the ambiance of the house. She'd almost made it to the back door when Faleen spotted her suddenly. Gilli froze and meekly faced her mother, unsure of what transgression she was about to be punished for.
"Go on, then," Faleen muttered dismissively. "No sense in meandering." Gilli obliged with repressed eagerness and proceeded to walk out the door, gingerly closing it behind her so as not to betray her excitement by its sound.
Into the woods she went, past bushes, over creeks, and through openings in the tree-line that she'd become intimately familiar with during the recent and wondrous happenings of her life. She didn't need the markings anymore, every distinctive element of her surroundings served to orient her as truly as a signpost.
She wasted little time exploring past the edges of her mapped knowledge before redirecting back towards Cliff's cave. Upon arriving she found he was not there, so she left again to explore some more.
Deeper into the forest she ventured, mindful to keep her bearings straight so she could safely trace her return path. If an obstacle required her to move around it, such as a tree trunk of exceptional wideness, or a steep drop in terrain, she dragged the back of her boot along a softer patch of dirt in a straight line to reinforce her original orientation. After traversing over a hill that felt taller than it looked, she found a long and narrow pond lining its other side. Cautious not to slip and fall in, she lowered herself down to her knees and peered into its waters, fascinated by the ripples of its surface and the soft buzzing that emanated from all around it.
A strange looking dome emerged out of its shallows and snapped at a long fly with wide wings. Flat green circles floated atop the water's surface with a small, brown, and speckled creature sitting atop one of them. Along with a cornucopia of other plants she had never seen before. She was tempted to climb down and get a closer look, but resisted the urge. Either out of fear from falling or of something dangerous emerging from the water faster than she could climb away. The body of water filled her with unease just as it filled the basin it occupied. So she ran, ran back to the cave, where the unseen creatures that hide in mud and murk would be of no danger to her.
Cliff was there this time, he was crafting something, but wasn't far enough along for her to determine what. He looked at her and paused before gently placing his tools down and heaving himself back up onto his feet.
He walked towards her as she approached, closing their gap much more quickly by his steps than she by hers. When near, he stopped and knelt down in front of her, peering into her the way one might inspect an abandoned den of indiscernible occupants.
"What a curious child," he muttered to himself before addressing her. "Have you been practicing with your parents?"
She hesitated a nod at the half-truth.
"Tell me, then," he goaded.
She clenched her fists tightly and severed her gaze from his as she prepared to answer. She had been visualizing this moment her whole walk here, but now that the time had come, whatever preparation she'd endeavored to achieve seemingly dissolved into the open air.
"G-gghhilleee," she whispered.
"Would you like to try it again?"
"....."
"Just one more time, it'll be quick as a hare's hop," he assured.
"Guuiiilli."
"Can you hear how much better you're doing?"
"....."
"You are, I can attest to it."
"||..."
"It means to assert one's word that something happened. Hmmm… What can I recite for you today then?" he said as he walked back towards his abode, she followed him as he went. "Would you like to hear about how to carv– no, I doubt you would. There's the identifying characteristics of leaves…" he muttered, scanning his surroundings for inspiration. "What about… Three couples of sparrows built new nests in the spring. One couple built theirs on a— no, that won't be good either," he realized. I don't think sifting through appropriate parables is a good way of doing this, since I can't place your cognisance."
Gilli was tempted to ask about the word, but decided not to. Since she had just done that and she didn't want him to think her stupid.
"You'll just have to tolerate my own stories then, however benign they may be," he sighed. "Remember the great storm last year?"
She looked at him knowingly. It had rattled the shutters of her room so loudly she couldn't sleep some nights.
"It destroyed my hut. I used to live much deeper than this. Deep enough not to risk discovery by exploratory little girls. But I needed the cave then, and once the storm subsided I decided not to bother rebuilding where I'd been. The tubers and roots were unscathed, but everything else I'd planted or constructed was washed or blown away. I still plant there though, better soil. Do you know what you want to do once you're grown?"
"....."
"No harm in considering it, you can always change your mind. When I was newly speaking I never would have imagined I'd be here, in this land. Do you know where this is?"
"Hffm?"
"This is the Forsaken Forest, west of the Forgotten Plains, where your town lives. Great wars were once fought along its edges. The plains were lush and brimming with orchards, enviable to all who knew of it. But the travel was so far that no kingdoms could reinforce their hold over time. Eventually the orchards were leveled down by battles, and the woodland beasts were relentlessly ravenous of any regiments whose scent was winded westward. And the conquering of this region became too fruitless and costly for ego preservation to be sufficient cause for the continuation of anyone's campaign," he sighed. "But that was all a long time ago… You can still find bones just beneath the surface in some spots, fields of them, except— actually, do you know what I like? Mushrooms, I have some fresh ones, if you'd like to try." He fetched a clay pot with two types of mushrooms, large spherical white ones and clumpy brown ones. She curiously tried them and found both their tastes to be simultaneously novel and undesirable to finish.
"Some are better stewed, you are quite correct," he said with a nod. "But I am bereft of spices, as you might deduce from my living quarters."
"||..."
"It means to know something indirectly, by means of logical conclusion. Ah, we could speak of that I suppose… perhaps not. Also, do not eat mushrooms that I haven't picked for you, some varieties are deadly poisonous."
"...."
"Because I already learned which ones are nutritious, and which are dangerous. Those were perfectly safe," he paused to consider something. "I have an idea. Why don't we walk around for a bit and you can point to things you'd like to know more about. That should make for more fitting conversation. Come, follow me," he instructed as he put away his mushroom pot. She obliged him with mixed hesitance and eagerness.
They walked for a while in unhurried silence in a direction that she recognized to be parallel to the forest's border, so that they were going neither further in nor further out. Eventually they reached a long entanglement of vines with large flame colored funnel-shaped flowers.
"|...."
"Those?" he asked, masking his surprise. "Those are horn vines. They're not nutritive but sickly women sometimes drink the boilings of their flowers or roots. What else do you see?" he goaded innocently.
"|...."
"That is a dead buckthorn bush, let me see if we can find a living one… There's one. Its berries are tart and highly nutritive, but it must not be planted, only gathered from. You could try it but this one has already been stripped. Try looking around for animals instead, there are many near," he said. She looked around confusedly but noticed nothing. "Check the branches," he whispered.
"|...."
"That's a tree squirrel, they gather nuts and bury them for later. Very clever creatures."
"|...."
"Tree bark?"
"|...."
"Oh, I see. That is a kind of moth. There is much peculiar about moths, but this variety especially. Its eyes are so sensitive that it can perceive many colors that people are blind to."
"||..."
"Hm, how to explain…" he muttered, fetching a firm stick from the ground and scraping the inside of his boot in a long stroke, clearing a portion of dirt from visual obstructions. "There is a great wave," he said, drawing an oscillating line along the ground that gradually straightened. "It's called a spectrum. Humankind can perceive a narrow portion, here in the middle," he drew a rectangle that segmented the line as he spoke. "And in that middle are all the colors that you've ever seen. But that's just a narrow slice of actuality. That type of moth has eyes that see many more, colors that people can't even imagine. Most animals actually see fewer than humans. It may seem odd, that a four-legged animal larger than I could be so blind compared to the sight of a mouthless moth a thousand times smaller. But one's perceptions… so rarely exceed one's need. Perhaps the deer even finds its own sight preferable, being so unburdened by the wideness of scope outside of its life's relevance."
Gilli didn't understand what relevance meant. But neither did she ask since she was made mildly uneasy by a sudden toneless timber in Cliff's voice that she hadn't heard in him before.
*** *** ***
Fil wondered why his parents seemed so constantly stilted. He listened to them speak during mealtimes about the importance of obedience and how to properly behave, it's all they usually talked about. But their words meant little to him; he was much more interested in their manners. They both acted as a unified monotoned woodpecker, who used corrections as a deniable ruse to peck at him from whatever angles they could find. Trying to goad him into reprisal so that they could correct that behavior too.
It didn't matter how quickly he ate, he was outnumbered and as physically overwhelmed as a lone lamb from his side of the table. Eventually, once they'd deemed their antagonizing completed, they would proceed to the next phase of their daily dinner practice and pointedly speak to each other in rapid bursts. As if forcefully passing the same breath of air between them. More quickly than snow smothers an ember, they would go from accusatory jabs and recurring demands for his capitulating remorseful response, to shunning him from the conversation in unison by their own coordinated signal. Whilst still insisting that he stay seated for however long it took for their exercise of exclusion to bring them sufficient satisfaction.
He found this behavior odd, and noticed that it had started escalating in length and intensity the older he got. They had also recently started to talk to him a bit about his change. Which as far as he could understand, only meant that he'd be getting taller soon. But this change, as they put it, was something on which they directed much concern towards. So he'd listen to their lectures about its dangers and repeated back whatever they'd just said when their pauses indicated that he should. He'd do this until they'd eventually give him permission to go out to school, to go out to play, or to go to bed.
It didn't particularly bother him to participate in these scripted reenactments each day between his education, his fun, and his sleep. But he did find it boring. And was curious why they weren't bored of it also. Until, once while he was playing catch with a ball the other children had carefully crafted with clay and twine, he observed Bahnly (a toddler) from the porch of someone's house tantruming profusely as he was being carried inside.
That combination of appearance and tone was the closest thing he'd yet observed to his parent's daily liminal rituals. And then he came to wonder about two other things instead: if his parents were actually just having one long continuous tantrum of a different, more grown-up variety, and what had sparked it to begin with? Because unlike Bahly, who was involuntarily being carried back inside, they could already do whatever they wanted. So what could they be so upset about?
*** *** ***
Corlin walked around the confines of his house with smug satisfaction. For his whole life he'd been required to exhibit obedience in all things. Until recently. He'd been crafting furniture out of reeds and half-cuts of wood his parent's friends donated to him. They were crudely crafted constructions, but superior in appearance to the vacuousness of empty rooms. His woman had been arranged five seasons ago and she was scheduled to join him once her maturation was reached. Her mother needed sufficient time to prepare her of course, and there was no rushing such an imperative process.
Simee was her name, she was acceptably pretty for him but he'd have much preferred her sister Jelimee, who had unfortunately already been assigned a match before his parents could pursue the pairing. But Corlin knew Simee would be almost as good, at least she was the smarter one. Which would be more useful over the long-term. Corlin prided himself on considering the eventualities of things. It seemed to him like all of his peers were only obsessed with the fickle and fleeting gratifications of whatever day they happened to be in. But he saw each season as a stepping stone to the next. Always planning, always plotting, always preparing.
At this moment he was hungry, so he fired a pot of water and dug out some tubers from the garden to boil, but instead of grabbing just enough for lunch, he decided to overfill his basket so that he'd already have some precooked for dinner as well. Afterwards, as he put away the small pitch-fork, he allowed himself a proud nod for intelligently saving himself the future effort of digging more that day.
As he continued the necessary tasks required for dinner he thought about how stupid his father was for always waiting until whim moved him to accomplish something. As he had watched his father do with every project of his growing up. Regardless of its nature, planting, harvesting, building, maintaining, cleaning, organizing, and especially communicating, the latest possible juncture was when it always happened. Whatever it was. But not Corlin. With him things were calculated, measured, and performed promptly. And that night, when his pot was dried, his bowl cleaned, tomorrow's clothing unfolded, and all the rest of the possible preparations for the following day were completed, he relished in his own power and success in positioning every object in his house to exist in accordance to his will.
*** *** ***
Lindow approached Ali and Barl Anpeela's house and knocked on the door. It was doubtlessly unbarred but he was not friendly enough with her or her husband to enter or even cross their fence without being granted recent permission. Eventually his incessant knocking caused the home's residents to relent and Alli answered it.
"We won't be needing checks, Lindow. We are feeling perfectly passable," Allie informed him curtly.
"I'm glad of that, I'm only alerting you that I'll be inside your fence to do animal checks," he corrected.
"Oh, yes. Go then. But I'm sure they're all well too. As much as they've been eating."
"Then the checks will be quick."
"Latch the gate–uhh, when you finish."
"I always do," he assured politely with a nod, before leaving her doorstep and walking around her house towards the fenced pasture behind it. He was immediately greeted by a number of cheerful animals who recognized his scent. A dog, a donkey, and three horses all gathered around the gate. He didn't risk opening it and instead heaved his legs sideways and swung them over the fence's top, using one hand to support his leap.
"Been well, have you?" he asked them cheerfully. But his mood migrated more seriously when he detected an open gash on one of the horse's legs. He refused to recall the name of other people's animals, but he recognized every other aspect of this one. It was an aggressive mare, whose moods were as fickle as her health. It seemed like she always bore at least one bruise of her own doing somewhere at any given time. Except this time her skin had split, in a gash too long for scabbing to suffice. If he didn't wash it, honey it, and secure its continued covering, the animal would die from its festering. Not for many days, but inevitably its leg would be lost, and its life would follow.
Anger simmered beneath his every movement as he retrieved the relevant items from his tool case resting outside the fence. A feeling brought on by the unmovable apathy of the Anpeelas towards these creatures. Knowing that after he left, and they saw the bandaged leg, there would be no appreciation within either of them of the severity of the treatment or the lethality of the injury. Just a shared shrug that Lindow was humoring himself on trivialities again. Looking for excuses to be of use and earn his yearly fee. Only he knew that with such pitiful daily care being taken by their owners, a quarter of the livestock in town would be sickly within a year without his intervention. And half of those would be dead by the next.
But no one else cared, except for Old Pyke. So now he was left to tend to the untended without a single outside word of understanding. Just reluctant acceptance from anyone he approached that he had a job to do and it was probably simpler just to let him do it.
Unless they were already in pain, injured, or sleepless, then it was his own door that was knocking. Present pain and debilitation seemed to be the only forces that could bring his words to the surface of consideration. Until then, his forewarnings were always washed over by salty waves of indignance, ready to pull down any notions that dared to contradict a person's preestablished patterns of self-destruction, into their mind's depths of disregarded dangers, where childhood fears and fictional horrors were drowned in unremembered depths, and carried away by the currents of their lives to unsearchable waters.
So he would treat them, and their livestock. Again and again. But exclusively when the truth of his words resurfaced and manifested as unmanageable symptoms. Only to be drowned again soon after by the ever rising tide of causal forces, whose perpetuation his patients would invariably insist upon. Their culture was such that ills were never cured, only abated. A communally shared practice that he was powerless to cease, and had consciously withdrawn himself long ago from attempting to.
*** *** ***
Continued...