From alt.pub.dragons-inn Thu Dec 16 07:56:35 1993 Newsgroups: alt.pub.dragons-inn Path: netcom.com!netcomsv!decwrl!decwrl!nic.hookup.net!europa.eng.gtefsd.com!uunet!pilchuck!li From: li@Data-IO.COM (Phyllis Rostykus) Subject: [Kardia] Late Harvest Message-ID: <1993Dec15.221530.10316@data-io.com> Sender: news@data-io.com (The News) Organization: Data I/O Corporation Date: Wed, 15 Dec 1993 22:15:30 GMT Lines: 133 ADMIN: Another installment in the on-going saga of Kardia and her moonsilk plants. Written by The Dreamer and I. Thanks, Dreamer, for all the beauty. ------------------------------------------------------------------------- The late fall sunlight had that filtered quality of the sun lowering towards the horizon, and edging the sky was the dark promise of rain. It was the day after the Lighthouse party, and Kardia was half walking, half running towards the Public Gardens. She was half ready to cry, as she'd forgotten what she should never have forgotten. She didn't look at the gorgeous blooms of the Gardens, instead, she hastened to the patchwork fields of green tinged gold. Half of the patches of grasses and grains were dry brown stubble. As Kardia neared the patch where she had planted the Moon Silk the Spring before, she slowed, her eyes wide. The plants had been pulled up. The dirt was dark under the now dry roots, and the plants had been carefully bundled together so that they all stood vertical, and each armwide bundle had half a dozen plants spread over the bundle to keep the rain off the drying stalks and two or three stalks used as the rope to hold the bundles together. There were eight bundles on the empty field. Kardia started to silently cry even as she smiled. She just stood there, blotting up her tears. "I did it a month ago," said a quiet voice behind her. Kardia whirled to see Vitor standing there, smiling gently at her. She flung her arms around him in an impetuous hug, and the movement aggrivated her still tender ribs so she winced just a bit. For a second, he was still, and then, gently, he hugged her back. "They told me when." He smiled a somber smile, "They were a proud generation and knew with centuries of certainty what they were meant for." Kardia reached into the nearest bundle. The leaves no longer stung and the stalks were crispy dry. A seed bundle fell off into her hand. The husks crumbled away and seeds, like the dark silver seeds she'd carried for so long, shone softly in the sunlight. Vitor nodded and picked up one of the bundles. Kardia put her arms firmly around another one and followed him, careful not to jostle the bundle too hard for fear of losing the seed. They came to a dry barn with a series of tools that looked more like torture devices than anything else. "Enough?" Vitor asked Kardia and she nodded. She cupped her hands and pantomimed drinking from them and then raised one eyebrow. He looked at her, frowning for a moment and then his face cleared. He brought her out to a water pump. Kardia shook her head and then bent down and spread her arms. She used the hands to make a spreading motion, out. Vitor frowned again and watched her as she shaped curves on the surface that she also spread... and then looked at the water pump and smiled. He led her out of the plots of grain, and out into the Garden's forest, where a beaver family had built a dam across part of the stream. The pool was edged with algae and water weed and Kardia smiled and nodded. Vitor smiled as well and said, "I guess I'll let you get on with your work." Kardia found the wheelbarrow in the barn, and went back to her patch and, two at a time, she transported the bundles back to the barn. There, she used a hackle to pull the precious seeds from each of the stalks and bundles into a wooden seed bin that had a roller for breaking away the husks. She didn't dare use the thresher and the threshing floor for fear of breaking the stalks; but the hand method worked. The soft patter of the seeds on the wooden bin's bottom soon blended into the sound of the rain on the roof. She carefully gathered the seed and found that they were too many for her old bag. Kardia smiled and gathered the rest into a burlap bag. Once de-seeded, she split the stalks into four groups. She leaned three of them up against the barn wall and took the fourth out into the rain in the wheelbarrow. As she passed the tree house that was Vitor's, she dropped the burlap bag of excess seeds by the front door. Before she had taken two steps, a voice called out from behind, "Wait a minute..." She stopped and turned to see Vitor walking toward her with a basket of freshly cut blue flowers in one hand and a small silver sickle in the other. "Thank you for the seeds, but I never accept gifts freely." Seeing her eyebrows rise in confusion, he reached into his basket and brought forth a blue rose. "I offer a blue Winter Rose, from the country of Cormyr," he said handing the flower to her. Kardia took it gently and inhaled its light, sweet fragrance. Her entire face lightened and she smiled a smile nearly as sweet as the rose. Vitor chuckled, "You're welcome. One more thing before you go..." She looked into his deep brown eyes, so full of care. "Take care of yourself daughter. It is none of my business, but I weep every time I see one of Nature's children in pain." Kardia looked at him for a moment, and then curtseyed, a deep, graceful movement. He was gone when she straightened again. She took another long breath of the rose's perfume and then tucked it carefully under her ear before taking up the handles of the wheelbarrow again. At the pond, Kardia took off her shoes and socks and rolled up her pants, she left the rose on top of her pack so that she'd remember it. The gold of her left foot shone even in the grey of the rainy day. She picked up a quarter of what was in the barrow, a very easy armload, and gently waded into the pond, up to her knees in the water weeds. She spread the stalks of dried stinging nettle on the water and then she pushed them under the surface. Kardia went back to the barrow and got the next armload and waded into the pond a little ways away and spread and sank that batch, and then the next and the next. She dried her legs with some of the dried grass at the edge of the pond and put her socks and shoes back on. It was noon when she was done, and she sighed as she went back to the Mage Guild, where she was slightly surprised to find Dasham completely unaware that Kardia had been gone the whole morning. Kardia worked twice as hard on the curse breaking cover just to make up, and took some of it back with her to the Lighthouse that evening and worked on it in the good light the 'kani had for their guests. ---- Copyright 1993 by Phyllis L. Rostykus. Permission granted for distribution via the usual Usenet channels and for archival. All other rights reserved. -- Liralen Li | "Looking down on empty streets, all she can see are li@inigo.Data-IO.com | the dreams all made solid, are the dreams made real." aka Phyllis Rostykus | - "Mercy Street" by Peter Gabriel