Apocalyptic: God of the Harvest
Sep. 3rd, 2011 04:55 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kasihyaMay 9th, Year 0
The time comes when it become impractical to live in Yggdrasil House any longer in their current situation. Their trips to the city are so frequent for supplies and food that Matt and Diana are worried about the day the gas station in town will run out of gas, and they will no longer be able to use the car.
This bothers Eŋya. He's been an apocalyptic survivor for nearly a month, but he's been the son of a sugar cane plantation owner for nearly nineteen years. With hundreds of people depending on his family for food, he has an innate hatred for hunger of any kind. The prospect of running out of food, and having no idea how to access more, terrifies him.
Logic, which dictates a large percentage of his actions, tells him that he ought not to announce his idea at dinner, as was his initial plan. He should definitely find Matt, because everyone defers to Matt regardless of age and rank (Even Julian, a miracle for which he has no gods to thank any longer) but Matt is busy running around the kitchen like a headless chicken, so he does the next-best thing instead, and corners Diana in her room.
'We ought to move to the city,' he announces.
She sets aside the book she was reading when he interrupted. 'Mull?'
'I'm not from this world, and we do — did — transportation differently. But this 'gas', it won't last forever, will it. And it takes up a lot of it to travel to the city twice a week. I thought it would be more practical if we found another house, somewhere closer,' he says, standing in the doorway.
Diana folds her hands in her lap and looks thoughtful. 'I hate being right,' she says, half to herself.
Eŋya laughs. 'No you don't.'
She grins. 'No, I don't. But,' she adds, sobering, 'I'm sorry this time. Where in the city would we find somewhere to live, this big?'
'Are there — I don't know very much about your cities — are there no mansions or plantations in them?' He tries to remember what he'd seen last time, but Eŋya hates Mull; too much dense, hard stonework, not enough glass and green. He suspects that Julian feels the same.
'Well. There's apartment buildings. Hey, you can come in and sit down.' Diana waves at the bottom half of the bed. Eŋya purses his lips, pushing away his instinctive avoidance of that particular piece of furniture and sitting down gingerly. Once she's satisfied, Diana continues, 'I was thinking about all the apartment buildings. They're like the student housing at Iiyeŋaila, but usually for fewer people.'
'You think we could spread ourselves out over three or four of these apartments,' Eŋya interprets.
Diana sits up straighter. 'You have a different idea?'
Eŋya tilts his head and grips his knees. 'I think,' he says. 'that we ought not to divide ourselves. And that it's bizarre enough to live in Matt's family's house. Other houses won't be empty of the possessions of their previous occupants.'
'So what do you want to do then?' she asks.
He sighs. 'I want to twist reality so that Mull is within walking distance, but I'd either need a degree in advanced physics, or I'd need Kephri and his entire extended family to do a working.'
'I can't imagine a whole team of Kephris.' Diana shivers, and they share a short laugh at the thought.
'We ought not to extrapolate his entire world based on a sample of one,' Eŋya says, uneasy with mocking their friend. 'Otherwise people might go around thinking that Julian and I are similar.'
Diana raises an eyebrow. He throws his head back. 'No.'
'All right,' she says, eyebrow climbing higher.
Eŋya is on the verge of protesting, when something occurs to him, and he stops dead. 'Julian.'
'Yes?'
'No, not that. He's a prince, he'll have had a better education, and he specializes in telekinesis.'
'Yes, I know,' says Diana drily. 'He's dangled me out of windows at least twice.'
Eŋya has no idea what to say to that. His propriety stifles the impulsive response that immediately springs to mind, suggesting bizarre foreplay of some sort, and he settles on, 'He could move the house.' Hope springs to life in his chest. Maybe, just maybe, this could work to their advantage. They don't have to move the house. Maybe they could move portions of the city towards themselves. He has no idea how strong Julian's magic is; he never exhibited the full extent while they were at university … and for once he is glad of his presence.
He rises from his steady train of thought to discover Diana watching him as though he is extremely dim. 'Yes?' he asks.
'It's been a month,' she says. 'A month since any of us was last able to use magic of any sort.'
Eŋya gestures between them. 'Last week, we couldn't — I could understand you when you spoke Zeferotan, and that was all. Now I can talk to Naike, and Reed. Tell me how that happened, if not by magic.'
❦❦❦❦❦❦❦❦❦❦❦❦❦❦
Eŋya is the second; he goes out to tend the garden and talks to the plants. He finds it easier to talk to plants than to the people inside the house about his fears; inside the house, they have the same ideas which bounce back and forth, gaining strength every time and accomplishing nothing. Talking to plants helps them grow, and telling them about the growing inaccessibility of food relieves some of his own worries, so it's killing two birds with one stone, as the saying goes.
He doesn't expect that the plants actually listen, and it is to his great surprise when, two weeks later, his sunflowers sprout round orange squashes, and the weeds filling in the bare patches of earth around the yard turn out to be pea plants. Eŋya walks around the garden, checking the plants and muttering to them. He swears, as he chides a sunflowers for turning into a pumpkin patch almost overnight, that they droop with every word from his mouth.
'Don't make the mistake of thinking I'm not grateful,' he adds, feeling a bit foolish. 'You do understand my confusion. I didn't know you had it in you, boys, but I'm most certainly happy with this, and I'm going to tell everyone else about it.' He strokes the leaves of the nearest plant, which strains upwards and spreads its petals out further.
Eŋya laughs.
❦❦❦❦❦❦❦❦❦❦❦❦❦❦❦❦❦
Postscript:
Matt and Neil use the pumpkins to make pies, served with an improbable number of peas (Eŋya is sure that he and Naike didn't pick all the peas, but there are enough for everyone to heap their plate high) and that is what they eat for dinner. Nyali attacks his slice with a ferocity heretofore unseen and consumes at least half a pie on his own, as well as a bowl of peas. The farmer in Eŋya, the one who loves to feed people, smiles.
The time comes when it become impractical to live in Yggdrasil House any longer in their current situation. Their trips to the city are so frequent for supplies and food that Matt and Diana are worried about the day the gas station in town will run out of gas, and they will no longer be able to use the car.
This bothers Eŋya. He's been an apocalyptic survivor for nearly a month, but he's been the son of a sugar cane plantation owner for nearly nineteen years. With hundreds of people depending on his family for food, he has an innate hatred for hunger of any kind. The prospect of running out of food, and having no idea how to access more, terrifies him.
Logic, which dictates a large percentage of his actions, tells him that he ought not to announce his idea at dinner, as was his initial plan. He should definitely find Matt, because everyone defers to Matt regardless of age and rank (Even Julian, a miracle for which he has no gods to thank any longer) but Matt is busy running around the kitchen like a headless chicken, so he does the next-best thing instead, and corners Diana in her room.
'We ought to move to the city,' he announces.
She sets aside the book she was reading when he interrupted. 'Mull?'
'I'm not from this world, and we do — did — transportation differently. But this 'gas', it won't last forever, will it. And it takes up a lot of it to travel to the city twice a week. I thought it would be more practical if we found another house, somewhere closer,' he says, standing in the doorway.
Diana folds her hands in her lap and looks thoughtful. 'I hate being right,' she says, half to herself.
Eŋya laughs. 'No you don't.'
She grins. 'No, I don't. But,' she adds, sobering, 'I'm sorry this time. Where in the city would we find somewhere to live, this big?'
'Are there — I don't know very much about your cities — are there no mansions or plantations in them?' He tries to remember what he'd seen last time, but Eŋya hates Mull; too much dense, hard stonework, not enough glass and green. He suspects that Julian feels the same.
'Well. There's apartment buildings. Hey, you can come in and sit down.' Diana waves at the bottom half of the bed. Eŋya purses his lips, pushing away his instinctive avoidance of that particular piece of furniture and sitting down gingerly. Once she's satisfied, Diana continues, 'I was thinking about all the apartment buildings. They're like the student housing at Iiyeŋaila, but usually for fewer people.'
'You think we could spread ourselves out over three or four of these apartments,' Eŋya interprets.
Diana sits up straighter. 'You have a different idea?'
Eŋya tilts his head and grips his knees. 'I think,' he says. 'that we ought not to divide ourselves. And that it's bizarre enough to live in Matt's family's house. Other houses won't be empty of the possessions of their previous occupants.'
'So what do you want to do then?' she asks.
He sighs. 'I want to twist reality so that Mull is within walking distance, but I'd either need a degree in advanced physics, or I'd need Kephri and his entire extended family to do a working.'
'I can't imagine a whole team of Kephris.' Diana shivers, and they share a short laugh at the thought.
'We ought not to extrapolate his entire world based on a sample of one,' Eŋya says, uneasy with mocking their friend. 'Otherwise people might go around thinking that Julian and I are similar.'
Diana raises an eyebrow. He throws his head back. 'No.'
'All right,' she says, eyebrow climbing higher.
Eŋya is on the verge of protesting, when something occurs to him, and he stops dead. 'Julian.'
'Yes?'
'No, not that. He's a prince, he'll have had a better education, and he specializes in telekinesis.'
'Yes, I know,' says Diana drily. 'He's dangled me out of windows at least twice.'
Eŋya has no idea what to say to that. His propriety stifles the impulsive response that immediately springs to mind, suggesting bizarre foreplay of some sort, and he settles on, 'He could move the house.' Hope springs to life in his chest. Maybe, just maybe, this could work to their advantage. They don't have to move the house. Maybe they could move portions of the city towards themselves. He has no idea how strong Julian's magic is; he never exhibited the full extent while they were at university … and for once he is glad of his presence.
He rises from his steady train of thought to discover Diana watching him as though he is extremely dim. 'Yes?' he asks.
'It's been a month,' she says. 'A month since any of us was last able to use magic of any sort.'
Eŋya gestures between them. 'Last week, we couldn't — I could understand you when you spoke Zeferotan, and that was all. Now I can talk to Naike, and Reed. Tell me how that happened, if not by magic.'
❦❦❦❦❦❦❦❦❦❦❦❦❦❦
Eŋya is the second; he goes out to tend the garden and talks to the plants. He finds it easier to talk to plants than to the people inside the house about his fears; inside the house, they have the same ideas which bounce back and forth, gaining strength every time and accomplishing nothing. Talking to plants helps them grow, and telling them about the growing inaccessibility of food relieves some of his own worries, so it's killing two birds with one stone, as the saying goes.
He doesn't expect that the plants actually listen, and it is to his great surprise when, two weeks later, his sunflowers sprout round orange squashes, and the weeds filling in the bare patches of earth around the yard turn out to be pea plants. Eŋya walks around the garden, checking the plants and muttering to them. He swears, as he chides a sunflowers for turning into a pumpkin patch almost overnight, that they droop with every word from his mouth.
'Don't make the mistake of thinking I'm not grateful,' he adds, feeling a bit foolish. 'You do understand my confusion. I didn't know you had it in you, boys, but I'm most certainly happy with this, and I'm going to tell everyone else about it.' He strokes the leaves of the nearest plant, which strains upwards and spreads its petals out further.
Eŋya laughs.
❦❦❦❦❦❦❦❦❦❦❦❦❦❦❦❦❦
Postscript:
Matt and Neil use the pumpkins to make pies, served with an improbable number of peas (Eŋya is sure that he and Naike didn't pick all the peas, but there are enough for everyone to heap their plate high) and that is what they eat for dinner. Nyali attacks his slice with a ferocity heretofore unseen and consumes at least half a pie on his own, as well as a bowl of peas. The farmer in Eŋya, the one who loves to feed people, smiles.
