PM to join Svefra in the Garden

[Richard]

Winter 26, 513

The agricultural peak of Sharai was an important peak for the farmers of the city. It was terraced for rice, tea, and many other types of food. The city didn’t usually have surplus food, but with the year round effort of the farmers, and innovative hot houses they were able to grow tea all year round, which lets face it, was the most important part of the culture. The peak was also home to the Okomo, divine mountain goats blessed by the gods themselves. Richard didn’t know what they were for, but there were laws protecting them. There were also pastures for other less divinely charged beasts, many of whom where edible or gave something edible, which the reimancer was thankful for. Yes, the peak of Sharai was Richard’s favorite food producing mountain.

So when the farmers sent out a call for help during the winter season, the always hungry reimancer wanted to do his part to his help his home city. He had set aside a day to help, and as people flocked to the farthest peak. When Richard arrived, people were already hard at work, and the reimancer soon realized he was out of his element. This had nothing to do with fire. He watched briefly before being directed by a farmer to carry bundles of tea leaves to be dried. It was hard work, but it smelled really good, he spent a bell in almost complete silence, before spotting what looked to be a Svefra.

When ever he passed her, he spent a few chimes trying to study her. She was beautiful, to sum it up in a word, with sun kissed skin and light brown hair shorn roughly shoulder length. Her blue eyes seemed to hold all the secrets of the ocean, and those secrets called Richard. She must yield those secrets, even as chimes passed, the drive to learn more about her filled his mind, pushing even the task at hand into the back of his mind. Soon, he was just standing there, watching her work.

[Cassandra Southwind]

"Syna, that is disgusting."

"What is?"

"Your thing here. The fruit, what it is called."

"You don't like it?"

"It is disgusting."

"Why did you buy it?"

"Why do you care?"

"Because I'm selling it, and I want to know if something's wrong with it."

"It's too sweet."

"Fruits tend to be."

"It will be foul in a week."

"As they do."

"So why eat them ever?" Cassandra couldn't be bothered to tell him why she did; in fact, a healer at the Catholicon had insisted it would alleviate most of her illnesses. The sailor had been suffering from malnutrition, scurvy as they call it, and apparently the only cure were these insufferable fruits that stung her tongue and watered her eyes with their exuberant saccharinity. "It is a waste, it seems."

"You know, there's a lot of work put into collecting these things. Just tomorrow the whole city will go out to Sharai and harvest the lot of it for Winter. It'll feed the whole city for a time." When he noticed her eyes rolling, he added, "It'll teach you what's not a waste. And I tell you what," he leaned in close, as if to share a secret.

"What?" The same word she had said to the old man at the fruit stall was said again to the strange boy who stared at her high atop Sharai Peak. She said it with similar distaste as well, a frown furrowed on her tired brow and a sharp knife cutting through her tone. She had been working for free for about an hour because some stranger had bet her she couldn’t, and she wasn't particularly happy about it. Though she could appreciate the pleasant burn of hard labor, it was much easier to be irritated at her task than to admit she liked it. Lashing out at this boy was her way of proving as much.

She dropped her bucket and stepped toward him, so wrapped up in her frustrations that she forgot to be confused. Her eyes met his and she made a show of intimidation, her foreign accent shining brightly on warped grammar. "What are you at?"

[Richard]

Richard had not intended to be spotted, it always lead to awkward situations like the one that was being presented to him now. Though, he also made no attempt to hide himself, so the fact that he was spotted should not have came as a surprise. He had to admit to feeling a bit taken back, he never was the most socially nimble person, and sometimes even the most basic, and common interactions between two sapient beings was beyond the grasp of the spellsword. He pursed his lips, as the woman became obviously angry. That was also not his intent, he was not in anyway trying to be rude. Though, he thought to himself, that she looked even more exotic as her brow furrowed, and her tone became rather hurtful to the young boy.

The way the woman spoke almost put the boy off, but he decided that he wouldn’t be denied her story because of his hurt feelings. In his mind he would redouble his efforts to learn this woman’s name, and… well he didn’t really know what he would do after that. He looked down for a chime, thinking hard. What would he do with that knowledge? He looked up towards Syna and thought harder for another chime. Then he looked at the Svefra, ”What am I at?” he enjoyed hearing her unusual accent, and those word she had said were almost divine even if they were meant to hurt, breaking the set pattern of speech in the city. He closed his eyes, and tried to remember her voice, her sharp tone.

He looked back at the woman, ”Wont you tell me your name?” he said, his eyes still closed. He tried to shut out all the other sounds of the peak to he could hear her words, and her voice without any distractions. He breathed deeply, waiting for her to talk, needed to hear her speak. That was the only thing that mattered to him in this very moment!

[Cassandra Southwind]

For a long moment, all she could do was stare. His eyes were closed, after all, and he couldn't mind what he didn't know. He'd given her that dreamy look and ended up looking like he might just fall asleep where he stood, leaving her thoroughly confused. She turned carefully away from him, her eyes peering from their corners until she dared to glance at the people who surrounded them. Everyone was going about their labor dutifully enough; anyone who noticed the pair that had stopped did not bother with them for long.

"No," she answered finally, definitively. Then she hesitated and suddenly added, "How do you care?"

He didn't have any right to it, she figured. Cityfolk seemed to give out their names like Matsuki gave raindrops and, though Cassandra would normally oblige that tradition easily enough, she found herself feeling rather uneasy about it all. She had very little concept of flirtation, having little in common with non-Svefra and never feeling particularly inclined to speak to men, specifically. He hadn't answered her question first, anyway.

A few impatient ticks passed before she picked up her bucket and turned back toward the orchard. These fruits weren't going to pick themselves, and Cassandra was nothing if not her word. Facing away from him now, she reached deep into the low-hanging branches to retrieve an orange. It could only have been curiosity that inspired her to still address the man, but she would never have admitted that to herself. "Say or sod off."

[Richard]

Richard opened his eyes slowly, this conversation was not going the way he had thought it would. In his head, he had something else planned out, but the best laid plans of men as they say. Richard started to talk, but he decided against it. He had some how offended the woman, and to be honest, socializing with people wasn’t his strongest suit. He didn’t intend to leave it at that however, there were still too many questions rolling through his mind. He couldn’t just let her walk away, he would be driven mad by it all day. There was nothing else that took precedence over his desire to learn her name.

As the woman picked up her bucket, Richard began to follow her. What else could he do? If she got away, he would have to spend the rest of the day trying to track her down, and that didn’t seem like a promising idea. ”I’m not at anything.” he called after her, trying to keep her from walking away too fast. He didn’t really understand the question, why did people always think he was following them for a reason. The idea that he needed to have a goal seemed odd to him.

He followed her silently for a chime, thinking of the right word to say. Why did language have to be so hard? He kept close, but just out of arms’ reach, incase she decided to turn and try and punch him. Thinking really wasn’t getting him anywhere, he couldn’t think of anything approiate to say to continue the conversation, but he found that he couldn’t tear himself away. His mind throbbed, and ached from the need to learn about her.

”My name is Richard.” he said, stepping forward slightly into the reach of her arm, and he extended his hand in a friendly manner. It was a common trick he had seen. If you wanted someone to introduce themselves, you had to take the first step. He left his hand out for her to take, and he hoped that his rather shallow ploy would work.

[Cassandra Southwind]

oocI'm so sorry this took so long.

Cassandra was still frowning. She was, of course, more perturbed at her own situation than at Richard's persistence. She would never be flattered by the attention, but there may have been a day when she had not lost a gamble with pride, when she had not spent so long away from the sea not fatigued her aching arms with idle fruit-picking. If Richard had approached her on that day, she might have been less hostile and more distant. But this was not that day. She glared hardly at him, tossing the soft excuse for a delicacy into her bucket. It landed with an unceremonious pat, bruising quietly.

"Is that so?" She replied, and if it weren't for the context of the words he might not even known they were directed at him. She spoke instead to the ground, where her tired eyes often fell, then reached back into the tree. Only after the echoes of her own words had rolled around in the back of her mind did she realize how rude she had been. There was a big difference between aloof and insolent.

She sighed, glancing westward toward the ocean, which she could not actually see. Then she turned to Richard. Their eyes met, her hesitant apology hidden behind layers of hard contempt. "Cassandra," she added, dwelling politely for a moment before she turned back to her work.

A few minutes of silence were laid out after that, filled with the scratch and chatter of laborers like her. They, of course, were much more generous in their reasons for attending these Garden Days, but the reality was that it didn't matter what a person's motivations were for volunteering. Help was taken where it was needed and given where it could be spared.

Her bucket sat between them, half empty, inviting him her participate in the labor.

"Are you from Lhavit?" She inquired suddenly, in fact rather awkwardly. How else could she make his presence less unsettling, if not engage him in nauseating small talk?