[Acumin] Picking Up the Pieces with a Garden

[Aydyn Blair]

Second Cycle of Ponutis
Season of Spring

She had been there a little more than a month, having arrived at the end of Winter with one of the first caravans daring enough to travel when the weather was still somewhat chilly and the roads and Great Basin a trifle frozen. Aydyn had retreated to Acumin to recooperate, to gather up the broken shards of her life and try to piece together something to make of it. To think, a little more than an era ago she'd been safely nestled in Mystique, worrying only over a brief and compulsive romance, not knowing that she'd spend the following months trapped by a giant or enslaved by a sadistic, twisted Druid. Not knowing that the romance would end in pregnancy.

The past era had been hard on Aydyn and to show for it she had walked away scarred--mentally, physically. She worried now at shadows, afraid for what might grab at her and drag her in, and flinched when a fire crackled, recalling all too well the sensation of flame corrupting her skin. But beneath the fear was a stern resolve to make things better. To grow and harden, to become someone that was no longer afraid of taking a stroll in the deep recesses of evening. She would not be afraid. She would not let her fears trap her. And yet they did for she had come to Acumin to hide, knowing of the barrier that wrapped itself around the small village, knowing that foul deeds would be measured and blocked. She would be safe there. Safe there to strengthen in ways she had only begun to think on.

One of the families she had known during the time of her living in the village had taken in her. They were one of the few families left, an older woman in her late middling eras with brown hair shot with gray, her face haggard with wrinkles, the skin on her hands callused with the hard-work around her house, and her husband who was older still and stooped with age, incapable of physical labor but the sort that brought laughter and ease to any building with his stories. They had two children, although they were older, nearly adults by their own right, helping out around the town where extra hands were needed. Aydyn was given a small pallet near the fire to rest herself, a thin bed cushion and lumpy, but she was free to come and go and it was a far cry from the dismal atmosphere of her captivity as a slave.

She did not stay for free, but did her own fair share of work around the home, executing chores that Amelia, the wife, was no longer capable of doing on her own. There were herbs to be gathered for the cooking and for the simple medicines Amelia kept around the house and plants were soon to bloom as spring pushed onward. These things Aydyn could help out with easily enough and she was more than eager to prove her meddle doing so--it had been some time since she'd last tried to use the arcana that had been unlocked within her and she was sorely out of practice.

That morning Aydyn crouched along the edge of the garden, her hands and skirt smeared with dirt, her brown hair bound up a top her head in a bun so loose that tendrils wisped against her neck, a neck scarred along one side with the swerving lines of fire. "There, that looks right," she murmured...mostly to herself for Amelia had gone in to see to the pot of water she had boiling over the pot for the laundry. She sat back against the heels of her feet and stared at the small mounds of seeds she had just spent the last candlemark or so burying beneath the soil. It would be easy enough to pick up the bucket her hostess had provided to water the seeds, but Aydyn was anxious about the arcana, almost afraid it would not work the same way it had once.

And thus the gardening was something of an exercise for the Druidess, a reacquaintance of her past with her present, and she slowly shifted so that her legs were crossed in front of her, her hands in her lap. She needed to be comfortable, to banish the unease that encased her...and the fear that everything might not turn out all right.

[Aydyn Blair]

She drew in a deep breath to settle her slightly jarred nerves and gazed around her at the soft, spring-green that clung to the branches overhead. The sky was visibly above, a delicate shade of blue with the occasional glimpse of wispy, white clouds drifting through. She'd been free a little more than two months and still the sight of it, soft and beautiful and vast, was enough to set her heart at ease--having lived below, tucked away in an underground building, for only two months had been enough to make her something akin to claustrophobic; she loathed confined spaces and could not stay inside for more than a few candlemarks a brightening as of late.

The surrounding woodlands were calm with the distant sound of the villagers and the twitter of spring birds and all of it served a purpose--Aydyn found her comfort center and drifted down into meditation, loosing her senses and eradicating the troubling thoughts that sought to clutter her mind. Clara came soon, if not as quickly as she once remembered--although this too could be her imagination at work--and she inhaled sharply to see the arcanic energies twisting within the trees and the rocks and the squirrels around her. She could see it in herself as she lifted her hands and all of it was beautiful and comforting and serene.

She reached for it, drawing together the ara and vis, entwining the outer energies with her inner. She did not work quickly, but relished the process instead as she drew on the energies from the plane and created the mana she would need. She shaped upon the garden in front of her, creating a blanket with the raw energies she had combined, and around her she focused on the drawing of the moisture naturally settled on trees and grass and plants, entwining her purpose with the mana.

And then Aydyn released it and watched with wondrous eyes as the spell drew on the moisture in the air and on the life around her and resettled it around the planted seeds, dampening the soil and feeding the would-be plants. She reached out and touched the moistened dirt and it clung to the tips of her fingers. Inexplicably, she laughed, delighted, and this was when Amelia stepped back outside, her curled fists nestled against her well-rounded hips, her smile amused, but also puzzled.

"Don't tell me I have to worry about your sanity now, girl," Amelia chided her, but meaning no harm as she stepped over and looked down past Aydyn's shoulder at the garden. "Ah, I see. You watered it." She smiled and shook her head, resting a hand on Aydyn's head and fondly caressing the brown curls that rested there. "I don't see why you were so worried."

Aydyn tilted her head back before shifting and getting to her feet, brushing her dirty hands on the sides of her green skirt. It was old now, the skirt, and slightly worn at its ends and now covered in dirt. She didn't mind for there was no one there to treat her poorly for her somewhat ratty appearance. "I know, but... It's just been a while. I...wasn't sure."

"Well, next time maybe you shouldn't wait so long." She chuckled Aydyn under her chin as if she were a young child and not a woman of twenty-five with a child of her own. "Did you want any help?"

Aydyn shook her head, tucking brown curls behind her ear. "No, that's fine. I was hoping to try a few things...and perhaps surprise you a little." She said this with a small grin almost impish in its way. "You go relax for a bit."

"Relax? Hah! There's always something."

But the pudgy woman turned, shaking her head, and went back inside. She was right. There was always something.

[Aydyn Blair]

She could have easily sat back down and wrapped herself again within the energies, but she chose instead to leave behind the garden for the time being and step away from the house and into the woodlands that surrounded it. She would not wander too far--she knew too well that the Dolwoods were just beyond the barrier...waiting--but there was something she had in mind for Amelia and the garden and the right chunk of wood would be needed in order to achieve it.

Her skirts were cumbersome as she walked among the trees, occasionally having to hoist them up as she stepped over a log or large rock and disentangle them when they caught on the greedy branches of a bush, but she made do as she meandered along. She paused every now and again, in no rush at all, picking up chunks of wood and testing them, examining their weight and girth and trying to picture it in the purpose she had in mind. Some were too small, some too far-gone with rotting, and Aydyn's search went on for the good portion of a candlemark until she found what she thought to be the perfect piece of wood for her project.

It was about the size of her forearm and as thick as her two hands spread flat in front of her and pressed together. It was long and that could prove something of an issue, unless she figured out how to work around it, but she decided it to be perfect and she heaved it into her arms with a grunt, staggering a little as she caught her balance with it.

The walk back was a little more tiring than she might have imagined it to be and she ended up dragging the log behind her, carrying it across the uneven, lumpy terrain after her arms had grown too tired. She dropped it on the ground near the garden with a relieved sigh and stepped back, hands on her hips, as she evaluated its purpose.

She stood there for a short moment before Amelia appeared again at the door and waved her inside, insisting that it was time for the afternoon meal and Aydyn needed to take a break. And she did, breaking long enough to work through lunch and other necessary functions, chatting pleasantly with her hosts and their children. They were a happy, contented family, although slightly unsettled with the small numbers that now lived in Acumin; with fewer people coming to settle, there were less chances for their children to marry and even fewer opportunities for trade and new money.

A majority of the afternoon afterwards was spent on the housework and Aydyn assisted where she could. She was a poor seamstress and a cook and try as she might she was eventually shooed back outside by her hostess and told to tend to the things that Aydyn knew best. It wasn't unkindly said and Aydyn was more than glad to find her freedom beside the garden, sitting in the dirt with the log at her side.

[Aydyn Blair]

For all that she had found comfort with a kind family, Aydyn was still lonely as she worked. There was a time when a pair of alicats might have flit alongside of her, pouncing at grasshoppers and exercising their wings just below the forest canopy. Whimsy and Mosaia. She missed the pair of them and Adagio, a rust-red mare. They had been fair traveling companions...more than fair...and when she had returned to Mystique there'd been no trace of them. None at all. Of the mare, at least, she knew the fate of for she'd seen her in Enamoria after she'd been taken by the giant. Pregnant, the mare had been, and enamored of a stallion kept by gypsies. She might have tried to reclaim the mare...but it had been better off there. Better off away from Aydyn.

She frowned as she thought of this, her fingers stroking the rough wood as if it were the soft coat of an alicat. She jerked away only as a splinter embedded itself in the tip of her pinky finger and she sucked up on it, scowling...but left it where it was for the time being. Too much brightening-dreaming... she realized with a shake of her head. Too much dreaming of what had been and what was no more...and it was dampening her spirits in a way that made her shudder unpleasantly

Focusing again on the shortened log, Aydyn envisioned what she had in mind as she unsteadily raised it up so that it was vertical to the ground. Her design would be a birdhouse--a very simple birdhouse easily enough made by a carpentar new to his craft...something even she might be able to make if she knew how to effectively wield nail and hammer. Because the log was too long she would simply have to create the stand with the extra length of the wood. It seemed simple enough...and yet not; the last thing that Aydyn had created with the spell had been a wooden cup and that was all. It had turned out somewhat lop-sided.

Still, she decided it was worth the try and with the log resettled on her lap, Aydyn sunk back down into meditation and released the world around her gradually until she achieved Clara. With her honed senses, she reached out to the energies around her and drew on them, tangling ara and vis together before drawing on the essences from the plane and creating the mana. She twined the resulting mana around the log on her lap, working into it the picture of the shape that she wanted--the birdhouse with its small, rounded doorway and the protruding peg for the birds to stand on, the slanting roof and the triangular roof-top and boxy sides...the long, wooden pole that supported it in the center of the square base--and then she released the spell around the wood and sucked in a sharp breath as she watched the log change in front of her.

The birdhouse was by no means perfect--the stand seemed a little short to her tastes and the roofing probably a little long past the sides--but it was recognizable as a birdhouse, this much she could be certain, and she smiled proudly as she slipped her hands around the pole and stood up, holding it in front of her to give it a better once-over. Yes, it looked like an actual birdhouse.

Stepping carefully onto the damp soil, Aydyn positioned the birdhouse in the center of the garden and sank it down into the soil. She had underestimated the ability of a birdhouse to remain stable in the dirt--especially damp dirt--and she had to push it down far before it stilled. She stepped back and frowned. It reached about four feet in height from the ground--not really very high at all and probably not considered enough of a safe haven by a bird at all for its close quarters to humans and the ground. Disappointing, to say the least.

[Aydyn Blair]

"Ooh, what'd you make?"

Aydyn turned to see the young face of Amelia's fifteen-ordinances old daughter Penny. She was not a particularly pretty girl for her nose was too hooked at its tip, her mouth too thin, and her eyes narrow and squinty. But she was sweet-tempered and eager to please. Aydyn liked her. "I made your mom a birdhouse, what do you think?" She stepped back, hands at her hips, eying the birdhouse and knowing it was poor craftsmanship.

"I think it looks lovely! When do you think the birds will start moving in?" She took a step forward and crouched down beside it, peering into the small hole in the house.

"Not until we're well away from them to take a look. They won't go near it if we're still here." Aydyn smiled as she watched the girl, wondering at the simplicity with which her mind worked. Had she been like that once? Mayhap...she must have been. Naive and trusting and happy at any sighting of beauty and nature at its best. Aydyn knew she could not make claims to that any longer. Beauty could not always be trusted and others did not always mean well, even when they smiled and spoke sweetly.

The girl sat back on her heels with a noise of disappointment. "Can't you make them come?" she pleaded and Aydyn shook her head, though the girl was looking at the birdhouse and not Aydyn--she would not see the gesture.

"I'd rather they made the decision on their own. Besides. You don't want them angry with me for making them do something they don't want to, do you?"

Penny gasped and stood up, almost knocking over the birdhouse in the process. "Oh! No, no, that wouldn't be good. You don't have to then... I'll wait. I'll wait and watch." She smiled then and Aydyn could see that the girl just wanted to be seen as a good child. She wanted to be liked, to be loved. "But...why would they be angry?" The confusion had settled in, bypassing the need to please, if only for a moment.

"How would you like it if someone overrode your ability to say yes or no?" When the girl hesitated, thinking about it, Aydyn pushed onward. "It is...not a pleasant thing...to be unable to deny something even when you really want to. I would be taking away their freedom, even if it's only for a moment, if I made them go into the birdhouse if they didn't want to."

The girl frowned, but seemed to understand. She didn't know that Aydyn had been a slave...that Aydyn hadn't been able to make her own decisions. They'd been made for her in one sense or another even if it hadn't been done through arcana...just by sheer will alone. Will and threat. She'd been unable to protest anything at all. Not if she wanted to remain unharmed. "Oh." She was silent for a moment, chewing on her lip with a fierceness that some of the skin tore off.

Aydyn felt suddenly awkward and did her best to keep it hidden with a faint smile. "Why don't you go find Treena? I think I saw her down by the stream that way."

The girl left quickly, almost at a run, spurred by the sudden need to see a friend and because her mother's friend was perhaps a little strange.

[Aydyn Blair]

Amelia laughed over the birdhouse, but in a way that was merely amused and not unkind, and she thanked the Druidess for her efforts, kissing her on the cheek before hustling her inside for the evening meal and some idle chatter in the main living chamber. It was a peaceful, enjoyable evening, one that Aydyn wrapped around her as she settled in to sleep that evening.

Still, clung to it as she did once everyone had gone off to bed, her fears returned to her that evening. It was dark in the small home and aside from the shifting of beds and quiet murmurs of the occasional voice, it was quiet, very quiet. It brought to mind the oppressiveness of Dimitri's home underneath Vortex, the dirt walls pressing in, blocking out the suns. She shuddered and pressed her face against the makeshift pillow under her head and tried to forget, thinking instead of the brightening she had been freed and returned to a world ruled by sunlight and trees.

She slept little, restless as she was, and when she woke the next morning Aydyn was still tired and felt like bags hung heavy underneath her eyes. She helped Amelia make the breakfast, although the help was marginal for Amela recognized right away that her guest was tired, the mistakes many. They ate and afterward Aydyn excused herself out to the garden, determined to be of use somewhere in the house.

The garden had dried in the night, although the wood of the birdhouse was dewy and slight damp to the touch as Aydyn looked it over. There were no signs of any birds having stopped in, for which she wasn't at all surprised--again, because of the location--but there was little she could do save move it and Amelia had protested, saying it looked quaint right where it was.

That brightening Aydyn watered the seeds carefully with the bucket before sitting down beside the patch of wet soil, her legs crossed in front of her, her skirt again covered with specks of dirt and grassy fibers. She could have easily just let the seeds run their course, growing slowly as vegetables are often wont to do, but she was impatient and needed something to get things off her mind.

So she fell gradually into clara and again worked with the energies around her until they were bound, fastened into mana and wrapped it securely around nearly a third of the seeds nestled within the ground. There they were, stuck, buried, and Aydyn felt for them, knowing what it was like to yearn for the fresh air and sun. Grow, she willed it as she released the spell around the seeds and patiently she watched as the ground stirred and a shoots of green inched painstakingly upward. These were but the small beginnings of vegetables plants, a mix of tomatoes and cucumbers and green peppers, about four inches in growth outside of the ground, reaching for the sun and the sky, the hints of budding leaves along the curling green stalks.

[Aydyn Blair]

Aydyn smiled faintly at the sight of them and allowed herself to slouch, hands in her lap. It was an initiate spell, but modified to encompass more of the seeds it had spent her slightly. She could feel it, the slight wear against her. Nothing dangerous, just a little fatigue.

"You know you'll need stakes for those, right?" Amelia asked as she stepped out of the house, wiping her fattened fingers on the apron looped about her waist. "Otherwise they'll just sprawl on the ground and everything will just... Well, you need stakes. You can use sticks and there's string in the house. You can just change out the sticks as the shoots get bigger."

"Thanks, Amelia." Aydyn canted her cheek slightly, her expression appreciative, before she scrambled to her feet and took a well deserved walk around the yard. She gathered sticks, not bothering to count them, just mindful of selecting those that were near to a foot in length. She had no way to measure them and so had a guess at it, holding them side-by-side or going back to the garden and holding them up against the shoots to see if they would work.

She did not stop gathering them until her arms were thick with sticks, a near mockery of wood for a fire, and she set them down next to the garden in a pile before turning to head back into the house. But in the process she nearly tripped over the exact item she had been heading in to retrieve: A spool of thread, the thick sort made of goat hair. Amelia had left her a knife, its sharpened end sticking into the soil so that Aydyn wouldn't make the same mistake she'd made with the thread and hurt her feet on it, and Aydyn picked it up and began sheering off decent sized strands of the thread and setting them into a pile separate from the sticks.

With the two piles readily at hand Aydyn began the meticulous process of sticking the twigs into the ground and gently tying the new stalks to them with the string. She was joined at one point by Penny who spent more time babbling about what this friend or that friend was doing as of late and Aydyn nodded patiently, letting her mind wander as her fingers handled the repetitive task. It wasn't long before the sprouted seeds were all secured and Amelia was calling Penny in to help out with lunch, leaving Aydyn to admire her work with a throb of satisfaction.

[Aydyn Blair]

Twice more that brightening Aydyn worked at growing the shoots and binding them to the sticks she had collected. Penny stayed to watch the proceedings, curious as she was about Aydyn and the Druidism, a talent that Penny had admitted an interest in...and yet a certain fear for arcana as well for it. Did it hurt? Could it do harm? Arcana, Aydyn knew, could be a frightening thing and though she'd not often felt its backlash, she could recognize the fear for the unknown that fostered itself in Penny.

"You know some of the Druids here, don't you?" she asked pleasantly as she sat back to sip from the water gourd that Amelia had provided her. She'd just finished laying the spell over the second third of the plants under Penny's watchful eyes and needed a small breather before she worked on tying the plants to their sticks. "Have you known them to do something to hurt anyone?"

Penny thought about it--honestly thought about it--before shaking her head, looking a little dumbfounded. "But then I'm not watching them all the time," she pointed out quickly, in her own defense...and Aydyn knew it was because the girl feared being wrong.

The young Druidess smiled faintly and reached out to smooth the hair from Penny's dirt-smudged face. What would her daughter think of arcana at this age? Would it scare her? Would it fascinate her? "The Druids here...they're good. They're good people. This is a special, special place and may Carmelya continue to allow it to be so. You won't find good people everywhere, Penny. Some people...some people don't live to be kind to others. They think only of themselves and some of these people...some of these people learn arcana and that's when it becomes scary. Not all Druids are good people. Not all people are good people."

"It's not always easy to be nice to people," Penny murmured, almost guilty, as she spread her dirt-lined fingers in front of her, examining her nails. She bowed her head, hair framing her young face, and peered out cautiously at Aydyn.

"No, no it isn't. I'm not always nice to people either. You can't be nice all the time. Sometimes you just can't. But we're not gods, Penny. We're people. And even gods aren't perfect, right?"

"But Carmelya!"

The girl looked so shocked that Aydyn couldn't help but laugh, mussing her hair a little. "I'm not saying that to speak ill of the Goddess, Penny. I've pledged my life to Her, in my way. Still, sometimes the gods make me wonder. The world is a funny place, don't you think?" Penny was merely confused but the pair continued with their work, fingers fiddling with the string and the sticks, binding the stalks in place, their clothes fair smudged with dirt as they crawled about the garden plot.

[Aydyn Blair]

After the second grouping of plants had been tied and staked, Aydyn once more focused the spell Growth over the plants, releasing the intertwined energies and watching the shoots gradually poke through the soil and reach towards the scant light that filtered through the treetops. Penny had retreated back into the house with her mother to finish up some chores, leaving Aydyn alone to secure the small plants to the sticks and sit back to admire her work. The suns had passed far enough through the sky that it was now mid-afternoon and the shadows were long slants against the smattering of grass and tree roots that passed through Amelia's backyard.

The birds were loud against the light of the brightening and she watched as they flit about the branches, completely ignoring the house she had built for them of warped wood in the center of the garden. That they ignored it came as no surprise, not with her sitting right there. Not with the house so close to the ground with no escape routes to speak of. Still, it was disappointing in its own way, particularly since Penny seemed to wish to remark on it every time she ventured close to the garden. But for now Penny wasn't there and though Aydyn might wish otherwise, the birdhouse was doubtlessly doomed to remain empty unless she did anything about it. Aydyn wasn't about it. It would remain empty...unless Penny managed to charm the birds herself. That the girl would she doubted; Penny had the subtlety of an angry bear crashing through the bushes.

"The garden turned out nicely."

Aydyn turned slightly as Amelia emerged from the twisted-tree of a house, whipping her hands on the apron at her waist. She'd been baking--Aydyn could smell the sweet scent of fresh bread wafting on the faint breeze. She smiled, turning back to view the small shoots. Small they were and sort of pathetic in their height, but they looked healthy for all that she'd grown them so quickly. "Yes, didn't it?"

"You know, you can only spend so much time gardening before it doesn't help any more." Amelia stood beside her, knees level with Aydyn's head for the young woman reclined on the ground, leaning back on her hands stretched out behind her.

She sat up quickly, puzzled. "I don't see what you mean..."

"Don't be silly. You've been damaged, I can see that. I've seen your scars. Yes, those," Amelia added even as Aydyn brushed her fingers along the fabric of her shirt at the shoulder blade. Burn scars. "I don't know what you're trying to hide from, but you're not helping you or your baby doing this."

[Aydyn Blair]

Aydyn shifted slightly, lowering her fingers from her shoulder and idly tugging on the mark at her ear. A mark of her former slavery. Former. "It's safe here, Amelia. Safe and peaceful and quiet."

"And dull and quiet and boring." When Aydyn remained quiet, Amelia sighed and sat down next to her, grunting as her bones creaked. "You're a good girl, Aydyn, but you can't hide the pain in gardening and cleaning. I admire you for wanting to keep the babe safe--every mother should want that for her child--but you are doing nothing for yourself sitting in the dirt and hiding."

"What am I supposed to do? It's...dangerous...out there. I don't--"

"Well, you certainly aren't doing much here are you. Oh, sure, you made a pretty little garden and now I'll have vegetables sooner rather than later--and I appreciate that, don't get me wrong. But you'll waste away here, Aydyn, you will. Isn't that why you left? To see things? Or do you really intend to sit here for the rest of your life in a small town that certainly doesn't seem to be getting any bigger as the eras go by? You should be doing something with your life. Step up. Be someone. Don't just sit there and let life dwindle on. You should want more for your baby. For you. You can have more. Not like some of us here."

"I don't know if I really want more, Amelia. Not if...not if it means what I've seen," she told the woman quietly, gathering her legs up so that they bent and her arms could drape around them. She slouched towards them enough to rest her chin on her knees.

"And this from the woman who's been telling Penny that not all people in the world are good people. Oh, she repeats every word you say, you can be sure. Wants to be a Druid some-brightening. Just like you. I've never seen the girl so enamored of someone before...'cept maybe a boy." Amelia laughed. "But, you know, you should heed your own words sometimes. Not everyone is bad either. Not out there. I know you know that. 'Sides, I can't look after you forever. Our house is cramped and before you know it the wee one will be a little hellion, tearing through the house and grabbing everything in sight. You need to go. Not now, but soon. By summer...you should be on your way. You can't stay here."

Aydyn canted her cheek slightly, gazing up at the tree tops to avoid meeting Amelia's focused stare. She'd felt bad about leaning on Amelia's hospitality so heavily, but she'd had nowhere to go. "I've never been a fighter, Amelia. I don't...I don't know how to do this."

"Now's a time to learn, hm? Not all fighters wield a weapon and you're a mother now. A mother can't be passive." Amelia reached out and brushed Aydyn's hair from her face, much as Aydyn had done to Penny earlier that brightening. "No more hiding, Aydyn. You should be out in the world, making it better for you, for the babe, for Penny." She smiled at Aydyn's bemused expression. "Now, come inside. I've made bread and you could use some food. You're no good to me or the child if you waste away out here."

Together they stood, although Aydyn lingered alongside the garden as Amelia made her way back into the house. Much of what the woman had said made sense. Made plenty of sense. Hiding, she was. Scared, too. Afraid of what might be waiting for her out in the world. But she could feel the restraints of her own inflicted bonds. Was this any different from the slavery? Not really...not at all.

Bending to adjust the knots on one of the stakes, Aydyn knew a change was needed. And soon.

[Adder]

ooc: I XP Aydyn, Duidism

A very nice thread.