“How did I even get here?”
-A common reaction by those washed from their original facet in uncontrolled type nine Willabarm events
Daylight made Ktsn wince, and turn one closed eye toward the sky while her open eye faced down in her head’s shadow. She didn’t much care for the wonderful sensation of having the sun lick its tongue across her retinas, even in the soft morningtide.
In the throes of waking, she came back to herself in full. Feeling, and feelings, returned as her blood started its circuit of her at its normal lucid pace once again. She shook herself and kicked out with all four legs in sequence, letting them nearly hyperextend. She preened her ears and nostrils, checking for sleep grit.
Then, after a good quick cleaning, recollection of her dream - if dream it was - smacked into her with brutally uncontrolled ebullience.
Rather, the dream itself seemed to be happy; she most certainly was not.
By Gegaunli’s teeth…
No, no. Ktsn shook her head to dislodge that thought. Whatever she thought of herself, a moderate observer of the faith, she had no interest in calling Gegaunli’s attention just now. If she ever did go through an enthrallment to the deity’s service, she preferred it might happen sometime when other concerns like harvest-time didn’t depend on her. Goading her deity’s fervor to come upon her right now was the best she could expect from contemplating the dream. She didn’t want to invoke jealousy, and that was all she could glean from dwelling on something patently not from Gegaunli herself.
Whoever or whatever Thomas really was, if he was real - if the dream was not a meaningless slide into the outlandish - he was trouble. The thing she’d experienced last night was the sort of thing which Gegaunli would consider an affront, and…
Ktsn chased contemplation away. More tangible worries for the day. Her hands began to shake, anxiety and annoyance intermingled. The intake of one tremulous breath set her straight, for now.
Then she rose on highlegs in her unsteady glory, quickly regaining her stability as she stepped from her nest.
Moving from under the watchful eye of the wide window, the woman tramped over to the entrance of her little home. Subconsciously, her hands reached out and grabbed for her pickax, her sling, her hoe, her shears, fumbling with them as she peered out into the new day. Belt loops’ hungry middles filled with utilitarian food.
The young day’s light fell with silent meager joy upon the plains and gentle hills around Goskec Tktl. It illuminated the village proper, and in that direction Ktsn aimed a look of fatigued acceptance. A third of a rotation to the right, the far closer sparsely-treed land of her plots and little orchard put her in a slightly calmer frame of mind. She eyed the shift in color on the nearest vrsg tree, where that lartkot graft had finally taken and begun producing sharp fruit.
Stop procrastinating and get to business.
Sinuses rippling with a snort, the farmer mentally sketched out the trek down into the village, intending to buy much of what she needed for the oncoming season with minimal interaction. Maybe she could stay out of the way of her family if she kept quick about her purchasing and selling.
Fast-stepping out of her cabin, the woman made a trip around back to the drying rack and accompanying tarpaulin, looking over the strips of leather she’d been hoarding. The choicest bits of leather went into a rucksack, along with five long cloth sleeves filled with jerky. After debating a little while, she also took along two little wood-knot carvings: one of a rugfos cub, one of a man carrying bundles of sticks. They went on top of the bulk goods, and she’d take care to jostle them as little as possible.
Stealing a look at the row of upturned glass jars she’d placed over the flowers along the lee of the cabin, her eyes narrowed. One jar was approached, examined for cracks, and determined as still sound. The soil near each clover received carefully-measured distributions of water.
She grumbled to herself, and began a simple trot down the countryside.
A brisk wind stood up, setting short grass to nervous dancing and long grass to obeisance. The trickle of the nameless nearby brook tickled Ktsn’s ears, and the matted stems beneath her long steps rasped pleasantly against the bottoms of her footwraps. The rhythm of her walk eventually became something of a slow canter. As she went, she began totting up the sum of what she could expect in trade versus what she would have to pay for a re-grinding of her pickax, a new pruning fork, and a hundred body-lengths of good strong rope. She figured that she’d come out ahead, if only slightly, even after finding the odds and ends that would compel their inclusion in her rucksack.
The journey was more than long enough for her to start back down the slippery feeling slope, with attitude-toward-family waiting at the bottom in the middle of a poisonous briar patch. She felt her pelt trying to ripple. A bad taste made her nostrils squint. Her foot flagella curled down into bows, making her steps springy and highly unsubtle.
Voices wriggled around in her head in a knotted strophe, and she slowed down a bit at the behest of involuntary motor action.
It will let you live in comfort!
Your mother and I have discussed this for a long time. We have talked with Cursog’s family, and they have talked with us is in need of a mate and partner. You are more than smart enough to do him credit, and he would do credit to you.
The farm requires more than people who are smart and who are good at working hard; it needs those willing to sacrifice.
Do you not want to make us happy? To be happy yourself?
Ktsn, isn’t it enough to-
There she goes, that Daephod girl. She’s so fortunate. She’s so focused. I hope she knows what she’s doing.
We can talk to her later, my love. Let her go for now.
Ktsn, I think you need a bit of perspective.
A very, very bad taste. Though it took her a little while longer, she opted to forgo the well-worn direct route from her house to the village, in the name of avoiding her family’s farm.
The wild vines and engorged redtree boughs obscured the direct line-of-sight of most of the sprawling Daephod plots, and allowed Ktsn to pretend that there wasn’t a big two-story building behind the curtain. Simply pretending, of course, is often insufficient; she gradually diverged farther and farther from the beaten trail on a course for Goskec Tktl’s western entrance. She instead focused on the barely-wild earth below her feet, combing high and low through grass and logs for the sign of anything worth salvaging. She saw a couple of interesting clumps of mold, and one very pretty stone that she collected for later examination.
Once, by a distant stagnant pond, she caught sight of what might be a gpsl nuson nest. The danger noted, she determined to tell one of the village’s hunters. She should see that the properly-equipped persons were sent to deal with the problem.
Contemplation of “having each to that which they are best suited be assigned” made her teeth clench in spasms. She’d explained it all the way through. She’d been as patient as she could.
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