“The king won't show up,” Golden Wolf added as he opened the door to a conference room and sat down in a chair. “He doesn’t bother with stupid matters such as this one. You were right, Lady Kuba. This is no reason to fight. If you don’t have enough food, then tell us to mind our portions or something.”
Pumpkin Patch huffed instead of answering, then pulled Kuba a chair, which flustered her as she sat down in it.
“Thank you. What about the school system?” she asked.
“I’ve seen kids cry over their homework,” Red Salsa informed her, and Kuba seemed horrified.
“That’s not good,” she agreed. “I’m wondering why you chose to fight it out instead of telling the people in charge.”
“Fighting carries a bigger message than just talking,” Red Salsa answered.
“Also, I’m angry. That's got to get out somehow. I’d still be fighting if I could. I’m still hyper,” Pumpkin Patch added.
“This is the most ridiculous thing to talk about in a conference room,” Golden Wolf despaired. “If you’re going to ask for a diplomat, at least find good reasons to start a war.”
“Please don’t fight. At least, this means it’ll be solved easily,” Kuba soothed.
“It means we’re living with overdramatic volcano people,” Golden Wolf muttered. “Yes, I mean it! I have as much of a serpent’s tongue as you all seem to have.”
“It’s alright to be angry,” Kuba nodded, and he looked at her desperately.
“These people are trying to fight for nothing!” he protested.
“Then perhaps it means that their anger stems from something deeper. You said that your crops and your grass had wilted. It must be very stressful, and stress can make us act out in anger.”
Golden Wolf shook his head, and blinked away his tears.
“You’ve all started a battle for nothing. Now our clan is split in half. We were scared for nothing. This poor lady had to talk us out of futile arguments we could’ve solved properly. I don’t even want to hear what you have to say. We’ll be the laughingstock of the town next week when word comes out. Splitting a clan for this stupid reason! Not even a good one!”
“Nobody will think that,” Red Salsa protested.
“I will! Everyone here will!” Golden Wolf shouted, and he stood up.
Without further ado, he left. Kuba stayed there, thinking back to what he had said. For a few minutes, she sat in her chair, looking at nothing, simply trying to understand just what was going on here. They had been fighting, so she had broken it up, only to learn that this conflict had been about food rations and schoolwork. Now she was stuck trying to help people with things she knew nothing about.
Golden Wolf was busy telling himself that his clanmates were overreacting, and it made him feel ashamed of himself, and the whole clan. This lady who had arrived must have thought them deranged.
He walked around the castle. On the lower levels were the infirmary, the training grounds, and the cafeteria. The second level hosted the school and the king’s quarters. One of the two towers was for beds and living quarters, and the other one was a watchtower that looked over the side of the forest, the strawberry fields, and the road that led to town. As he reached his own quarters and looked out the window, he saw the river that led to a playground for the children that also recycled itself as a place for celebrations. He sighed. It was easy to stop seeing his home as a place of wonders, or a beautiful home to live in, but he saw it again now. On a normal day, he would have guided the lady around and boasted about everything he saw.
When he was young, he used to draw maps of his home in colourful tones, and Ice Golem, who had probably been born with a happy mustachioed smile on his face, would put them up on the walls that led to the school quarters. He had been a beloved teacher for all his career, but he missed the adrenaline of wooshing around on a plane. Golden Wolf had been the age of Ice Golem’s son Beeno when he had become a teacher. Apparently, he had always hesitated between the two, and not being able to see anything he was flying towards anymore had settled it.
Ice Golem's wife Crystal Tear was the senior doctor in the infirmary. They had grown closer when Ice Golem started to want to fight everyone, and got in unrelated trouble with his plane. She was still an apprentice back then, because being a good doctor took time; and over time, they grew to know each other, and love each other. She desperately tried to keep him away from his nonsense habits, and he had a lot of fun annoying her about it.
To tell you the truth, if she had been thirty years younger, Golden Wolf would have married her himself. Not that he was in love with her, but she was a good friend of everyone's, much like her husband, and anyone like that deserved to have someone they could count on at their side. Anyone deserved it, perhaps, regardless of that.
All of this nonsense he was thinking about brought him back to the conflict at hand. He loved his clan. He knew everyone who lived in it. He didn't know who had been part of the Yellow Eyes, but he didn't want to know right now. He just wanted everyone to go back to their quarters and be quiet for a while.
So he gathered his courage and knocked on the king's door.
"Sire?" Golden Wolf asked timidly.
"Is the battle over?" replied the Wolf King.
"It is, my lord, but everyone is still angry at each other in the conference room."
"Nobody seems angry from my window," the King shrugged. "Perhaps you should get out of that conference room and go clean up the cafeteria, too."
"Yes, sire. Um. Have you gone to see the infirmary yet? Will you come see us as well?"
"Nobody's been hurt. I don't need to get out," replied the king.
"Respectfully, I don't see how you would know that, given that you haven't gone to see it."
"Golden Wolf, everyone fought with wooden spoons and waffle irons. These are experienced warriors who would have taken out their swords if they wanted to do real damage," the king explained patiently. "Is that everything?"
"Well, there was a lady who appeared on top of a tower, and she separated the fight with her hands, sire. It was a kind of magic I've never seen. She's in the conference room now with the Yellow Eyes."
"I'd prefer if you didn't call them that. It's dividing us further."
"Yes, sire. Her name is Kuba."
The king suddenly opened the door, and Golden Wolf almost fell on his face.
"She separated the fight with her hands. Surely, you've seen strength magic before," the Wolf King protested with a discouraged frown.
"No, sire. I meant that she was standing on top of the tower, and she waved her hands like she was diving into the water, and we all were separated just like that."
The king sighed.
"You're lucky I'm almost finished with my paperwork. Tell them to go make themselves useful. I'll talk to the lady tomorrow," the Wolf King decided, then he closed the door.
Golden Wolf told himself that it didn't really interfere with his paperwork-making at all, but didn't mention it. He desperately wanted to ask the King to help him with the stupid conflict that was going on in the conference room, then decided against it. He sighed. He was doing a lot of that.
"Alright. I'll let them know," he agreed, then he bowed rather uselessly at the door and left.
In the conference room, Kuba had decided to simply rephrase what everyone was saying to make it less insulting to hear.
"You want the school system to change, and the food portions to be equal," Kuba summarized.
"They could afford to taste better, too," Pumpkin Patch joked.
"I'm sure the cooks are doing what they can, but we'll write it down as well," Kuba nodded. "How do you want everything to change? What's wrong, specifically?"
"The food looks like -- I can't say this in front of a lady, but let's say it's very muddy and formless. It tastes like dog food, too," Red Salsa rephrased.
"The chicken is disgusting as well," Pumpkin Patch added, suddenly very motivated to talk, so Red Salsa elbowed him as a warning. "It's dusty and grey and very strange-tasting."
"Dusty and grey?" Kuba echoed, concerned. "Has it made you sick?"
"Some of the younglings have had stomachaches, or bowel problems," Pumpkin Patch replied carefully.
"Have they?" Red Salsa protested.
"Stay on my side," Pumpkin Patch counter-protested.
"That wasn't about the chicken, milady," Red Salsa corrected. "We've eaten it for months now, and only a few of us have gotten sick. There might have been another ingredient added to the mix. Wasn't there red powder?"
Pumpkin Patch shrugged, and he slumped back in his chair.
"I'll write it all down nonetheless. Please carry on," Kuba encouraged, and she gave Pumpkin Patch a nod.
"Well, the ladies are all exhausted, because their kids come home complaining about school all the time, and it becomes like a weight on them to see them so unhappy. I heard it made one of the ladies so nervous she fainted," Pumpkin Patch carried on enthusiastically.
"There's a lady here!" Red Salsa shout-whispered angrily.
"Shut up!" Pumpkin Patch shout-whispered back with a laugh.
Golden Wolf came back at that moment.
"What are you doing?" he called out.
"We're writing down a list of demands!" Pumpkin Patch explained happily.
"What is this, a kidnapping? I will agree to no demands," Golden Wolf frowned, and everyone tensed up. "But luckily for you, the king might feel differently about it. He wants us all to go clean up the castle. Lady Kuba, please follow me. I'll show you your quarters, if you wouldn't mind spending the night here. Our king would like to talk to you tomorrow."
"Is there a way we could keep making this list later?" Kuba asked hopefully.
The Yellow Eyes all nodded. Pumpkin Patch told himself that he could still fight Golden Wolf if he wanted to, even if the battle was over.
"Your side of it is still undone, too," Kuba went on. "I heard the king likes paperwork, so it could be a more pleasant way for him to study the conflict."
Golden Wolf made a noncommittal nod, and so everyone left. As he passed by, Pumpkin Patch told Kuba this:
"You've been here for less than an hour, and you've already done more than our current leadership. You've got a good heart, and if you decide to stay, I'll gladly consider you my leader instead of those two. You listen to us, which is more than they can say for themselves."
Kuba nodded in quiet surprise, and he went on his way, leaving Golden Wolf to guide her to her room alone.
"Mealtimes will be around seven, twelve, and seventeen. If you miss one, you can pick some of the cold food we serve. Sadly, we don't have enough pilots to go fetch ice to conserve food, but we do have salted meat and the like. We don't have any more milk, but we have water. No more strawberries either. One of the doctors will show you around if you go to the cafeteria between meals. There's not much to do around here, so they make food in their free time. Here is your room. I hope you'll find it comfortable. As I said, the next meal will be at seventeen."
Golden Wolf bowed and left after having opened the door for her. Kuba entered it. On the left side of the room, the bed had a layer of fur on top of it, and there was a little fireplace in the middle of the room with a pale beige rug that was also an animal skin stripped of recognizable parts. There were some books on the right side, and a window out of which she could see a playground. A little river ran on a cold bed of sand, and next to it were some miles of grass where children were playing ball, unaware of the events of the day, or perhaps simply ignoring them. It didn't have any structures to play on, but it was a wide plain of grass, which made it a playground anyway.
Kuba sighed, and sat down on the bed. She was eager to meet more of the people of Wolf Stone, but apparently, that wouldn't be for a while. She dropped her bag on the ground. There was nothing in it except some purple wildflowers that she messed around with, and made twirl and untwirl in mid-air, then flip around slowly. She then twirled a ribbon around them to make a bouquet, and put that bouquet on the little table that was in front of the little bookshelf, and decided that she would be staying here for a while. A pot of dirt spawned into existence, and the flowers nestled into it, and she settled on the couch to imagine them growing their roots back more comfortably.
Comments (0)
See all