Morn, Acantha, Jade and Farmer stood on top of a low hill. They looked over the ocean of glistening shrapnels covered in green goop that, no more than a few minutes before, had been Farmers greenhouse.
“What a fucking way to repay a fucking debt.”
“I- I’m sorry?” Jade looked as if she was going to burst in to tears.
“Yew better be fucking sorry, what did you bring that fucking thing for?”
“I didn’t know I was wearing it, I swear!”
“That’s the mask for ya,” Farmer said. He turned away from her, still angry, but not in particular at Jade and shouted, “Lufba! Hey, where are you?”
It remained quiet.
“Lufba? I know you’re out there, if you don’t come out at the count of ten.” Farmers voice trailed off before he started to count dramatically to ten. Acantha raised her eyebrow at Morn, who shrugged back.
“Three, four- I fucking swear if you don’t come out I’ll make you! Five, six-“
Farmer reached nine before anything happened or the so called ‘Lufba’ showed themselves and Farmer continued:
“Nine and a half, nine and three quarters- Oh for fucks sake, TEN!” The angry pockmarked guy walked over to the remains of his greenhouse and rummaged around to reveal what looked like a big bag of fertilizer. He opened the bag in front of his feet, closed his eyes and started mumbling something in deep concentration.
Jade tried keeping her balance as the ground suddenly started to shake. She looked past Farmer and saw hills rolling over the meadow like a giant waves from where Farmer was standing. A little chipmunk was launched into the air by the unnatural phenomenon. One hill rolled past a group of shrubberies and a fox flew into the air as if jumping on a trampoline. Finally, Jade heard childish burst of laughter coming from behind a tree where a young boy was launched into the air, shrieking with pure joy. The boy gave himself up and let himself be rolled towards Farmer.
“That was fun!” he said, still laughing. The boy looked about six years old.
“This is Lufba,” Farmer introduced him, “Lufba, these fucking people are going to help rebuild our house.”
“Who are these fucking people?” Lufba replied with a wolfish grin, changing the pitch slightly.
“Watch your fucking language!”
Lufba smiled bemusedly at the Farmers response as Jade cleared her throat and introduced herself and her friends.
“Pleased to meet you,” Lufba winked. Something about this little boy made Jades hair stand on end.
The days after the explosion, the trio helped Farmer rebuild his greenhouse. Lufba was around to help too, but was often hiding in the bushes and asked Jade and Acantha to play hide and seek with him. Morn he left alone. In the mornings Farmer would provide them with a nutritious breakfast made of some sort of grain mixed with milk. For dinner they sat by Acantha’s tent and ate whatever they had managed to gather during the day. One day, Lufba brought a fat bird that he managed to catch in the bushes and they roasted it over a campfire. Within a week they had built a new greenhouse and Farmer was grinning from ear to ear.
“You have made this man very fucking happy!” He said, somehow still sounding angry, “I know, let me reward you for your good fucking behaviour, go talk to Lufba, go on, go inside.”
“Wait,” Jade said, “please excuse us for a bit, we’ll join you later.”
Farmer shrugged and left the three alone. For the first time in little over a month, the three didn’t have any plans, they would return to their clan soon. It was a good, satisfactory feeling, the one you get at the end of finishing your homework. Jade urged Morn and Acantha to join her by the tent.
“I’ve been thinking,” she started. Acantha rolled her eyes visibly, but Jade ignored her. “Do you remember the dreams we had, do you remember Morpheus?”
Her friends responded by looking at her blankly and Jade assumed this was the signal to continue.
“Morpheus tried to tell us something in our dreams, something about our clan, I think. I think he was trying to nudge us in the right direction.” Morn shifted uneasily and Acantha frowned, “Hmm, I’m not explaining this clearly. Ok, ehm, did you ever see Aoda watching over us?”
“What do you mean ‘watching over us‘?” Acantha asked.
“I mean, when we were sleeping.”
“Get to the point already,” Morn sighed.
“Aoda would curl up towards one of the elves and hover over them, just looking at them, very intensely, almost as if she were talking to them or trying to listen to them in their sleep. What do you think she was doing?”
“I never saw this,” Morn said.
Acantha shook her head in confusion. Jade shifted a bit and cleared her throat.
“Totems can make their followers ask questions, their elven followers I mean, questions to the Source,” Jade waited for the penny to drop, but her friends were looking at her quizzically, waiting for her to finish. The elf sighed, “Ok, so I think maybe that Aoda’s preference for elves comes from the fact that she can use them to consult the Source.”
“Hmm,” Acantha hummed as if she was considering an interesting idea.
“Don’t you get it? She’s using the elves!”
“You don’t know that,” Morn said sternly.
“Morn’s right, we should investigate further before we draw conclusions based on Aoda’s behaviour. She might simply be trying to protect them or fix their minds or something.”
Jade swallowed, she remembered the vision she had, the memory that the Source had given her. She saw Totems forcing their followers to ask questions and one by one their minds had broken, just like her brothers mind had been broken by the Totem she served before.
“We should, just, maybe, not trust her blindly.”
“I agree,” Acantha said.
“Was that it?” Morn asked and when Jade nodded the three of them walked towards the greenhouse where Farmer and Lufba were waiting for them.
Comments are closed, but trackbacks and pingbacks are open.