wild sage growing in the weeds

[light_of_the_world]

There had been rain off and on for the last two days, not enough to stop Hild from gathering her herbs, but enough to make everything sticky and unpleasant. There were times that she liked the rain, when the weather had grown hot and the air pregnant with humidity, until it finally burst and fell. She liked the smell of newly wet cement, the patter of rain drops and the force of a torrent. There were times when she loved the rain, when the morning was crisp and cool and misting or when she could feel the mud between her toes but not yet fear slipping, when the world was green and beautiful and precious after the water had refreshed it. But there were of course times when mud clung to her dress and weighed it down, when water wilted what should be fresh growing flowers and made life feel somewhat impossible.

She was grateful for the sunshine and the lack of clouds on that day, knowing that the mud would dry out soon and the flowers would respond to the sun like children growing under praise. It was a day when everything felt fresh, the air cool and unsullied in the countryside morning. Hild had stopped at a walnut tree, it's broad spread boughs easily reached for a climb. Walking carefully along one of the branches, she reached for the nuts and threw them into the basket she had left down on the ground. Most of them hit the woven container, but many did not. She hissed out a curse as a squirrel bounded out to grab one and threw a nut at him.

"Bane of my life," she shouted down at him in Anglisc. Though a rueful grin tugged at her lips, she was only half joking.

Comments

[backward]

"The difference is knowing and not knowing," Effy says, the corner of her lips lifting. "Far different to know a person has died than to not know at all what's come of them. Some say that everyone who leaves here goes back home, but who really knows if that's the case? It's what we want to tell ourselves, probably because it's... the most predictable answer, isn't it? If we knew and loved someone here, we probably know something of the world they would go back to, if indeed they're going back to their own."

Effy's eyes follow a couple of leaves as they shake free of the tree, fluttering down in quick, erratic spirals, landing a fair space apart.

"Sometimes not knowing means you can't rest your mind about it."

The mention of seeing draws fascination in Effy's eyes, and she leans a little closer, movement given away by the rustling of the leaves. She's never had a drop of magic in herself. Not of that sort, at least — and it feels as unattainable as it has been absent in her life. All inevitably honing her curiosity.

"And can you actually? See more than the rest of us can?"