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.

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[backward]

For the majority of Effy's life, she had always been in the shadow of a city. Even in childhood, when high rises were more a part of the horizon than her reality, the city had always been little more than a bus ride away. People gravitated towards it — people worked there, people lived there, and so Effy had always assumed that the city was the place to be. Only after she'd been whisked away to a magical island did she realize that there was so much to be said for the quiet of a countryside, the absence of any metropolis, nothing but clouds flying higher than the trees.

Having picked up a couple of books from the library, Effy had set out earlier with the intention of finding a quiet space in the woods to read, a small lunch pack slung over her shoulder with crackers, cheese, and a couple of small drinks. The books were dry, long treatises on tax law and corporate policies that she needed to familiarize herself before her interview.

Just as she was about to settle down, she heard a yell in the distance, and looked up to find a young woman in the trees. While the words were foreign, Effy soon spotted the source of the woman's ire, and made her way over to scare the squirrel off.

"Can't have thieves around, even cute ones," she mused, smiling up at her companion.