Fantasy The Near-Forgotten House and the Abandoned Village

[Thanny]

Blueberries? Anisa had not thought Emily would be fond of fruit after seeing her play with the apple, but then again everyone has favourites. She would have to find some blueberry shrubs to plant nearby in acidic soils, preferably not around these suffocating vines.

Anisa returned the smile, timidity gone, and watched as Sundrop broke off to head downstairs. She could never choose a favourite? Did that mean that she was fond of all fruits? Maybe a fruit cocktail would be appreciated someday when they had the availability to get that many fruits and store them, or if they ever had the spare funds that would not go into the farm or next maintaining meal.

She had to wash up, her hands and tools messy, and then she was back at it, refreshed by the cool feel of water and the discussion with Sundrop. The other girls had become quite the joy to talk with as of late, and had given her many a smile as she continued her antics with renewed vigor of trying to snip away and clear every bit of space she could today.

(Timeskip?)

 

[Clairikins]

That night finds the non-humans exhausted in their bed from a long day of work. Anisa can finally have a bed of her own as long as she doesn't mind the dust. There was talk of getting a vacuum, but powering it would be an issue.

The morning comes slow for the girls, but after breakfast Sundrop is ready to head out for the day, complete with a bag of rations for the journey. "Just make sure we have lots of water; it's not too warm out, but it'll sneak up on you."

 

[Thanny]

A hard day's work had come and gone, a number of vines stripped free from the areas that they previously occupied, and night was sure to follow. Before it could be too dark, Anisa came upstairs to shake the dust free from the blankets and sheets outside, a worthwhile effort considering the dustcloud that billowed from them. They certainly needed a good wash, but that would have to wait for later. Right now she craved to rest, and after everything was placed she retired downstairs, hoped to spend some time either in the company of Emily, Sundrop, or both, before everyone turned in.

The morning after, Anisa got ready to go searching for the mysterious elven craftswoman. Regarding Sundrop's commentary, she only had a larger water bottle on her person which could only hold so much, plus some gathered containers from here and there, so she decided to take a lesson from the humble camel (though chiefly her track instructor) and drink a couple of glasses' worth of water early, just in case. Some more litres' worth of water, her handy makeshift weapon, and a few other items, and she was ready to go.

"I wonder what this elf girl is like," she voiced absently to either Emily or Sundrop, eyes gazing out of a window toward the forest. "Do we have a name to go off of? An appearance, maybe? It would make things much easier for me to speak with her if I know who she is or what she looks like."

 

[Clairikins]

"I um-" Emily /knows/ she heard the elf's name before, but there were so many people and it was a while ago, so her memory is foggy. "Her name was some sort of flower, I remember..."
"Well that narrows it down." Sundrop pats Emily's head. "Blue hair, right? That should be easy to spot."
"Right! She had long blue hair, only a bit taller than you, and she always had that notebook with her." -a bit taller than Sundrop, specifically.
"That should be enough to go on; how many elves can there be in the forest, anyway?" Sundrop gives a small laugh as she heads out the door. "Come on, let's go looking."

 

[Thanny]

"Blue hair sounds like a hard trait to not recognise," Anisa commented with a smile, more out of liking the ease of discovering who she was by a very different hair colour than anything else. Blue was quite uncommon even in the city, where hair dye has recently become a fad of some renown. Most people aimed for reds and greens and purples for uniqueness. Blues, not so much. "Thanks, Emily. Picturing people helps me a lot."

She toted her backpack and puffed out a breath of air. She was excited to start off, and stepped out the door to trot beside Sundrop all the while if she could, at least until the trail goes narrow.

"So, Sundrop, I hear you know languages. French, specifically. When things get a little slower, do you mind teaching me some?" she asked sometime mid-trip, looking over. "I know a bit of it, but it has fallen out of practice for me."

 

[Clairikins]

"Well, I am French, after all. Sometime after the war I crossed the ocean and learned English. It has been some time, but I can teach you what I know." She hasn't had to use any French for a few decades now, but considering it was her native language, she still remembers it well enough. "I have learned a few other languages over the years, of course, but not enough to say I'm confident in."

The two walk through the woods for a while. It's a nice day, the bugs are biting, and Sundrop has found enough fruits and berries for the two to have a nice lunch during their search.
"You have been mindful about the path, right?" Sundrop has the place memorized by now, but she still doesn't want Anisa to get lost. "You would know how to get back, should that be required?"

 

[Thanny]

Excited, Anisa smiled at the thought of learning more French. She had always thought that the language was beautiful, and wanted to visit mainland France as well as some of the other interesting locations around the world.

"I remember a good number of landmarks and the general direction of things," Anisa answered bashfully when asked about the path, shouldering her backpack anew. The straps were becoming a little chafy, no matter how loosened they were. "It takes me a few times to commit the path fully to memory, but I would be able to get back for sure."

The young woman looked about inquisitively. They had seen a fair number of berry bushes here and there, their fruits ripe and ready for consumption. She was impressed that Sundrop was able to find the forageable bushes out from the abundant greenery. This forest seemed like it had some decent old growth to it, and the trees mollified by pleasant and peaceful time. No deer seemed to scour their sides and eat their bark, and the forest floor had already absorbed the last fall's leaves for the most part. If not for the nipping and pestering bugs, it would be quite the wonderful trip. She swatted one fly off of her earlier that seemed so large it was frightful.

"You seem like you know your way around a forest," she started up. "Did you grow up around forests, or is this learned from over here, outside of France?"

 

[Clairikins]

"I..." Sundrop has her hand out with her palm down, her other hand holding her elbow. She feels like she's told this human a thousand times. "Am a Nymph." she flips her palm up as she says it, her wrist loose, her fingers limp to remain just as curled as they want to be. "And a fairy, for that matter. Both are... cultures who live in the forest. I..." she looks around. They have nothing but time on their hands, so she might as well explain it to the girl; humans don't tend to know as much about other cultures, after all. "Fairies grow up in a secluded part of the woods until they're old enough to go off to human lands and breed more fairies. All fairies are girls, after all. Nymphs stay in the woods and live off that which the forest provides. There are Nymph men, but outsiders often confuse the two regardless. Both of my parents..." Sundrop sighs; she hasn't had to remember this in a while, and it's clearly hard for her.
"My parents were both women; they met and had a child together. If my fairy mother had carried me, I would have only been a fairy. Nymphs have a special magic to carry the offspring of their loved one, even if they are both women- a magic I once used myself. I... Nymphs can live for hundreds of years, up to a thousand if we take care of ourselves. Fairies are lucky to reach fourteen years old. I'm sure you can do the math."

Why is she telling Anisa all of this? Now she can't even meet the woman's gaze. If the human is going to stay there, then she's going to find out about it eventually- if she weren't human, she might have been able to guess it for herself; her uncle understood it well and clear when /he/ heard she was a crossbreed.
Sundrop keeps her arms partially crossed, looking off into the woods. They were like a home to her, but not the home she grew up in.

 

[Thanny]

Anisa watched intently as the story was laid out. She was very curious as to how Sundrop was both a nymph and a fairy, and things seemed to make sense when nymphs could be male as well as female. She nodded in understanding there, but it was not the correct sense of understanding, as Sundrop made mention that she had two -- count them, two -- biological mothers.

An "oh" escaped her lips as her eyes darted sideways and stared off widely into the forest. To put it frankly, she had no idea that such a thing was possible. Then again, Sundrop did say that it was a form of magic. Perhaps this sort of thing was indeed a possibility in nature as well, but she did not really get too far in this line of thought before the blush burned bright on her cheeks. She never was very good at keeping a straight face when it came to relations, especially concerning women with women.

"If for hundreds of years as a nymph and a decade for a fairy, you probably have a similar lifespan to me . . . two hundred years to five hundred years, maybe," Anisa responded, biting down on her lip shortly thereafter. That was a terrible takeaway from everything, but she was grateful that she did not have to worry about Sundrop aging rapidly. She returned her gaze to Sundrop, smiling. "I'm glad it is what it is, as you are here. Our past leads to our present, and while I'm not good at remembering stuff too much I'll commit that to memory." Her lips dove into an inwardly expressive frown as she hesitated to continue, but did. "And if you used the magic yourself, well -- not to pry, but, er, does that mean you're a lover as well as a mother?"

 

[Clairikins]

"This part, at least, is accurate. Humans can't use magic though, can you. You write stories about it, you tear us apart to find out what makes us tick, some of you have studied your lives away only to be left emptyhanded. The math, however, was incorrect." Sundrop walks ahead of Anisa, not wanting to look her in the eye while she recounts the story. "I didn't expect you to calculate my own lifespan, just the..." her voice trails off as she wipes a tear from her eye, her back still to the human.
It takes a moment for her to continue. "What good is magic if it can't bring back those you've lost?"

 

[Thanny]

Anisa opened her mouth to speak and closed it again, unsure of what to say. She did not quite expect that, and stared at Sundrop's back, chiefly at the bob of her hair as they both continued forward.

"I don't know. Like you said, I don't have magic, no matter how much I dreamed of it and wish I had it. We want what we cannot have, I guess. Even still, I . . . don't know the answer to that. If books are to be believed, magic can be both practical and powerful, but at a price. Nature as boundaries. I have people I hope to see again too, but if they do get brought back . . . there's a chance it won't be the same. Perhaps you've heard of the term 'necromancy?'

"Not all is at a loss, though," she continued, her voice sped up as if she was on a roll, and rising in pitch with a sort of feverish excitement. She stopped continuing forward to fully speak her mind. "Their memories still flow through us, and if they still are out there, waiting to be reunited, you are bound to find them in the end, right? That's my hopes and dreams there. Perhaps it's crazy, but I hope cosmic laws are so kind as to make it so."

 

[Clairikins]

"Necromancy isn't the same as in the stories- the body can come back, but never the soul." She stops walking as well, resting her hand on a tree. "If all the magic in the world can't bring back those I've lost, then I have no need for it." She clenches her knuckles on the tree. "I gave it up and never looked back. My bloodline may well die with me. My lover, my mother, my- my daughter. They're all waiting for me, aren't they? Let them wait." She allows her hand to slide off the tree as she continues forward. "I have a lot more people to inspire before my time comes- and a town to rebuild."
She has felt loss, of course, but she has gone through her mourning centuries ago, and now she wants to carry forward. There's no coming back from death, so she's going to do as much as she can while she's here.

 

[Thanny]

"So it does exist," mumbled Anisa, feeling a shiver pass down her spine upon the thought of necromancy. Death was not often a thought that meandered through her mind due to its horror. She much preferred to concentrate on living than think of the dead.

Sundrop continued walking from her pausing at a tree. She was strong, or at least pretended well enough to fool others, but even still Anisa worried about her.

"Sun," she spoke up, catching up with a jolt of a run, "Sun, if there is anything to take away from this, let it be that I -- we -- are grateful for you and what you provide. It may not be magic, but your presence helped. Thank you for that, and for continuing as you are."

She had something else to ask, but now was not the time nor was this the place to ask. Maybe when they knew each other better would it be better discussed.

 

[Clairikins]

Sundrop continues to walk without saying very much. There isn't a whole lot to say, after all.
Eventually, she comes to a stop, holding a hand out back to bring Anisa to a standstill as well. "Someone has been here." She points at a snapped twig. "Too high up for a deer, but too solid for a squirrel. It could be the elf, or it could be a human." They're far from civilization, sure, but humans have been known to get themselves lost in the woods for no good reason. "Stay close and keep your ears open, just in case."
Blue hair should be easy to see in the forest, but whomever's out here has been here for a while; they'd know how to hide, if it mattered to them.

 

[Thanny]

Anisa trudged behind Sundrop, the straps on her shoulders just starting to burn anew from the friction and weight upon them. She was certainly no soldier, and was impressed by Sun's stamina, but was even more impressed that she was good at tracking and caught this snapped twig not on the forest floor. She eyed it, and it was certainly high. Depending on the deer, she could be right, unless the deer had antlers. Wait, no, much more would be snagged if so, right? She deferred to Sundrop's wisdom there.

"I'll keep an ear out," she whispered, remaining close by and scanning the forest with a hardly blinking, focused stare. Blue hair, she said as a mantra within her mind, but she corrected herself. It could be a human lost too, like Sun said. For now she should look for anything very different -- hair, skin hues, clothes, and anything else that popped out from the greens, browns, and greys of a forest -- and hope for the best.

 

[Clairikins]

A sound causes Sundrop to freeze in her tracks- it's faint, but unnatural. Another sound comes shortly after- someone is trying to chop down a tree. Sundrop quietly escorts Anisa to the source of the noise.


A blue-haired figure with a cap and rugged clothing is brandishing a homemade axe, swinging it at the tree. She lets out a little grunt at the effort- the tree still looks like it has a while to go.
"Hah... I could've just taken a tree closer to home, but no, you wanted to preserve your garden." She talks to herself briefly, giving the tree another swing.
"A garden, you say? We have a pretty nice garden as well." Sundrop is well out of reach of the axe when she speaks. "So you're the elf we were told about."
"And you're the slut /I/ was told about." Lilly looks like she's about ready to throw the axe at Sundrop.

 

[Thanny]

Anisa followed as directed, listening as the chopping, imperceptible at first, become noticably nearer. She wondered what the woodcutter looked like, and what her personality was.

In the end, she was surprised by what was before her. This rough and tough person with blue hair and a brash nature surprised her, and Anisa swallowed hard at the sight of a dangerous-seeming axe of hand-crafted make. Anisa could not make out the pointed ears, if that was actually a tell, but the girl with blue hair at least did not refuse the term of "elf."

"Um, can we put the axe down, please?" she asked from behind Sundrop, poking her head out and biting down on both lips as she considered what to do, stay or run. She wondered if Sundrop thought the same. "We just want to talk."

 

[Clairikins]

Lilly points the axe at Anisa once she makes herself seen. "And you brought a HUMAN with you? Do you have any idea how dangerous that is?"
"She's the old man's niece."
Lilly crosses her arms. "What, ya gonna shag her to death too? You can't just go picking up humans off the street when you kill one, Sundrop! Humans aren't replacable! WE aren't replaceable!"
"She can remove the vines. We got more of the house back under control."
Lilly huffs again. "So you found the one thing humans are good for. Good for you. The 'old man', as you call him, still can't be replaced by any old human." She turns back to the tree, placing her hand on it and clenching her fingers as she mumbles "you don't even know his name."

 

[Thanny]

"Symond," Anisa answered stiffly, looking at the axe head with a combination of fear and momentary bravado. Her knuckles turned white from her fists balled by agitation.
Her eyes started to water. "Emily knows his name pretty well, but Sun probably is not used to saying Uncle Symond's name like the rest of those that stayed there. And don't get the wrong idea of Sundrop, or me. Neither of us, and certainly not me, intends to replace my uncle, but instead rebuild what he worked so hard to achieve: a community."

She puffed a sigh, but her grey eyes drifted upward again and reinstigated eye contact.

"Everyone went their own way after my uncle passed. Thing is, you are the first we wanted to bring back into it."

 

[Clairikins]

"The first?" Lilly scoffs, "Or just the first you found?"
"The first. If we're going to rebuild the town, we need someone who can build. Emily told me all about you, about what you've been able to make, about everything you've done. You built half the town, or at least designed it. I know Symond would want everyone back, and I know Emily wants you back- you and everyone else who left."
Lilly muses over the situation for a bit, leaning against her half-chopped tree. "Fine. I'll come back. But if things go south again, you won't be seeing me anymore."
"If that's what it takes." Sundrop holds out a hand to Lilly, who half-heartedly hits it with her axe. Sundrop, true to her nature, doesn't flinch. The axe doesn't cut her, and Lilly simply puts it back into her belt.
"So, you know your way back. Lead the way, blondie."

 

[Thanny]

Anisa sagged her shoulders in relief upon realising that the elf, Lilly, was willing to come back. She expected a harder time of convincing her, but perhaps the hardest part would be when she came back to the house, and not the initial recruitment. She hoped that they would be able to do so. She further hoped that she would at least live up to her uncle's reputation in this closed circle of fey and fairy tales. Was such a thing even possible, and, if so, would it be possible to step out of his shadow and create a legacy of her own?

This taxed her mind, so she stopped thinking about it for now and smiled gratefully at the newest companion of their little group of women.

"Thank you," she voiced to the blue-haired girl, biting her lip when she contemplated offering a hand of her own. She figured it was going to be smacked away with an axe like Sundrop's. Instead she did a light bow and continued, "My name is Anisa, Anisa Carlow for long. I, um, I figured it would be best if you know my name."

Emily, Sun, the elf, and Anisa -- together on a quest to make the house a better place to live, at least for the moment. This was a good step, she hoped, that would lead to the prosperity of everyone. Over time, she hoped to learn more about the elf, including her name.

 

[Clairikins]

~~~

"Yea, this is about how I left it." Most of the day has passed before the girls arrive back at the house, and Lilly isn't so impressed by the state of the place.
"Anisa removed some of the vines." Emily points out. "I guess only humans can do it after all."
Lilly collapses on the sofa, putting her feet up on the table. "This place used to be so so much better. I /know/ I didn't leave it in the 1700s. What happened to the electricity? The running water?"
"Vines broke the generator and the pipes." Sundrop answers, looking at the front door to where /something/ once stood in the town on the other side. "We could clear them out, but we can't rebuild it- at least not the generator itself."
Lilly sighs, "Fine, I'll get them up and running again. I have some new ideas for solar energy anyway. But first, whatcha got to eat? Ya took me away from my camp, after all."

 

[Thanny]

"So this place used to be that much more before the vines came in?" Anisa asked, not exactly sure how to broach the subject. She had been mostly quiet for most of the trip, and once the trek was finished she slumped against the wall next to the entrance and remained there. "That is good. Let me know if I can cut out any more vines for you. Working power and running water sounds heavenly.

"Um, regarding things to eat, I did buy some things from the local store. I have a few apples left, and some protein bars for energy. Beyond that there are a number of stewing vegetables and the occasional fish from the lake nearby."

Anisa looked to Sundrop, wondering if she had missed anything for foods. Perhaps if she opened up the pantry some non-perishables would still be edible, if insects or rodents did not break into them first.

 

[Clairikins]

"Yea, I know what food can be found around here; I used to live here. I used to go to the nearby town, too, until I left."
"Why didn't you go to town when you left?" Emily asks innocently, "I mean, you pass off well enough as human." One of her cat ears gives a little twitch.
"I did for a while, but they're always so strict about what they want; I'm able to build myself a nice life out in the woods, so I did. Yea, I went to town from time to time to get some supplies here or there, but most of it was just whatever I could find lying around." It was a lot of work to build her shelter, but the kind of work that she does best. Lilly gets up to her feet, putting her hands behind her head to stretch her arms, and heads out the front door. "I'm going to see what I can salvage- hey, human, come along and I'll show you what vines to take down." With that, the blue-haired elf leaves, but she waits just outside for Anisa to come out. A part of her wants to talk to the newcomer about what the town used to be before it got all run-down.

 

[Thanny]

Anisa felt sheepish regarding the food situation and looked down toward her feet. The elf did mention that she had been here for centuries, even helping build the town. Surely she knew well enough of the town and even the houses when it came to foods. She was, however, interested in learning of things to salvage and repurpose, and leaned up for that. She had a love for giving expended objects new reasons to exist. Her name, or rather her race, was called, and she perked up.

"Oh! Coming!" she chimed, gathering her tools and rushing to join the elf. She still had yet to discover her name. "Where to?" Anisa asked when she was nearby.

The girl checked to see if the snippers worked right, as they seemed a little gummy from partially dried sap. Satisfied, her eyes drifted again to Lilly, along with a contented smile.