Labors of Love

The flowers had a beautiful shade of red from the boar blood she poured out after collecting in jars. One of her quiet places she had put together for the time between hunting and keeping a brave face to the larger world. He knelt down in the flower bed, careful not to disturb the precious petals. The ground was soft, grass growing stubbornly around the bulbs and blooms. He carefully inspected their color and integrity. Bees buzzed near him, dancing along the wind.

He wouldn’t pick any of them in good health, instead he would weed her half secret flower garden for her. It was a slow and careful process, thorns biting up at him occasionally. The weeds were sparse already, being fought off by the huntress’s lethal gaze. His hand yanked their roots from the earth, spindly things that had no business where they were. A small pile formed beside his knee. He thought back to the smile on her face the first time he’d seen this little garden of hers. The sparkle of pride and cheerfulness at having made something beautiful. Silently, he ensured the beauty where she had been briefly absent. Maybe she could keep smiling like that once he’d done this.

He worked through it end to end, forty feet of weeds wrenched from the soft earth. Each bulb he pulled drew the memory of that smile back. Rough hands packed it down gently again, ensuring the roots of the flowers were undisturbed by his labor. Gingerly he inspected the petals again. Featherlight fingers glanced across the stems to find any possible deformities or pests. Upon finding none he smiled. Next the sailor stood and dusted his hands off, bunching up the weeds in his fists before piling them in with light kindling from the outskirts of her little clearing. He’d neglected to bring a sack of any sort to transport it with, so he walked along with hands full. The sensation of being watched tickled his awareness, but he decidedly ignored it. This was part of the apology after all.

He set the start of a fire down on the side of the stream, letting it sit upon the damp stones. He didn’t care if it got water logged. It admittedly would slow him, but not truly stop him. Boots were kicked off, pant legs were cuffed to mid shin, and he stepped out into the water. The eyes stayed on him, he elected to continue while being stalked. Careful, dragging motions through the river bed kept his hands busy. He looked about in the murky water as he walked along the stream’s length. He’d come back for his boots eventually, no one was cruel enough to steal them. Eventually his hand bumped something hard and oblong. He fiddled around, finding a wet cloth texture before wrapping his first around it. A haze of mud obscured the view, but he drew it up all the same. The knife rangpar had deflected into the stream was now clenched in his fist. He waltzed out of the water and happened upon his boots. He pretended to ignore that his socks were no longer inside the boots as he often did to keep them dry. After letting the water wick away as much as it would, and a few well placed kicks through the grass, he slipped back into his boots. Next was drying the knife off in the grass, clumping the roots and weeds back together, and he set off to his next small labor of love.

On closer inspection the knife had rusted along the flat of the blade. He flipped it around a few times, trying to find the true edges of rust along it. It had also become remarkably dull, the blade's apex was nearly flat. It was practically a sheet of rust with a handle. He pondered for a moment, before remembering an old trick Barry taught him for fixing up fishing hooks. With a knife and bundle of nonsense in tow, Wilkes headed to the dock. The buzzing trade center was hurtling towards closing up for the evening. He smiled as he waited in line for the wine stall. The usual prissy drunkards he saw refusing ale at the tavern were waxing poetic about something called a vintage. His foot tapped briefly, but after they shared a snooty laugh and moved aside he finally had time to ask for his needed resource.

“I need some soured wine, the stuff you can’t sell anymore because it went acrid.” Wilkes said plainly, the attendant looked at him with a smidge of confusion. She tucked her hair behind her ears and listened as he repeated himself.

“You want wine that has become too acidic to drink?” She repeated

“Yes, old sailor’s trick.” He said plainly. The lack of an explanation did not change her confused expression.

“Sir, even if it is a sailor’s trick, I’m relatively new for my apprenticeship. Not sure I could find what you’re looking for. Besides, why would you want wine that tastes bad?” She questioned him, and he bit his tongue. Not hard but just enough to keep any cruelties from spilling out.

“Not entirely sure how it works, but spoiled wine has a neat property to it. Rips rust and debris off the steel of things when you scrub down.” He spoke slowly, the girl’s eyes widened. She nodded for a moment.

“Well if you had said you needed cleaning wine instead of spoiled I could’ve gotten it for you right away, one second sir!” She stepped away from the counter at the front of the stall and disappeared behind a curtain. He heard bottles clinking, glass shattering, brief swearing, a bit of sniffling, and then she came around with the bottle he’d asked for. Her eyes were puffy, she seemed to be shrinking in on herself, and her left hand stayed curled in a fist despite being empty.

“Let me see it, you cut yourself didntcha?” Wilkes asked softly, she nodded and stretched out her hand. The cut wasn’t deep but the wound was bleeding gently. Bout a quarter in across the length of her palm, and only shallow enough to need a light bandaging. Wilkes looked at the sleeve of his shirt, and shook his head for a moment. He tore the bit of fabric clean off, then ripped along the seam to begin wrapping her palm tightly. The blood flow was staunched and her wound packed. “Go ahead, give it a test. Open and close that hand.”

She did as he told her, the dainty fingers curling and flexing. She wiggled, pointed, and tested the movements. She winced slightly when spreading her fingers wide, but that was unavoidable. He patted the back of her hand gently and nodded. Fixed as he could get her, and the market was closing soon.

“Don’t forget to go see a real doctor instead of a two bit sailor with experience from being dumb.” He joked with her, his bare arm stretching out as he fiddled with some coins. He winced when her eyes widened. He saw her stare at the scars on his arms from the repeat sword cuts, a gaze he despised to see from people. They came from battle, they weren’t some noble thing. They were a reminder that he had to be violent to find peace again.

He dropped six coins on the counter and gave her a soft smile before walking off with the bottle. She waved with her unbandaged hand as he turned it about. He looked at his missing sleeve and cursed himself for being far too nice. The tailor would have his head asking for another sleeve. His shack slowly rose over the horizon as his feet fell against the familiar trail. Daisy lazed about in the sun as usual, her belly being bathed in the sun’s warmth. He pat the offered bit of fluff, a happy grumble coming from the aging mutt.

“Right girl, food sound good?”

The hound rolled over immediately, an alert look in her big brown eyes. Her tail began to wag fiercely. He beckoned her with a tilt of his head and the two entered the shack. The same old smells of sea salt, cooking oils, and old wood hung in the air. The place sat quiet as was becoming entirely too common for his liking. He grabbed one of the boar’s feet he’d managed to snag from hunting with Beatrice and tossed it towards Daisy. She leapt into the air and caught it in her snout.Her tippy-tap steps marked her cadence as she carried it back to her bed. She gnawed loudly in the background as he pulled a stool up beneath himself. He sat at the countertop, setting the wine down, and placing the fire starter scraps into his stove’s furnace. Rummaging around a bit he pulled a decent sized soup pot and poured the wine in. Heating it first woke it up so to speak, if Barry was to be believed. Hot and acidic, it’d blast the rust off if he put some elbow grease in while scrubbing. He waited, the only sound was flames crackling and daisy gnawing. Sitting still slowly made him antsy, so he rose up and filled a small sack with the coarser sand bits from the beach. When enough was gathered to fit like a ball in his hand he sinched it shut tight. Afterward he returned to the stool and sat there continuing to wait on the wine to boil.

His mind wandered again, he didn’t feel like he was still being watched. Yet something about that led him to believe he was still being watched, directly or otherwise. Preferably whatever had been watching him in the wilderness had decided he was best left to his chores. He could go back to teaching the barge lads tomorrow if he felt up to it. The captain… no Jonah would understand if he didn’t. His stomach growled, interrupting his trail of thought. He hadn’t kept a decent stock of food here, usually eating with the Tellish family, Erik, or just while at work. The markets were closed, he’d been in the last rush to get anything before everyone went home. It seemed a nice nap would be his dinner tonight, unless he saw fit to gnaw on a boar’s foot with Daisy.

The wine began to bubble furiously on the stove, rising up from his stool he moved the pot off the heat and waited for it to settle down from a boil. Slowly he dunked the knife within the wine, letting the blade soak in full. Quickly the blade was drawn out and he scrubbed against the blade with a fistful of sand from the beach out front. Flakes of orange metal came off cleanly as he scrubbed, revealing further corrosion beneath. He scowled, but found himself swirling a mixture of deep red and orange around more than actually cleaning the deeper corrosion. Trying to fix it up at the forge with the blacksmith could work, if she weren’t likely to have closed up already. He thought back to Barry teaching him to clean the hooks in clearer detail. It was wine for a soak, scrubbing it with the juice of some fruit, and then drying it carefully. Try as he might there was no way he could remember what fruit he needed. There wasn’t time to get help or a way to finish this particular part of his apology project at the moment it seemed. He set the knife down on a dry rag. Next with a single hand he grabbed the pot of cleaning wine mixed with rust flakes and tossed it into the sand in front of his house. Let the gulls get drunk, they’d be less like to shit all over his dock. With Daisy still gnawing away he decided a singular thing to do, he grabbed his fishing pole, bait, and headed for the dock.

The town was growing quiet now. Everyone having concluded their daily trades and apprenticeships and settling into light activity or hobbies. A small group of children ran past him, playing some variation of tag it seemed. A gnomish lad was struggling to keep pace with the humans and elves that built the bulk of the group. Typical as always. The wooden planks of the dock creaked beneath his boots, the gentle sound of lapping waves soothed him, and the fresh salty air filled his lungs. The closest thing to peace he knew was back around him. A particularly fat worm wriggled between two fingers as he baited his hook. He slung the line into the distance, his bobber doing its exact job. His line stayed slack while he simply stared as time crawled on around him. A thought occurred to him as he looked around the mostly empty dock. There was no one to notice or spread word about his actions as it stood. He slowed his breathing, concentrating on the memory of using magic on the wind for the first time. The first intentional use of magic he’d ever done. His left hand rose steadily, stretching as if he could grab the horizon that was bathed in shades of purple.

He flicked his wrist, a lazy breeze rolled along the dock. Grains of sand and small pebbles were sent tumbling down and away. A smile slowly cracked on his face. His line tugged and his attention snapped back to fishing. He reeled in the line as quickly as he could, dragging the fish towards himself. An orange guppy stared blankly at him from the hook. It was too small to be dinner on its own, staring into the blank eye of the fish he carefully removed the hook from its mouth. It wriggled free from his hand and sank beneath the waves after a small splash. He had hoped for a flounder or something big enough to eat immediately, he felt his gaze wander to one of the dinghies on the side of the Gracious Pearl. That same mischievous smile broke back onto his face only wider. He climbed aboard the ship, loosened the ropes for the dinghy and dropped into the water upon it. The small ship bobbed on the wake, he quickly set up its sail and giggled to himself. Waving his hand repeatedly he convinced the wind to fill that tiny sail.

The boat split through the waves with a youthful gait. Catching small bits of air time after launching from the crest of a few waves. He made sure to avoid capsizing by intermittently ceasing with the wind. Admittedly the repeated use of magic had him feeling light headed, a physical toll to magic use was something Erik had likely mentioned after devouring the archive’s stores of magic information. At the moment Wilkes had probably been staring at or thinking of Beatrice. The wind ceased to answer him entirely as he thought about her. The boat was left adrift on the waves.

“Right, conviction and incantation.” Wilkes muttered to himself. He’d been relying on the former, and a passive ability to argue with nature. A lack of incantation probably explained his inability to keep things moving. He needed to go a bit further out, deeper waters for larger fish. He was maybe three nautical miles out now, with nothing but stars as a companion and countless lanterns to his back. “Right right, how would a wind incantation even go?”

The waves rocked him like a babe in a cradle. His mind toiled with the question. Wind was fast by comparison to most things so he probably needed it to be something quick. A snappy little saying to move things along. He also had to believe whatever he said wholeheartedly, from what he remembered Erik talking about.

“For the sake of freedom. Surge along my chosen path. Strong Gust!” The words hung in the air. The world lingered for the briefest heartbeat before the wind answered. A sharp gust snapped the sail taut, and the dinghy surged forward with renewed pace. The waves grew larger, and the stars shone down in all their radiance. In this quiet night, he finally understood the core of his magic. Not as a thing in a book, or a lesson to be learned. Wilkes understood magic as an extension of both his will and his body. His soul will sing, and the wind will harmonize.

The open sea proved better for fishing. Wilkes cast idly there on the waves, pulling in flounders galore. He hadn’t sailed far enough for Tuna, as he doubted the ability to reel in a grown tuna on his own. Not to mention their spawning season was still a ways away. The wedding plans from earlier today rushed back to his mind as he sat alone on that boat. He had kept his magic a secret still. With Erik obsessing over it as much as he has been it would make or break their friendship if Wilkes broke the news to him. Just a casual, ooh look at this, and suddenly his friend would be frothing at the mouth with theories.

“Can’t imagine that would go over too well, but it’ll only get worse the longer I hide it.” Wilkes thought aloud. He ate the flounder raw when his stomach growled too loudly to be left be. It was slimy, but the sensation of a full belly was hard to beat. He spoke the incantation again, and adjusted the sails toward the island. He plinked along in the Dinghy at a lazy pace. Five knots if he had to guess, which with his little fishing trip taking him three nautical miles out meant he’d be back before anyone deciding to burn the midnight oil on the ship would notice. Or at least he hoped so.

He drifted in silently, having taken down the sail and packed the mini mast back down beneath the wooden slat he sat upon. He neatly coiled the ropes in the same pile he had found them in. Carefully he positioned his Dinghy below the pulleys and reanchored the smaller vessel to the Pearl. He pulled on the rear and bow pulleys slowly but surely, rising steadily to deck height again. Not a soul stood on the deck, no lanterns were lit for late night arrangements. As softly as he could manage he moved a boot onto the deck. No creak from the boards as he let the other join its twin. He stood there, tense as a line with fish on. Moments passed and no one came yelling, so he began to walk across the deck. Careful steps never let a single board creak. He was as inconspicuous as a shadow in an alley.

He was walking down the ramp back onto the dock when he found himself star-gazing there. All those tiny pin holes of light used to be warriors and sailors according to Rangpar. He began to wonder if some of those lights belonged to family he had never known. His waxing poetic was quickly interrupted. A blow struck him from behind. His right knee buckled and he tumbled down.

“I got him! Lads get the stow away!” Dortas yelled at his elven accomplices. Svend and Leif began to pummel Wilkes at the bottom of the ramp. Their blows were fairly tough for kids as young as themselves, but not nearly enough to hurt the experienced sailor. He righted himself and rose to his full height. A shadow against starlight, he loomed over the lads. Fast hands grabbed the twins by their wrists and hoisted them into the air.

“Lads, ye thick skulled ragamuffin half witted, knot slipping sons of goats! Why they hell would a stowaway come out if ye were still on board? Much more importantly why by all the winds and sails on this blue sea would he hide in a dinghy?!” Wilkes roared at the small cohort. Rapid stammering and apologizing from the gaggle of guppies was all he heard. His grip loosened and the wonder duo dropped to the ground. “One at a time, bleeding groupers ye lot are gonna be the death of me.”

“We were sneaking in extra work because Dortas said working earlier would make the days labor easier since there’d be less of it! Then we saw you slinking across the deck but couldn’t tell it was ye! So we decided to attack you two at once while Dortas ran for the captain’s pistol!” Leif spoke first. Wilkes fists clenched. The lads were planning on being reckless. On potentially killing someone to defend their home yes, but as three fourteen year old boys they’d never stand a chance against a tide reaper. Especially since they always moved in large groups. They only would’ve gotten themselves killed. Then he would have had to scrub their blood from the deck and help the captain find new barge lads. The idea made his stomach churn, his breath was getting shaky. A deep pit of fear opened in his stomach, he fought his dinner back down before he spoke.

“Ye idiots! If ye see a stow away and ye ain’t even fully got moss on your stones ye’ve no business tryin to fight ‘em! Yer job is to let me, Erik, Barry, Rangpar, or The Captain know! YE LITTLE LADS LET ADULTS HANDLE THE BIG PROBLEMS! YER CONCERN IS SORTIN FISH AND GETTIN TO GROW UP!” He lost his temper, he was shaking the twins while screaming in their faces. He hadn’t even noticed the tears come, but they fell onto the dock beneath him. The lads were pale as the sails behind them where they stood.

‘We’re… we’re sorry Wilkes. We’ll go home.” Dortas piped up, Wilkes locked eyes with the gnome.

“C’mere. Just… C’mere. I’m sorry fer yellin lads, but well it’s time to tell ye a story from when I was yer age I guess.”