[Mkguild] Blossom (2a/6)

[Rimme the Weasel]

Part 2a of Blossom

----

Ginger's next lamb went much smoother than the first, only taking another
half hour to lamb and clean up. Her father still took every chance to
remind her about proper rearing technique, diseases to watch for in the
weeks to come, warmth and security, growth patterns, and behaviors
particular to rams. Mostly, this was to occupy time to ensure that Ginger
and her lambs were comfortable; after an hour or two, her father let her
off to wash her arms in the cooled birthing water and change from her work
clothes into her formal dress.

Her father got himself dressed in his fine Sunday hose and tunic and his
hooded shepherd's cap, while her mother switched her white apron for a red
hood and jacket, keeping her farming dress on. Child morphs in Twone always
wore hoods, to mark them from the uncursed children, like Lori's three
younger siblings. They had already been at the celebration, being too young
to lamb or work.

The village was already feasting by the time Lori and her parents arrived.
Lori saw immediately a few townsfolk glancing at her, pitying her
tardiness. She knew they were doing no such thing, and they were likely
simply curious to see a new arrival, perhaps seeing a shadow and wishing it
confirmed. But it made Lori awkward, as if she was supposed to justify her
late appearance. She wondered how many of them knew what she and her pa had
been up to.

In any case, Lori stopped looking at their eyes, and cast a long glance
over the tables. In Twone, people seemed to always separate and gather
themselves by curse, even across families. At the far end of the feast, for
instance, were a long table of child morphs, all distinguished by their
short stature and long hoods. In several smaller groups were the animal
morphs; a cluster of canines here, a group of ungulates there, some rodents
and smaller animals over there. A few of them mingled with the gender
morphs, who otherwise formed unbroken lines along the tables, one female,
one male.

The female gender morphs, though, were mostly occupying the forward-most
table, directly opposite the stage, upon which the five blossoms were
dining. Their tables were festooned with snowdrops, irises, crocuses, and
other early spring flowers, either woven into the forward trellis or
gathered into large vases for the blossoms to give to their suitresses. At
the very end of the table, Lori saw two of her friends, Nancy and Maggie,
talking to one of the blossoms, a man with a thin beard, cropped auburn
hair, and a soft brow.

The resemblance of the man to her friend Mallory was uncanny -- and Lori
had to stop and remind herself: this WAS Mallory.

Maggie caught sight of Lori just a moment after Lori saw her. She waved and
walked over. Lori's father smiled. "Go on. Go meet your friends. We'll be
with the other reg'es, if you need us."

Lori met Nancy and Maggie at the opposite end of the stage. The stage was
already crowded with suitresses, and it took a few minutes for Lori and her
friends to pick their way through the crowd.

"Took you long enough," Maggie said. She wore a low-cut white dress that
only reached down to just past her knees and elbows -- more of a skirt than
a dress, cinched around her waist with a light blue sash. A closer
examination, though, could see that the cloth was worn from overuse and
overwashing, and only multiple layers of chemises and shifts kept her warm
in the chilly night air. However shabby her dress was, her long hair was
richly decorated with small flowers and ribbons that bobbed as she shook
her head back and forth.

"Lambing," was all Lori had to say.

Nancy grimaced. "That's why you're the shepherd, and we're the farmers."
Nancy, for her part, wore a long simple dress with a few decorative
embroideries along the bottom hem. Underneath was a long-sleeved shirt, cut
a few inches from the wrist, a compromise between warmth and modesty, and
celebratory flamboyance. Nancy was also from a farming family of Twone, not
as wealthy as Lori's, but one with deep roots here, one who made very
little waves in Twone, except for her parents' recent conversion to the
Follower faith.

Maggie scoffed. "Lori, no offense, your parents live like hermits. The
whole village was here. Sheep can look out for themselves."

Maggie's family had not been a lucky one. She was the only child of her
parents, a dog-and-child couple; rumor had it her birth made her regress
mother sterile. They also weren't an established family, having fled here
from the Lutin raids of Mycransburg long ago. Being very poor, of course,
only made them an easier target for criticism.

Maggie had adopted a purposefully defiant attitude to the other children of
Twone. She was a year younger than Lori and Nancy and Mallory, but her
knack for reading body language and catching secrets made her a useful ally
in their adventures.

"Every sheep counts," Lori sighed.

"It'd put me to sleep," Maggie joked.

"Seriously, though," Nancy said, "we're glad you made it. Hurry and eat
something before it's all gone."

"Ah, ah, ah, now," Maggie waved a finger. "We all got to talk to 'Marcus',
so it's your turn now."

"I was just thinking of that." Lori looked at her gender-morphed friend.
There were a few subtle changes to Mallory's face: the cheek bones were a
bit more prominent, the jawline a bit finer. "He turned out pretty well.
How was he in the procession?"

"Why're you asking us?" Maggie winked. "Go on and talk to him, we'll be at
the table with Ophelia."

Ophelia was Mallory's younger sister by three years, but had always joined
them at play, and had become a sort of younger sister to all of them. She
sat at a group of empty seats near her mother, a gender morph paying more
attention to her fellow gender morphs. She was easy to find; Ophelia had
been learning to hand-sew her own dresses, but she insisted on following
her own unique sense of fashion. Thus, she had one set of bright red
sleeves too wide around her shoulders, and another set of narrow sleeves,
green sleeves sewn to the red, reaching down to her wrists—it looked as if
her arms were wearing their own dresses. Ophelia had insisted she had meant
it that way; Lori went along with it, if only to support her.

Maggie and Nancy went off to join Ophelia as Lori approached Marcus. Marcus
set down his meat with a smile as the young gendermorph ladies before him
left. "Glad to see you made it!" Marcus said. "I'm sorry you missed all the
games, though. I know you were looking forward to it."

"There'll be other years," Lori shrugged. "Did your family already come
talk to you?"

"My parents did. But Ophelia... you should talk to her. She's been sad all
evening."

"Sad?" Lori glanced backward to see Ophelia. Ophelia's back was turned to
her and Marcus. Only Maggie was watching them; she smiled and waved at them.

"Trust me. Something's been on her mind since the blossom began. Just say
hi to her for me. I'd rather be there with her, and the rest of you too,
than up all night for this darn ceremony."

"But still, you're the man of the hour!" Lori cracked a smile. "The talk of
the town! Everyone wants your name and a freshly-kissed bouquet!"

"As if," Marcus rolled his eyes. "You know all those things we'd say about
men being boorish clods?" He grinned and leaned over and lowered his voice.
"They're true."

"What, so you're a boorish clod, now?"

"Just saying, not everything that happened in that barn was order and
manners. And anyway, the real 'man of the hour' is Amos over there," he
shrugged a shoulder in Amos's direction. "Us other men are his dangling
ornaments."

Lori glanced at Amos, the man in the center seat. She recognized the name
Amos; people had been talking about the miller's daughter-turned-son Amelia
from Sawtry. The miller was rich, and could have paid for the whole
festival by himself, and three more just like it. Naturally, Amos had a lot
of suitresses. Amos was stroking one of them with an iris, but making eyes
at another one. The two blossoms on either side were very unhappy; one kept
trying to catch one of the lady's eyes, the other glared in disgust at Amos.

"Who are those girls? Are they also from Sawtry?" Lori whispered.

"At least one's from Hareford. One I even think's from Laselle. All come
from way out of town. He's already had private correspondence with everyone
in Sawtry."

Lori smirked. "And he's still not chosen one yet. Is he holding out for the
highest bidder?"

Marcus smiled. "A gentleman does not discuss the personal affairs of
others."

"Come on, Mallory, it's me. What's he looking for? Wealth? Looks? Perhaps a
noble house?"

Marcus had another bite of lamb. "You've been hanging out with Maggie too
much."

Lori laughed. "I really couldn't care who he's after. I'm just trying to
stay in the loop. And I thought," she widened her eyes, a slight pout in
her lips, "that I could count on a good friend like you to help me."

Marcus nearly choked on the lamb. "Ha! Bless that blossom barn! If you had
tried that on me a mere month ago, who knows if I could've said no! Ah!" He
drank from his cup and swallowed the meat. "But you really should get some
food. I can see the fiddlers already getting out of their seats."

"Good to see you again, Mallory," Lori said, turning and heading to the
banquet.

"It's Marcus now!" he said, but Lori was already far enough away that
Marcus had to say it out loud. Everyone nearby laughed good-heartedly.

The banquet table had already run out of bread, but there was plenty of
stew left. Lori filled a bowl with boiled vegetables, and topped it off
with stewed lamb. She remembered her dad had sold five of their lambs a
week ago to the mayor—sheepherding was quite profitable in a valley where
one out of ten people could only eat meat.

Ophelia and Nancy had already cleared their plates, but Maggie still had a
plate of stew and a large chunk of bread she was working on -- very slowly,
given her state of chatter. She was still smiles as Lori sat down. "Well,
you two were enjoying ourselves! Hoping to be a child morph, perhaps, and
become Marcus's child-bride?"

Lori elbowed her in the side. Nancy smiled, leaned over to Maggie, and
said, "I heard a rumor that if you are with child when the curse strikes,
you remain a child morph forever." She then whispered, "So go ahead. You
could make him yours."

Maggie nearly tossed her bread at her. Lori shook her head in response.
"Unbelievable. He's only been a man for a couple hours. As far as I'm
concerned, he's still a blossom until tomorrow. Can't you wait until then
to start joking?"

Nancy tightened her smile in embarrassment. Ophelia was silent, but still
smiled at their antics. Maggie kept chuckling. "Oh, lighten up, Lori. It's
not like we can marry until after the curse."

"And they say that nothing makes the curse come faster than talking about
your own," Nancy added.

Like harvests and black cats, the curse came with a bunch of superstitions.
One of them was that, although it was safe to talk about other people's
curses, it was never safe for an uncursed child to speak about their own
curse to come.

Then again, superstitions were unlikely to be true. Lori's mother would
warn her that slouching or bad manners would give her a hideous insect or
fish curse. And yet, she'd never met an insect or fish morph -- even though
everyone pretended they had.

"None of you are any fun," Maggie said. "Come on, it's a two-in-three shot
for one of us to stay eligible. And there are four of us here! That means,
um..." She scratched her head to puzzle out the math. "... At least two of
us won't be men!"

"Under that logic," Ophelia suddenly spoke, "Two of us won't be children,
and two of us won't be animals. Apparently, two of us will be curse-immune."

Maggie narrowed her eyes at Ophelia while Nancy laughed and Lori chuckled.
But now seemed like a good time to change the subject. "I didn't ask him,
by the way, what he did in the parade. How'd Marcus do?"

"Ah, you should have asked him," Maggie said, eyes lighting up. "He was
great! He was a sword fighter! After they all rode horses around the
village square, Marcus and some other guy leapt off their horses and drew
their swords. They traded blows and chased each other up onto the stage!
The other guy nearly had him, but then Marcus somersaulted off the platform
and nearly slashed the guy's legs, but he leaped away just in time!"

"Like the sword fight from three years ago?" Lori said.

"Huh? Did they? Anyway, then the other guy tossed his sword to someone
else, and they had a fight across the green." Maggie mimicked the sword
fighters with her hands, one imaginary sword in each hand. "They had to
stop when Amos rode past, but then they went back at it! Up! Down! To the
side! It was close. The other guy was tough, but Marcus held on and brought
it to a draw."

"They always fight to a draw," Lori said.

"And so he gave his sword up to Marcus," Maggie went on unabated, "and
Marcus took out a third sword and started juggling. That was beautiful!
After a couple minutes someone switched out his swords for flaming daggers,
and he tossed them high into the air. Someone else threw an axe through it,
I don't remember who. But then Marcus caught them all at once, still
flaming, and he threw them at a guy at the barn..."

"... with a wooden shield. Right between the crossbeams. The guy smothered
the flames with a robe, and it made a nice smokey glow when he threw it
off, right?"

Maggie frowned. "That never happened three years ago."

Lori nodded. "Five years ago. It was in the autumn. They stopped doing it
because it was a dry summer and the grass started to burn. Glad to hear
they started it up again."

Nancy swallowed a chunk of bread and smiled. "There's no fooling you, is
there, Lori? Some day, when you're a blossom, you can teach everyone else
the routines."

Maggie looked down, suddenly wondering where her bread had gone. Before she
could look around any further, the village all around them got to their
feet. The fiddlers had all taken position beside the platform, and only a
second later they started up a jaunty dancing song. The crowd cheered and
quickly headed for the center square, all seeking a dance partner.

"The dancing! Quick, everyone get a partner!" Maggie said.

"Must we?" Nancy said uneasily.

Lori also didn't feel like dancing. But, it was as much a part of the
blossom ceremony as the parade. She could join in this much, at least.

Lori looked blindly around for a man or a boy to dance with. This must've
been another reason that villagers of one curse sat together -- it was much
easier to grab a partner this way. Thankfully, she wasn't alone in needing
a partner, and grabbing a gender-morphed man wasn't hard at all.

More disconcerting were the animal morphs who joined in. Animal morphs in
Twone generally kept to their side of the village, and only the important
figures mixed with the adults, like the town watchman and the sheriff. Lori
was afraid to touch them, for fear their curse would rub off. Another
superstition, yes, but one that mattered quite a bit to her.

The man she was dancing with was much taller, and he moved much too fast
for her to keep up with. Two separate times did he step on Lori's feet
after she was trying to match his jig. Lori was so busy focusing on her
footsteps that she didn't notice the whole town had sorted itself into two
columns of dancing pairs. Suddenly the man broke off and swung her around
to her new partner just opposite them -- a goat morph.

Lori's stomach churned as each of his hooves slipped between her fingers.
He was young, perhaps a couple years older than her, which made him all the
more repulsive. To either side of them, two people had formed an arch just
like she and the goat were doing. Behind them, the line of single partners
grabbed each other's hand and began dancing to the side. Lori turned, and
saw one end of the chain ducking and skipping beneath the archway.

There was nothing for her to do now but to wait for the line to go all the
way through. Unfortunately, they were at the long end of the very long
archway, and the chain was moving at barely a walking pace. Lori's fingers
brushed along the hooves of the goat boy. They reminded her of the young
ram she'd just lambed.

Lori closed her eyes and focused on the music. It had a galloping rhythm to
it, light and airy, like a bird flying over a landscape. The goat's skin
was soft and thin where it touched his hooves, with the hairs along his
thumb having enough length to tickle her.

Lori opened her eyes and looked around for Maggie or Nancy. Maggie was
farther down, swinging her arms as the last of the chain went through.
Nancy wasn't there; Lori turned and looked at the chain of dancers as they
danced rounded around the tables and behind the shadow-casted stage.

There was a sudden tugging; without her realizing it, the chain had caught
up to her. Everyone from the archway before had gone through; now the goat
was pulling her inwards, and another young man had grabbed her other hand.

This should have been a fun dance. Lori had danced before with animal
morphs and never been bothered. Why now? Why did the thought of holding a
goat's hoof bother her so much right now? Was it just that she was so close
right now to the curse? Closer than she ever would be in her life?

The chain was winding its way back into the center field, folding itself
around four times until it was back into being a closed loop. Even once it
had closed, they kept dancing around the loop, waiting for the fiddlers to
reach just the right note for them to split the loop into two.

Lori wondered why she was still holding onto the goat. If someone split the
loop early, it would be no big deal. The two of them could just find
another spot in the loop to join in. But it wouldn't look good. People
would call her clumsy. Wasn't a gender morph, after all, supposed to be
graceful?

Then something unexpected happened. The goat stopped. In the middle of a
dance, he stopped and leaned back. Lori was going to crash into him!

But Lori didn't. As if she had planned for this opportunity, she leaned
away, inadvertently dragging the boy behind with her.

They rolled over and crashed into the bench behind them. The goat looked
back at them, and seemed about to ask if they were alright. But the dancers
behind didn't skip a beat, and with a slightly more extended reach, the
goat took the lady's hand behind the boy and danced onward.

"Ouch," Lori said, pulling her dress back down around her ankles.

"The heck was his problem?" the boy beside her said. "Are you alright?"

"I'm fine. It's nothing." She brought her legs back down to the ground.
She'd twisted her neck, and felt a bit dizzy.

"I almost landed on top of you." The boy pulled her up and tried to brush
her off. Lori yanked herself away; she hadn't bathed since the lambing, and
felt too unclean for some stranger to touch her.

"I'm fine, really." She smoothed out her dress and looked at the befuddled,
red-faced boy. "You shouldn't have held onto me."

"I know, I know," he quickly said, blushing. "It's my first time dancing."
Without another word, he backed away and past the tables, leaning away from
the line of dancers who had already broken down from two large loops back
into pairs of dancers spinning themselves around.
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