[Mkguild] Blossom (2b/6)

[Rimme the Weasel]

Part 2b of Blossom

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Lori looked over and saw Ophelia still sitting at the table, hunched over
and watching everyone dance. Lori didn't feel much like dancing any more,
and she remembered that Ophelia needed some cheering up. So she made her
way back over to the table.

"He smelled a heifer," Ophelia said. "She was sitting earlier at that very
table. That's why he stopped. He got his dances mixed up."

"I figured something like that," Lori said, sitting down. "You decided not
to dance?"

Ophelia looked at her, her eyes troubled. "You were lost in that crowd.
Maggie was lost in that crowd. It was like you weren't even there."

"Believe me, I wasn't. I wished I wasn't." Lori sighed. "I've handled
enough livestock for one day."

Ophelia winced. "Don't call them livestock."

"Sorry. Bad joke." She needed to get back on topic. "Ophelia, how are you
feeling? Your brother told me you weren't looking so good."

"That's what he said?" she said, a bit distantly.

"Yes, and I'm a bit worried too. You've been more distracted than usual."

Ophelia nodded. "Doesn't it feel, sometimes, like there's nowhere to go to
get away from everyone, and their watchful eyes? Always trying to be
critical, and nudge you in the right direction? In their eyes, the 'right'
direction?"

"Yeah, all the time. That's why we need to talk to each other." Lori looked
up at the crowd. Maggie was now leading the chain. Nancy was among those
forming the arch, though she was looking out into the night, as if looking
for someone. "Like what we're doing right now, while everyone else is busy.
I know it's weird to have Mallory be a man now, but I promise the five of
us are still friends. That much won't change."

Ophelia took a slow breath. "I hope so. But… everything changes, doesn't
it? Nothing can stay the same forever. The littlest things can change
everything."

Ophelia had always been a strange girl. She was a nice girl, yes. When the
grown-ups spoke, she could listen and answer them. When the five of them
were together on a happy day, Ophelia could tease them with a smart joke or
a snide comment. But sometimes she would have melancholic episodes where
she wouldn't play with them or join their chores, where instead she would
head further down the creek to wash herself or mend her clothes. Her
parents didn't mind, as she always returned bright and cheerful, and she
did her best work by the river.

A couple years ago, when Ophelia was nine, Nancy spied on her, hoping to
dispel some rumors that she was practicing witchcraft. She told Lori what
she saw, that Ophelia had been speaking to herself in a flurry of words, as
if holding half a conversation, or practicing one. Nancy sat for half an
hour trying to piece together what the conversation was, but Ophelia would
keep pausing suddenly, switching subjects, or saying something unrelated.

Nancy decided that Ophelia was just shy and nervous holding conversations.
Still, Lori couldn't help but feel maybe Ophelia was lost, like her. Maybe
she couldn't do anything about the rumors of witchcraft, but she could look
out for Ophelia, and be the eyes she needed.

Lori leaned over and hugged Ophelia. She saw Marcus looking over at them
with a slight smile, as he and the other blossoms continued clapping along
with the dance. Lori smiled back. "I look forward to Marcus sitting with us
again. Perhaps on Equinox."

Lori waited for Ophelia to say something, but she didn't, and so after a
while Lori let her go and watched the dance. The chain was now weaving
itself around the stage, the five blossoms watching them closely.

Suddenly, the center blossom, the one named Amos, kicked back his chair and
stepped onto the table. The fiddlers nearly skipped a beat but quickly
launched into an even jauntier tune as he dove into the crowd, which
instantly parted for him as he rolled and grabbed a shocked quail woman and
began to dance with her.

The crowd was shocked but quickly cheered this exciting turn of events.
They spread out into a ring to give the two of them more room to dance.
Around and around they danced, but barely a few seconds into a full dance,
he suddenly switched his partner out for another woman, this one about her
age.

Lori blinked. No way. That was Nancy he was dancing with. Nancy, who for a
brief moment looked absolutely terrified to be the center of attention.
>From somewhere in the crowd, Lori could pick out Maggie's distinctive
laughter.

Nancy quickly stifled her fear, and danced as perfectly and rhythmically as
the quail before her. Suddenly she was swapped out, and Amos danced with
yet another young girl, grinning like all the world was watching.

Nancy slunk through the crowd as she made her way towards the two of them,
keeping the tables between herself and the crowd as she sat beside Ophelia.
Maggie was not far behind, grinning impishly.

Lori opened her mouth to say something. Nancy shot her a look that said,
"Don't."

"Nice footwork, Nancy," Maggie said as she got in earshot.

"Coward," Nancy glowered at her. "If you want to dance so much, why aren't
you in that circle?"

"I wouldn't want to compete for his affections," Maggie sat down, still
smiling. "He's chosen you, after all."

"He grabbed me."

"You must've been smiling at him."

Ophelia looked down, her shoulders tense.

"I did not."

"I've always said you're the prettiest girl among us. No offense, Lori."

Nancy swallowed. "I only wanted to see him dance. If I had known he was
going to pull in people, I wouldn't have gotten in close."

"I'm jealous, honestly. Amos has good looks, a big house. And he's rich.
That quail woman is already married, I think. But you're the first
bachelorette he's danced with tonight. Everyone's going to be jealous of
you."

"No one will care."

"I bet Tom will care," Maggie teased.

Nancy's frown twisted. "Why would he care?"

"Don't pretend you don't know the hunter's son. I've seen you sneaking off
with him into the woods every few weeks or so."

Nancy's face grew red as she smiled thinly. "Who have you told?"

"Oh, I haven't told anyone. I don't gossip about my friends. But I have
heard a few other people talking. It's hard to keep it quiet in a small
town like this."

Nancy sat down, with a tight embarrassed smile. "I guess it is. Well, I
didn't want to say anything out loud. You know how it is about pre-curse
romances. I don't care at all about Amos, but... I've been hoping Tom would
show up tonight."

"Tom isn't here?" Lori asked.

"Late night hunting. Game is most active at sundown, and all the
celebrating tonight will drive them farther away than usual. The larder's
been gutted for the blossom, so they need to stock up for the next few
weeks."

"I hear there's a bit more game than usual in the woods, since that wolf
pack chased them out of the mountains," Ophelia added. "So he shouldn't be
in there too long."

Lori nodded. "So I'm not the only one who missed out on the blossom."

"How long ago did you start seeing him?" Maggie said. "Couldn't have been
more than a few months."

"That's about right," Nancy said. "I'm still new to courtship, though,
but... please don't take it the wrong way if I ask you not to talk about
it."

One of the most commonly-held superstitions about the curse was that
entering a courtship while still uncursed would doom it to failure. There
were plenty of stories in which only one partner became a gender morph,
dooming them to a forbidden, unholy love. Not just between children, but
outsiders who brought their wives or lovers along, and cleaved whole
families apart, were common stories.

Maggie nodded. "Tom's sixteen, isn't he? He's probably got the child curse
anyway."

Ophelia was starting to relax, and she spoke up. "It won't matter, they
don't call you a child morph until you're eighteen. And still not until the
summer festival."

"Bah, let people be kids," Maggie said. "Look, Nancy, I have no issues with
you and Tom. If he wants to be with you, I say go for it. Live in the
moment. You have nothing to lose."

"Yes, but..." Nancy was frowning again, "you've never believed in
superstitions."

What distinguished superstition from tradition? Perhaps someday, one would
become the other. It was tradition that a woman never ask a man for
courtship. The suitresses of a blossom went against that tradition, but for
good reason; a new blossom needed to establish himself quickly as a man,
and the suitresses as women. Traditions died hard, though, and there were
still so many traditions that were men-only, and women-only.

Years ago, one of the then-mayor's daughters had been betrothed to a
Midland noble's son since they were little, shortly before Nasoj's curse
had struck the valley. The noble had declined to call it off, believing
that a childhood vow of betrothal was stronger than the curse. The daughter
believed it as well, and since childhood she obsessed herself with courtly
manners and rituals, dreaming of the day she could marry her man.

One day as her maid was dressing her, a tragedy was discovered: telltale
hairs and a ripening manhood. Before her eyes, her dreams of ladyship and
wifehood had all been broken. Soon after the sad message was dispatched,
she fled the house in her dressing gown and into a nearby barn, hiding in
the hayloft and refusing to leave, despite the guards and the pleading of
her father.

Weeks passed. The mayor did all he could to make his new son comfortable.
He took out the barn animals and had food delivered to the barn. The
farmers were not allowed in; he sent them to the stables, and leased his
private horses to Castle Grenier while he constructed a new barn to
permanently house them. He brought courtesans into the barn to teach him
court manners, privately so as not to embarrass himself. He brought in
weapons masters to teach his son how to fight and wrestle, how to take a
punch and endure pain.

A full year passed, and the mayor's son, who had not emerged in all those
months, yet delivered such brutal marks to his instructors, became
something of a living legend. The mayor prepared a celebration that autumn
for his new son's emergence. Yet there was some grumbling among the
peasants about losing one barn and being forced to build another. Old Pog
Bowyer, the grumpy gander, would grouse aloud about "the cheap little
mansion they were building for a half-man's ego". Still, most of Twone
welcomed a proper feast to accompany their harvest festival, and were happy
for the baron's son to emerge.

The story might have ended there, but a few days before the feast, another
young gender morph in the middle of her change snuck into the barn and hid.
The mayor's son himself stopped the guards from hauling the girl-turned-man
out. He ordered the servants to train her as they had trained him. Over the
next coming weeks, he visited the young girl, and trained her himself on
how to be a man. More young male gender morphs would enter for training,
and the mayor's son would continue to give them all lessons. Another full
year passed by the time he deemed his first group of gender morphs ready,
and he personally sponsored the feast for them, commissioning a poem to be
read aloud at the beginning, titled "The Blossoms of Metamor''. It ended
with the lines:



Bloom upon us, the light among us all

Bask in glory forever more;

Keep watch over us, stay victorious

O! Bright blossoms of Metamor!



As mountains sing in splendid dawn

And sweetly break the granger door

Let sunlight dance aglow upon

The blossoms new of Metamor



A couple years later, some young lads started spreading their own version
of the poem, called "The Blossoming of the Gourds", which began:



Once there lived a maiden fair

who had a lovely garden;

One day as she was tilling there,

The ground began to harden



Her fingers dug the wetted earth,

And thus was her reward:

A fattened root that grew in girth

The blossoming of the gourd



Its skin was smooth with oily scent

It glided as she picked it

Her husband came home ill-content

She asked for him to lick it



He smelled the gourd and saw the land

And he was much abhorred

So out she went to show firsthand

The blossoming of the gourd



The next stanzas got more suggestive from there, with her gourd growing to
monumental size while she went around asking people to taste it. Needless
to say, attempts to suppress the bawdy verses only made it more popular.
The mayor resorted to saying the original poem at the start of every feast
thereon, emphasizing the beautiful message within. Whether people meant the
term earnestly, or mockingly, the feasts came to be known as "blossoms", as
were the newly revealed gender morphs.

The fiddlers finally finished their tune, and as everyone dispersed into
applause, Amos stepped onto the stage and held up his hands. "Attention,
please!"

Aside from a crying baby in the back, all became quiet.

Amos held up his cup of ale, and looked down on them. "My friends, my
countrymen, fellow citizens of Metamor. It is good to see so many people
here tonight, to celebrate our transition, from children, to men."

Nancy turned away, rolling her eyes as she glanced at Lori. Lori nodded
sympathetically. Yes, it was going to be another "blossom speech" on the
importance of being a man.

"As you all know, it is a great responsibility that has been handed down on
us. I know that some of you, including our own fathers and mothers, still
see us as their darling young girls, even after that fine show we put on
for you all."

It was a nice little speech. Or it would've been, if the baby in the back
didn't keep whimpering. A few of the child morphs had gone over to soothe
the infant, and they seemed to be helping at least a little.

"But it is thanks to all of you, and your generosity, that we stand here
ready to provide for you, to shelter you, to stand armed at the gates of
misfortune, and strike down the terrors of the night."

The baby gave an ear-splitting scream. Several people chuckled, especially
the parents who lived through newborn hellions of their own. Amos briefly
glared at the baby, but he caught himself and turned back to the glass,
adopting a contemplative pose.

"There is a story I heard long ago, about a tribe of peoples from a distant
land called the Maldori."

Lori glanced at Marcus. Aside from a slightly askew smile, Marcus politely
and placidly watched Amos.

"The Maldori had a fable on why children never hold still for very long.
Why their eyes always dart from one place to another. And why their minds
always wander from one topic to another."

He paused. By some miracle, the baby stayed quiet.

"They say that, as children, we can see all the paths that lie open to us
and in our future. As children, we hope to walk every single path; we try
to see where each one leads; our minds lead us down every single path. And
because of that, our feet and our eyes and our minds are always restless.

"But then, we grow older, and our paths become fewer in number. And we
become more careful to stick to our destination. Until one day, only two
paths lay before us. That is the day where we choose our destiny. We commit
ourselves to our road, and we resolve to see its end. Our eyes never stray
then; our minds never wander.

"As children, we have many paths to choose. Some are forced on us, others
we discover for ourselves. There may be easy times ahead, or hard times. I
think I speak for all of us when I say that I have never felt more ready to
walk those paths, thanks to Twone and the warmth of its hearths and
teaching, and to accept whatever fate lies before us."

Marcus had a tight smile on his face -- and Lori couldn't blame him. The
Maldori were a fairly obscure people. The only place she had heard of them
had been six years ago, at a summer festival. Merchants had stopped to do
business with the three villages; among them was a battle-scarred one-armed
man whom Ophelia had been absolutely fascinated with. Mallory was equally
curious, and so the five of them would corner him outside his tent to ask
him questions. The story had been one of many stories the man told them of
his native homeland. He told other stories, too -- of distant kingdoms, of
ancient rituals, of savage Toreador heathens -- but Ophelia loved the
little proverb about growing up, and asked Mallory over the years to tell
it again and again. Lori honestly doubted Amos, or Amelia as she had once
been, had deigned to speak with a foreign cripple. It should have been
Marcus's story to tell.

"And so, my friends," Amos held aloft his goblet, "let us walk together
towards our futures, and ask the gods for only good fortune and bright
skies to travel by. To Metamor, and to the future!"

"THE FUTURE!" The crowd chanted in chorus. Those who were still near the
tables lifted their mugs and drank the toast. A few applauded as well, and
Amos waited for them to quiet down before he spoke again.

"Now, I would thank our fine musicians for those songs of theirs. Now how
about something the REST of you can dance to?!"

The fiddlers laughed. They set their bows to the strings, one of them led
off with a lively tune, and the other two joined in on counterpoint. The
crowd clapped to the beat, and several of them jumped up to restart the
dance, this time a free-for-all. Maggie practically jumped up from the
table to join them.

"'And if ya get to my age, young ones'," Ophelia murmured gravely,
imitating the voice of the old Maldorian, "'you've got no road ahead, and
all your life behind you.'" She smiled softly. "It's a better story when he
told it."

"Not every story has to be about loss," Nancy said, grimacing a bit. She
had never cared much for the story, or for Ophelia's apparent fondness over
a sad crippled old man.

"No," Ophelia said, "but a good story needs some wisdom. Amos only told
half the story, the half without the man who told it. That's not how
stories work."

"Well, I think it was a very interesting observation he made, and it was
pretty good, the way Amos told it," Lori said.

Nancy had a distant look, as if thinking back to the carnival. "Did we ever
ask that man how the Maldori fell?"

"I remember I asked," Lori said. "He never said."

"'Not for innocent minds to hear,' is what he said," Ophelia said with
distaste. "As if we never lost anyone before. He had a story there, and now
we'll never hear it."

"Well, maybe he's still alive," Lori mused, "still in that wandering
circus. Some place where the Toreadors couldn't find him."

"Maybe he's here in Metamor," Nancy said.

Something about that felt wrong for Lori. She scanned the crowd, watching
as everyone danced around the field, most of whom had partners, but some
were switching from one partner to the next. Maggie was one of them. "Have
either of you noticed Maggie's been a bit more… boisterous than usual?"

"Boisterous!" Nancy smirked. "She was worried you were going to miss
everything. She noticed that you rarely go dancing at festivals any more,
like you're scared to join in. I, um… I saw you fall earlier. That didn't
look like it was just an accident." Lori turned away so sharply that Nancy
immediately changed the subject. "I wish Marcus could be sitting down here
with us. It doesn't feel right that he's sitting up there, and we're down
here."

"I wish Maggie didn't tease about the 'child-bride' thing."

Nancy sighed. "Well, at a certain age, men just don't hang around women any
more. Not unless they're his sisters, or his wife, or his friends' wives.
That's the way it's always been."

A silence fell over them, a mutual despondency disguised by the music and
the dancing of the village. The three girls watched them dance, unsure
whether to join or watch.

Nancy suddenly sat upright as she stared out towards the edge of the party.
Lori followed her gaze and saw Tom the hunter's son walking in, hastily
tying his shirt up. His face was blank and looking straight at the other
men nearby, until he met Nancy's gaze and smiled. Apparently he had only
just arrived from a hard day's hunt.

Nancy looked away, but her eyes kept glancing over at Tom, her face
reddening with shyness. Lori caught her eye and smiled. "Go on. Be bold.
Enjoy yourself," she mouthed.

Nancy cleared her throat and stood up. "Can't hurt to dance," she said to
herself, and walked in Tom's direction.

Lori drank her water and scanned the crowd to find her family.  The future
awaited them all, and she was more than ready to see where it would lead.
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