A/N: Wow this has been a ride. Reverse Resbang was my first contribution to the Soul Eater fandom, though, hopefully, not my last.
This, though. Thisssss. I have been working on this marvelous giant thing from the get-go. I'm still editing part 4 and the epilogue (tentatively part 5, but so small it's hardly that) and will probably upload that tomorrow because life sucks and I have problems with internet and posting (yay!). Until then this is what I'm still going to title a "first draft."
There are some stories that take longer to work and re-write, stories that take longer to fully display everything the author wants.
This is one of those projects.
I'm so glad my lovely partner had such an idea that completely overwhelmed me and I'll be marking this story as "incomplete" because I plan on re-working it later on down the road (though the full story will be posted by tonight or tomorrow). I'm very proud of this monstrosity though I wish I had more time to truly add and piece what themes I really wanted to portray. Nonetheless. Here you guys go. Follow and expect a re-write eventually (because I just love the ideas I designed for this thing SOOOOO much)! Also, will have a link to mystery-shrouded tumblr's jewelry pieces in my profile page. Go take a look. THEY ARE GORGEOUS!
-Bright
in the time of the feuding seasons
The sun beats down white-hot and blazing like torchlight on Maka and her poor summer harvest. She exhales heavily, sweat dripping down her neck, as she appraises the practically barren patch of land. Most of the fruit seems dead and withered, once green leaves curling inwards on themselves and browning like old leather, a disastrous omen. The spinach won't survive either and the cabbage looks barely worth harvesting, but she supposes they'd take whatever they could get. The cucumbers, oregano, carrots, chiles, sunflowers, basil, and pepper are pulling through, albeit poorly, but it is something.
And in a world with a summer heatwave capable of decimating crops and livestock within a week, anything edible worth saving is food to be thankful for.
Her short skirt billows around her thighs in the warm breeze, bits of dust and decayed plant parts flying into her eyes and making them water. Or maybe she is just crying. It is a possibility, though one she refuses to hang onto for long, because honestly when did crying ever help? The other women in her village partook in such an act, but never Maka. She and her father are too influential, the only people capable of growing anything during the ruthless summers and merciless winters.
But how long can she keep this going? The Seasons, in their arrogant blindness, fight for dominance of the world without a care to how it affects the humans living in it.
It has been this way for a long time to Maka's knowledge. The earth hasn't seen a Spring in decades and perhaps never will again. There are those that believe prayer and faith can bring it back, so they built their temples and sacrificed whatever they could get their hands on to no avail. That harvest failed in producing anything of substance like the last had. And the one before that. And the one before that.
Maka sighs to herself and swats the gnats, flies and other insects intent on licking the sweat off her arms before trudging off to the west to see if maybe the apple trees and the melon patch are faring better. She drew farming duties today (as she did almost every day) and knows a dusty, dirty far walk awaits her.
Her village was constructed in the center of what the history scrolls said was once large, lush plains full of rich soil and numerous water sources. The plains her ancestors built their homes on extended north and south, parallel to the World Forest to the west, though eventually it met its end to the south where the Forest took back the land and to the east where the hills rose into high, white-topped mountains. Their fields were fed off a small tributary of the much larger Spartoi River that legend claimed wound and flowed eternally through the World Forest until it ran off the edge of the horizon to flow into the Moon, the pure water the reason for it's nightly white glow. The original settlers, farmers and herders, were ingenious and carefully constructed a decent-sized lake the tributary could run through near the village in order to help maintain crops and lifestock with a thought-out irrigation system. They believed their bountiful home would last forever.
Whether any of this is true or not Maka does not know. Only that several decades ago, shortly after the Seasons began their feuding, the lake dried up into a pitiful hole of red mud and dank water during the First Endless Summer quickly, as the heat progressed, becoming red sand. The decent tributary vanished in a night morphing into a tiny trickling stream, still present but not with nearly as much water. The First Long Winter struck months later and instead of an Autumn harvest her people had an Autumn burial. In that year alone, Maka's village lost half it's population. They've never recovered.
And they've been struggling to stay alive ever since.
Maka Albarn wipes a wrinkled tanned hand across her wet brow and adjusts her whickered hat over her slowly darkening ash blonde hair. Remembering stories about the past always makes her bitter and she huffs in annoyance at herself. Her stormy green eyes glare at the sun as it cackles up above never mind the fact that it sears her vision. In response to her vicious stare, or perhaps just because Summer rules the world, a strong wind pours humid air over her. It causes her to sputter and pause and she growls angrily, her walk feeling twice as far with the desert winds and the sun high in the sky. She feels like someone has thrown melted candle wax at her face, burning and painful and drying her skin stiff as a board in its wake.
The young teenager almost squeals with delight when she catches the thin, balding apple trees swaying in the breeze and the formidable, but shady, wall of trees that marks the World Forest a little farther behind them. With the constant change from heavy heat to bitter cold, the soil on the plains was practically turned to dust through the years. It could produce small plants occasionally (if the gods willed it) but most of the larger vegetables and fruits, like melons and carrots, or fruit-bearing trees, anything that needed firmer soil for their roots, they took to planting near the World Forest where the sand became blacker. Fresher.
Maka gingerly touches each budding tree as if greeting old friends. She peeks up eagerly and smiles at the sight of the sparse pale red circles hanging delicately along ashy gray branches. Most are only as big as large strawberries but others had reached a more substantial size. And all of the trees, thankfully, appear to have born fruit despite the withering heat. One good omen usually brings another, or so her Mama used to tell her, so the young girl is pleased but unsurprised to see a couple of cantaloupes and watermelons sprouting in their patch of dirt near the apple orchard. She wearily removes her hat to unhook the wicker basket slung across her back and began gathering what she could when an odd noise makes her pause.
Crunch
The second instant gives her a better idea of where the sound originates from. Dropping her basket and moving as silently as she could, Maka sneaks her way to the edge of the orchard and close to the tree line of the World Forest. And there, sitting relaxed in outlandish clothing underneath a large maple tree, is a white-haired man.
Munching happily on one of her apples!
Throwing caution to the wind, Maka emerged, furious and enraged. A strange heat bubbling below in her abdomen. How dare he! How dare he.
"Hey! You there! Stop that!"
Startled red eyes flash to her probably red approaching face and the albino scrambles hastily to his feet. He stares at her, lips twisted in an incredulous expression, as if she is a mirage or a nightmare. Maka marches closer and closer, eyes tight with fury but watchful and wary. Summer or Winter savaged the land frequently and savaged land sometimes bred savage people. If this man is a bandit she'd best be prepared for a fight.
Eventually she stomps right in front of him, looking upwards as he had a head and a half on her, which causes her glare to deepen. It isn't unusual, per se, for others to surpass her miniscule height but it didn't calm her ire over it nor make her any less of a threat. That she made sure everyone knew and knew well.
This man will figure that out as well.
He is still as a statue and continues to stare at her like she can't be real. She waits patiently, or as patiently as she can muster, for him to say something, anything, but when she is given nothing but his face twisted with shock she takes action.
Maka slaps the half-eaten apple out of his hand and into the dirt. That seems to gain his attention.
"Whoa! Hey now! I was eating that!"
Maka grins sardonically. "Mmhmm. Yes. And now you're not."
A bleached eyebrow, practically translucent in the sweltering sunlight, raises at her no-nonsense tone. The stranger finally steps back and takes a good look at her dusty slacks, sun-stained skin, and weathered hands. Pieces of hair the color of the Winter's first snowfall glitter as he glances upward and chuckles. A very clean hand, Maka notes, rubs against his forehead as he snorts.
"Ah. I get it. These are your apple trees. That's why you're angry."
She mimics his earlier eyebrow raise and huffs. "Yes. It's rude, you know, to eat other people's food source with the Summer heat rising. This is the only bit of harvest we'll get until Winter hits."
"Hmm. Yes. Well, I apologize, but if they're so crucial to your survival you ought not keep them unattended, don't you think?"
Slack-jawed, Maka sputters and struggles to find the words to explain that her town needed both water and food and the best water source is out on the plains while the best soil was out to the west near the World Forest when he interrupts her.
"Alright then, settle down. I didn't ask for a speech. It was merely an observation. Goodness, your kind is so testy. And I thought we were quick to anger. Hah." Red eyes, like bleeding Winter sunsets or Autumn leaves just before they fall to the earth and die, laughs at her confused expression. Maka is busy puzzling over what he meant by "your kind' when he sighs noisily.
"I'll be leaving your precious orchard soon enough. Wanderers must wander and searchers will find. Any chance you'd be willing to part with some of your precious fruit? I'll buy some."
Confused even more so than before, Maka can only tilt her head at his suggestion. Trade and sale are fairytale concepts for the most part to her. Not many dared wander the desert the plains had turned into with the death of Spring and the war between Summer and Winter. As such there are no new faces or purchasing of any kind. Her village is a family and families share everything they have.
Besides what is one going to do with money or gold once Winter clutches the land in their cold, unforgiving claws and the snow and ice swallows the last of their salvageable crops? Eat it? She doesn't think so.
"I don't want your money," She scoffs. The young woman points a lean, firm hand to the distant East where dust, sand, and rock reign. "I have an entire village to feed! We don't have any food to spare. Especially for metals or what have you."
"Metals? You mean coins?"
"Yes. Whatever. I have no use for them."
The so-called "wanderer" parts his lips to smile and for a moment Maka glimpses sharp, pointed teeth. Before she can comment on his unusual physical attributes she is caught by the rolling of his eyes as if dealing with a child's silly notions. Maka has half a mind to punch the grin off his somewhat handsome face, fearsome teeth be damned.
"I forget sometimes how strange humans can be. Ah, how should I put this-um, you see, I need your fruit and therefore I will give you something of mine that you need in order to purchase some. I would not offer someone brave enough to live on the Dead Plains something as menial as money."
Maka narrows her ashy brows and chews on the inside of a cheek. She has only heard stories of trading and bartering and has little to no experience herself surrounding it. Curious, but distrustful, she nods and shrugs lazily, not entirely happy about being ignorant of anything.
"What exactly are you offering?"
He doesn't hide his surprise that she decided to take a go at it but he must need sustenance pretty badly as he hastily begins pulling bizarre objects out of hidden pockets in his thin shirt, fluttering and glittering like a blizzard wind. He shows her a cylindrical tapered object that looks exactly like an icicle plucked from the roof of a house only it does not melt under Summer's sun. Then, he offers two seeds colored a pale blue as if they are tiny bits of frozen water. And eventually he begrudgingly removes a uniquely shaped blade, black as the blackest Winter night with a maroon sheen. When Maka turns her head a certain way it sort of took on the likeness of half a crescent moon.
She accepts the blade despite it having no base to rest on but demands he give her another thing of use. Food is the most important thing anyone can possess and if he wants her to part with some he best grant her something more substantial than alien seeds and a magical icicle.
"Alright already, " he mutters angrily. "Calm down now. How about-um." He rubs a palm across a clear forehead, how he isn't sweating waterfalls like she is an irritating mystery, and scratches the back of his head. She guesses this was some type of nervous tick. Finally, he snaps and points down at her feet.
"Boots! How about I give you my boots!"
Maka appraises the thick black leather boot he raises for her to get a good look at and then she compares it to her worn-out brown balding shoes slowly falling to pieces.
"These were Mama's shoes," She mumbles.
"Yes, I'm sure, but these I can guarantee you will last you many, many years. Actually these boots will probably outlive you."
That doesn't sound extremely likely to Maka, but she consents. The heat is only rising and she has already wasted enough time bickering with the snowy-haired man.
"Fine. Sure. I'll take them."
The boots are heavy and large on her petite feet, but comfortable and apparently heat-resistant. Her toes are nice and cool while the back of her shirt clings to her soaked skin and drops of sweat tickle her nose. It is odd but a good kind of odd.
She smiles happily at the stranger who doesn't appear too distraught or concerned with being barefoot on the ground as Summer's fire spreads across the air. The wanderer talks her into settling in the shade for a bit to prepare for her long trek home and they begin aimlessly talking.
"So…where exactly are you wandering to?"
"Eh." He runs a thumb over chapped lips and brings an apple out of some hidden pocket in his shirt. Maka's face pinches at that but his next words halt any tirade. "More of searching truthfully. I'm not like you if you can't tell." Autumn woods meet her eyes and glitter with mischief. "I'm a Winter."
Maka Albarn had respected the stories, don't get her wrong. She knew every one practically by heart as well. Winter gods and Summer gods and all of it. But she had never suspected any of it being so completely….real. Rather, she just never spent the time worrying too much about it. She blew her curses to them and liked to blame the world's misfortune on Summer and Winter and the Moon who wouldn't intervene.
But…a Winter being sitting next to her in the shade and eating her apple?
It gives her a headache just thinking about it.
"Wha-? How is that even-? Yo-You're joking!" She splutters indignantly.
Teeth like white arrowheads jaggedly gleam at her. "Nope."
And so she proceeds with the next logical question.
"What's your name?"
Either he takes offense to her easy-acceptance and believes it a sign of disbelief or he is disappointed she doesn't run for the hills in meeting a Winter capable of killing her entire village because he immediately pouts. He glances away and spits the oddest name she's ever heard.
"…Your name is Snow Eater? Seriously?"
"Yes! What of it?"
She laughs uproariously. "It's ridiculous, that's what! Who names their kid Snow Eater?"
He is somewhat gracious and only shoves her lightly after she chortles for a couple of minutes and won't stop.
"I'm sorry. I just can't take you seriously with a name like that. Have any nicknames?"
Snow Eater sighs with hair as white as his name and growls, "Soul. You can call me Soul, I guess. If that'll make you stop laughing. I mean that's merely the translation. It sounds better in my language, I swear."
"Okay, Soul. I like that. And I believe you." He blushes at her comment, ruddy cheeks turning the pale pink of a cold sunrise, but launches into an exhaustive tale that has Maka still as the trees during the darkest parts of Winter. A tale concerning the loss of Spring and the feud between Winter and Summer who wanted to last forever. A tale about the Edge of the World and where the Moon touches the horizon, a place capable of bringing a new Spring supposedly and the search for an orb stolen from the Moon by bandits so long ago.
He tells her a tale of hope for Spring. And at the end she can muster only one reply.
"I want to come with you."
Because, for the first time in her life, she can feel a warmth in her bones that doesn't melt the earth and a gentle breeze across her heart that doesn't destroy with icy breath.
She feels what she imagines is Spring. And she can imagine and wait for it no longer.
Maka will find it herself if she must.