Operation Pied Potato
#
Take nothing seriously, this is a terrible and awful parody of Operation Pied Piper so those who've read OPP will mayhaps recognize a few bits...other bits not so much. But then again you don't really need to read OPP to read this. This...I don't know what this omg no...*flies away on a cloud to distant lands*
#
The train jostled, people swaying, hands flying out to grab hold of something, to find some form of stability in the bustling carriage.
Historia bit her lip, eyes cast down to stare in her lap. She had been lucky enough to get one of the table seats when the train had been mostly empty. But a quick glance up now showed that barely anyone could move and that with every sharp jerk and sudden turn of the train made of groups of people abruptly shift, the people in their seats also clenching their teeth, some digging their nails into the leather beneath them, others clinging onto their small bundles they held in their arms. The train was going fast and the mass number of bodies inside didn't make it any better.
Historia glanced across at a young woman amongst the many children evacuated from their homes in search of better and safer places away from the dangers of the Solanum War. She too carried a small bundle, wrapped carefully in a fresh, white blanket. She smiled down at it and pressed it to her chest as the train swayed violently again.
Sighing, Historia looked across the table. Two boys and a girl were opposite her, sat close together as the blonde boy sat next to the window read aloud to them from a large leather-bound book.
He spoke in low voice only they could hear, but Historia caught a few stray words: seeding, roots, rain, cultivation...
She eyed the cover of the book, searching for a title but it was worn away with age and well-use. She imagined it was a history book, or perhaps it was detailed with instructions and facts.
She and the trio disembarked the train onto a grey-stoned platform. Now I can finally get away from it all.
-#-
She should have known better. The village she had been assigned to was a farming village, and the home she now called her own specialised in growing potatoes, their fields full of them, row on row.
She had hoped to escape the Solanum War and everything connected to it, but no such luck. The news and government were constantly bombarding them with articles and pamphlets about the vicious battles and glorious wins in the war. Potatoes and tomatoes - that was what it boiled down to. A collection of countries starved of tomatoes, another starved of potatoes – a war between allies and foes to save their starving populations by the hope of stealing the saviour crops from their enemies.
And yet here she was: wiping sweat from her brow, stood amidst hilled rows of dirt she'd dutiful dug and planted seed potatoes in for the entire morning.
"Christa!"
Historia snapped her gaze towards the mismatched house situated at the bottom of the field, a girl with brunette hair called Sasha waving excitedly from the back door.
She waved back and walked towards the house. 'Christa' was a fake name, a ruse to hide her identity as Historia Reiss. The Reiss family owned the largest potato farms in the country – everyone knew the Reiss name, and they definitely knew the name of the daughter who would inherit it all, but they did not know her face. She had been kept out of the public eye, fortunately, and so a fake name suited her needs. Until I ended up working on a potato farm in the middle of nowhere.
Sasha and Hanji were the names of the people she now lived with, and they had welcomed her into their home warmly.
"I've made stew," the brunette girl announced as Historia peeled off her muddied boots and placed them beside the door. 'Stew' meant potato broth, and Sasha made it well.
Historia followed the brunette girl inside the house, walking into the hallway and across it to the kitchen. A large pot simmered on the hob, bowls already waiting ready on the dining table where Hanji, a tall woman who wore glasses and seemingly nothing but men's clothing or overalls, sat in one of the wooden chairs.
After they ate their bowls of potato broth – Sasha's strangely low on potatoes - Hanji and Sasha left to visit a friend, leaving Historia to tend to the house and fields on her own. It was then that she heard the loud banging noise coming from the outhouse, the small store shed that contained all the equipment needed to farm the potatoes fields.
She pushed the back door open, slipping out and grabbing her boots. She hurriedly put them on and sprinted across the patio towards the outhouse. She saw that the door was unlocked and slightly ajar, the banging probably caused by the harsh wind whipping up and slamming the door closed repeatedly. She grabbed the handle and stepped inside, closing it quickly behind her.
As Historia shifted her feet, her boot caught against something on the floor and she bent down to pick it up. Squinting in the darkness, she made out the shiny metal of the lock that had kept the outhouse door securely closed. Maybe someone forgot to lock the door after them.
She reached up to place it on one of the shelves above her and blindly searched for the lantern and box of matches she knew were there. She struck one of the matches, the flame lighting up her face and casting weird dancing shadows around her. Focusing on the lantern, she fiddled with it, putting the lit match close until the wick caught and brightened.
She blew the match out and returned to the box to the shelf. She raised the lantern high and turned around to scan the dancing shadows.
She searched for any sign of anything that might have entered the outhouse, expecting a rat or even a stray dog, but she didn't expect was the moving huddle in the corner, almost hidden behind a metal box pushed up against the back wall.
"Who's there?" she called.
The huddle froze, then shifted, a face peering over the top of the box. Brown eyes gazed blankly at her. Historia raised the lantern higher, shuffling half a step, and the huddle moved again, shadows flickering across the person's freckled features.
Historia halted, squinting through the lantern light. "Who…?" I know that face…
The huddle moved again and the figure rose, straightened to their full height.
"Ymir?" Historia gasped, not believing her eyes. "What are you doing here?"
The tall girl standing before her blinked, shock evident on her own face. "I should ask you the same question, Historia."
-#-
Ymir was a childhood friend, a stray girl who Historia had caught digging at the far end of one of her family's fields, mucky nails desperate to reach for food. Historia had given the girl her own breakfast, deciding the bowl of porridge was much better suited for the skinny girl. She had never expected to see her again, but young Ymir had kept visiting, the two of them frequently meeting at the end of the field. A year or three like that had passed, and then Ymir stopped coming and Historia let the memories gather dust.
But she had never truly forgotten the skinny girl with the joyous half-grin, and now all those memories rose to the surface. Ymir wasn't the stray girl she had found, not anymore – she now was tall, so tall, her figure toned and her skin tanned a darker bronze than from her childhood from working long hours in the sun.
She was now leaning against the kitchen counter, her arms crossed over her rising and falling chest as she took deep breaths. Ymir had been as surprised to see Historia as she had been her.
"You're still short," Ymir mumbled, a shy half-smile dancing on her lips.
"You're still…skinny," Historia returned. Muscular, tall, long-limbed – those words sounded better, but skinny was still somewhat true.
"It's been, what, ten years?"
"Something like that." She frowned. "Ymir, what were you doing out there?"
"It's got nothing to do with you."
Historia blinked, slightly unnerved. "Aren't we friends?"
Ymir twitched. "That was a long time ago now."
"That doesn't change anything."
The tall girl sighed. "What about you? Huh? Why you here?"
"Running away," she replied. "Much like you, I suppose?"
"Farming wasn't the life for me." The girl swung her arms up behind her head, clasping them together around the nape of her neck, her old half-grin fully back on her face. The sudden appearance of it struck Historia, an odd feeling constricting in her chest that took her straight back to her family's fields all those years ago.
"It's good to see you again, Ymir," Historia blurted out.
The tall girl didn't move, her eyes frozen on Historia, her tongue running over her dry lips as she seemed to contemplate something. Then she smirked. "Missed me, shorty?"
"Wha-" Historia stepped towards her. "What did you just call me?"
"Sh-or-ty," she mouthed.
Historia bit her lip, holding back the retort she wished to give, and instead slapped Ymir on the arm which only made the tall girl laugh. She watched her for a moment, listening to the hearty sound. "I did."
The girl paused. "Huh?"
"I missed you."
The half-grin was tender, and she reached out to ruffle Historia's hair with a hand. "I missed you too."
-#-
Apparently Ymir had had to move away all those years ago, a sudden change that gave her no chance to say any final farewells or get a message to Historia to tell her she was leaving. She told Historia now that it had bothered her all this time and that seeing her again was like a dream come true.
"I've wanted to see you again," Ymir said as she sipped loudly from her spoon of potato broth that Historia had served her. "Never thought it would actually happen though."
"So," Historia started as she took a seat opposite her at the dining table. "What are you running away from?"
Ymir waved her spoon. "Same as you, I imagine."
Historia raised an eyebrow. "Society?"
That made the other girl pause. "Society? Well, no, not something so grand. More like family."
She sighed. "Family, society…all the same."
Ymir watched her for a moment before dropping her spoon in her bowl of soup. "You don't want to inherit the Reiss business?"
"Potatoes?" Historia shook her head. "This entire country is potatoes. Potatoes to feed the rich, the poor. Then there's the Potato Children and God knows what else… Now people are fighting us for it."
"The Solanum War," Ymir declared dramatically. "Nice ring to it, don't ya think?"
"Not particularly."
"Spoil-sport."
A few minutes of silence spread between them and Ymir resumed eating the potato broth.
"If you're running away from all that," Ymir suddenly said, "Then why are you here on a potato farm?"
"Bad luck."
Ymir hummed. "Not completely bad, though?"
Historia smiled. "No, not completely. Now finish your broth."
-#-
Hanji and Sasha were pleased to welcome an extra guest into their home when Historia introduced them to Ymir. They had asked questions and it had irked Historia for her realize that she could barely answer any of them – she did not know Ymir, not now and not even when they were childhood best friends. Ymir had simply been the girl at the bottom of the fields that she played with every day. What was she to Ymir? The girl of the Reiss family? Probably.
But that night when they sat on their respective beds – they had been gifted the second bedroom to share together, making Historia move her few belongings to the new room – and Historia said, "No need to run away anymore now, is there?" She had meant it half-jokingly. Whatever Ymir was running away from didn't mean her solace was to be found on another potato farm with her. She knew it wasn't for her. She had ended up right where she had started.
But Ymir smiled. A genuine smile. "Yeah," the tall girl had said as she got into bed. "I'm glad you're here, Historia. Though they call you 'Christa'?" She gave her an odd look.
"Everyone would know me otherwise."
"True. Goodnight, 'Christa.'" She flicked the light off.
"Goodnight." Historia pulled the covers up to her chin and looked across the dark room to the figure she knew to be Ymir settling in to sleep. Ymir's here. She rolled over and smothered her smile in her pillow.
-#-
A week passed and Ymir and Historia were stood talking in the kitchen when the back door swung open and they heard the padding of desperate feet rushing towards the kitchen. Sasha bustled into the room from the hallway, stopping short when she saw the two of them.
"Tea?" she gasped. The brunette had obviously run down from the field.
Ymir raised the small bowl she was holding, another serving of potato broth from the large pot within. "Soup?"
She shook her head. "I prefer tea."
They watched her, eyes wide, as Sasha walked around them and filled the kettle with water from the tap.
"You prefer tea?" Ymir repeated, incredulously.
Sasha glanced at her as she replaced the kettle on the hob and set alight the gas with a match to heat it up. "You prefer potato broth, it's no different."
"Sash isn't a huge fan of potatoes," Historia added.
Ymir snorted. "Everyone loves potatoes." She jerked a thumb at Historia. "Christa even said that this country was potatoes. Seriously, tea?"
"Yes, Ymir. It's not like I dislike them, I just prefer tea." The girl sighed. "Pass me a cup, please."
The tall girl did.
It was later that day when the three of them went out to visit some of Sasha's friends that Historia began to truly realize the extent of the impact of the Solanum War.
Two boys were arguing when they arrived on the doorstep of the grey-brick house.
"We cannot just let them take everything!" a voice shouted. "Centuries of history have made what we are today – we cannot let them just barge in and ruin us! People are dying for our sake – I can't just stand by and do nothing."
Historia paused, glancing at Sasha who was frowning. "I think you two should go home," the brunette said quietly. She looked at them, sheepishly. "I'm sorry, but…"
"I understand," Historia replied, smiling reassuringly.
Ymir nodded in agreement.
It was while they were walking back home that Historia imagined all the men fighting on foreign soils, battling starving men against starving men. Were we truly starving?
Farmers weren't starving – they never did, not in this country. But the people in the cities – they were. It was the same for the enemies – the populations that didn't farm the tomatoes were starving. Both sides of the war needed another crop that served just as well, but both sides were built up around it. They fought for their culture, their history, their lives, their families, their food and livelihoods.
Historia just wanted to escape such a world.
"I'm glad you're a girl, Ymir," she abruptly said.
The tall girl froze, stalling, her feet scuffing harshly on the road, gravel skipping noisily underfoot. "What?"
Historia stopped as well and looked over her shoulder at her. The girl was stunned, her mouth slightly dropped open, her brown eyes wide with an unfathomable expression that spread across her freckled features. "I'm glad you're a girl," she repeated, her words soft and a gentle smile on her lips.
Ymir looked like she wanted to say something but all she could manage was a strangled sound in her throat.
"If you were a boy, we wouldn't have become such great friends when we were younger," Historia said. She knew that if a skinny boy had been digging at the far end of her family's fields, her younger self would have raced home to tell her parents – or rather tell the staff. My parents were rarely in reach during the day.
Ymir's mouth closed, her brown gaze still frozen on the blonde.
"If you were a boy, you would be sent away to war," she continued. "I would never have found you again."
A warm touch on her cheek surprised her, a calloused thumb moving back and forth against her skin. "Then I'm glad too."
-#-
"What happened to you during the past few years?" Historia asked Ymir one day while they prepared potatoes for dinner.
A few weeks had passed and they had settled into living and working on the potato farm, despite Historia's initial desire to keep running away. Now she was beginning to be comfortable in hiding, existing beside the girl she never thought she'd see again. It was a surprising and amazing to her how the memories and feelings that she had pushed to the back of her mind were right back at the front again. It was increasingly difficult to find the distaste she had for her society when society had indirectly brought her Ymir.
"Moved towns," Ymir answered. "Moved again. Kept moving. We never really stayed in one place too long – seems to me we were kicked out a lot."
"Kicked out? Why?"
"My family weren't welcome after a while."
Historia watched Ymir's face as emotions flickered across it, ranging from anger to sorrow, pain to emptiness.
"Couldn't stand it after a while." Ymir dropped a peeled potato into the bowl along with the others, Historia taking one at a time and chopping them into slices. "So I left. Not that did me much good – I got kicked out of a few places myself."
Historia frowned. "Were you kicked out when you had to move away all those years ago?"
Ymir nodded. "Kindly asked to leave immediately," she said in a mocking tone.
Historia waited, sensing that Ymir was gathering courage to say the words, to tell her herself of the reason why she and her family had been so unwelcome all their lives. I never knew. Maybe moving all the time was why she couldn't feed herself and she snuck into my field and this one in search for food.
Ymir took a deep breath, dropping another peeled potato onto the pile. "I'm a turnip farmer, Historia."
-#-
"Those are old feuds," Historia said for what seemed to be the fiftieth time. "You don't need to keep asking me that."
"But," Ymir said anyway, "I can leave if you want me to."
Historia shook her head, reaching out to grab hold of the taller girl's wrist , desperate not to let her go. "I don't want you to leave. Old feuds."
"They're not forgotten feuds," Ymir hissed, her mind elsewhere, probably thinking back to the times her and her family were thrown out and thrown at. Her voice then softened, weak and vulnerable. "I don't want you to hate me."
"I don't hate you. How could I ever hate you?" It's the opposite, but could I ever tell you that? A young girl's dream, halfway come true – but there's no such thing as happily-ever-after. She sighed. "Of course, I can't speak for Hanji and Sasha – the old feuds are built by tradition."
"You run away from tradition," Ymir stated.
Historia did not respond to that.
"So, it's really okay?"
"Of course. You're Ymir, and that's all that matters."
The expression of relief that passed over Ymir's face was overwhelming, and she exhaled long and hard. "Thank you," she whispered. "Thank you."
She must have been expecting me to kick her out, push her away just as did all the rest of society. She let her hand slip down from Ymir's wrist and slid her fingers between hers. "A turnip farmer…" she mused. "You never worked with potatoes then?"
Ymir still held the peeler in her other hand and she eyed it uncertainly. "Well, not in the fields." Then she turned back to Historia and winked. "Except yours."
Historia laughed once, releasing the tall girl's hand to resume chopping up the potatoes.
They both continued preparing dinner in silence. Historia was slowly dropping the chopping potatoes into the hot frying pan, watching the dollop of butter melt and fizz and spit around the pale vegetable slices, when Ymir spoke again.
"Y'know, I've always been confused by those Potato Children."
Historia frowned, using her finger to push the last potato slice into the pan. "I saw one on the train here. A woman was holding it like it was a baby."
Ymir seemed to consider that for a moment. "But that's what they are, right? Children?"
Historia threw her a look. "They're just an odd breed of potato, not children."
"People give birth to them, though."
The very idea churned Historia's stomach. She had never seen a Potato Child up close, but she'd heard the stories, read the books, seen the advertisements on store walls. Potato Children – to complete your family. Apparently they looked exactly like normal potatoes they pulled up out of the soil, but women gave birth to them and families considered them daughters and sons and…"Yeah, I'm confused by it too."
"They only accept a father and mother, y'know," Ymir said, collecting the potato peelings with both hands and carrying them across the kitchen to the bin, a few falling to the ground behind her. "Something about the science not working well for other couples."
Science. It sounded more like something from a nightmare. "You've looked into it then? Having a Potato Child?"
To her surprise, Ymir's cheeks blushed red. "I…It's just, people always say they complete a family. I think one of those things would be the only way I could ever have a child of my own."
Historia stopped watching the frying potatoes to turn and look at Ymir with concern. "You can't have a baby?"
Ymir hesitated, then shrugged. "I meant two girls can't have a baby together."
"Oh."
Suddenly the young girl's dream seemed more than becoming halfway true. She swallowed away the lump of emotion that had formed in her throat.
"Historia, the potatoes are burning."
She spun around, her hand shooting out to lift the pan off the flame, but instead her fingers hit the handle too soon and the pan leaned off-balance, melted buttering spitting furiously and striking pinpricks of pain on her hand and up her arm. Then the rest of the pan and its contents followed and she screamed.
-#-
"Name, please?"
Historia hesitated, holding her burnt hand in front of her like a hot potato, the pain of the raw skin making her grind her teeth. She glanced up at Ymir standing beside her in front of the reception desk. She couldn't say Christa – her false name would only lead to some complete stranger and unwanted questions. But neither could she say her true name in a room full of waiting patients, coughing and dying and bleeding, but watchful eyes and listening ears all the same.
"Can you just get someone?" Ymir asked the receptionist, a touch of desperation to her voice, her hands on the desk as she leaned towards the woman sat behind it. "She's burned pretty badly."
The receptionist peered up at them from beneath her eyelashes.
"Please," Ymir added.
The woman nodded and a few minutes later a nurse came to tend to them. She cleaned the burns now patterning over the back of Historia's hand and up her forearm, and then patted a horribly smelling salve on it before wrapping a bandage around her arm. "You'll need them bandaged again in a few days," the nurse told her as they stood to leave.
It was the train ride back to the farm that Ymir suddenly reached across the space between them and grabbed Historia's hand, holding it on the bench, her fingers tightening their grip as if clinging onto her in case she disappeared. "I was scared, y'know," she said, so softly it was barely a whisper. "When you screamed like that my heart lodged itself in my throat."
"It hurt," she weakly replied.
"You scared me," Ymir breathed, closing her eyes for a moment.
"I'm sorry."
"Does it hurt now?" She motioned towards Historia's other hand, now perfectly wrapped in white bandages.
Historia shook her head.
Ymir studied her face for a moment longer. "I have something I want to tell you."
Historia shifted on the bench and turned more towards the tall girl. "What is it?"
"It's something important."
Historia waited.
Ymir's fingers began fiddling with the hem of her shirt, her breathing slow and deep, and yet uneven. "Okay," she seemed to whisper to herself. "Okay."
"I'm listening."
Ymir nodded appreciatively at Historia. "When we were kids," she began, "you were my only friend. My best friend. You…were everything to me back then. I hated leaving you. I thought we could have been friends forever, but life had its way. But then somehow we found each other again by a stroke of luck. You were the first person in my entire life that genuinely cared, and you still do. You helped me back then, you helped me now. We're living together under the same roof now. When that pan fell over you and you screamed…" She shook her head violently as if chasing away the memory of it. "It made me think: what if that wasn't just a hot pan? What if the burns were worse? What if the screams didn't stop? What if I lost you?" She paused, her throat bobbing as she swallowed thickly. "You're my light, Historia."
"It's just a burn," Historia said, quietly. "It'll scar, but it's okay. I'm okay. Ymir-"
"Historia, I love you," she blurted, cutting her off. "I think I've loved you since we were kids."
"You love me?" she asked, incredulously.
Ymir nodded curtly, barely taking her eyes off her, her hand still gripping her own tightly.
And the young girl's dream came true. She smiled and she felt tears spring to her eyes, but she blinked them away. "I love you too, Ymir."
-#-
The Solanum War lasted four more years and the end was death. The war's foes were weakening, armies of starving men now disemboweled and rotting on barren fields, while allies walked over the bodies, dying much the same. With the end seeing no true outcome except million of graves and no new crops to feed the orphans, starvation kept running and another war seemed imminent. But no country had the men strong enough to pick up the weapons and fight. The end saw soulless eyes staring across a battlefield and breathing in ghosts.
And so the living turned away from each other and focused on creating technology, on producing their own saviour.
It took them a while to realize the answer had been the Potato Children all along – a unique species that humans had adopted as their own, a species that completed families and yet would still serve to feed the starving.
If the starving had had the energy to rally together, they would have fought the law to surrender their Potato Children to the scientists who ran tests on tests to finally find the answer to the question that killed them all.
It worked, and Potato Children became the best thing since sliced bread – everyone had one, everyone had more than one, everyone used one to make another and then another and starvation fell away.
The technology was sold to other countries and the money brought in more food and starvation was thing of the past.
But there was something that happened during those last four years of the Solanum War that did not ever reach the history books.
A story of two girls who worked and lived together on a potato farm in the countryside, both running away from a world they did not like only to find each other again after so long, to rediscover that their childhood memories and feelings were only stronger and real.
A year of I love you's, a year of planning and then the year where Historia carried the weight of the great task to complete their family.
"Have you thought of a name yet?" Sasha had asked them once, but they had shaken their heads with small smiles.
A Potato Child pregnancy lasted half the time as of a human child, and four months later Historia was gripping the bed sheets, sweat dripping off her forehead, down her neck, shivering and glistening.
"I can see it!" Ymir cried. "Keep pushing!"
And then with a great pop, something was expelled from Historia and shot straight into Ymir's arms, pushing her a few stumbling steps backwards.
"It's a potato!" exclaimed Sasha as she mopped Historia's brow with a damp cloth.
Ymir wrapped the Child in a blanket and gently passed it to Historia, allowing her to encircle her arms around the tiny round figure.
A miracle of science had occurred that day – Potato Children were difficult to come by, however many wished to have them before the technology grew, and then only those with the required genetics could parent a Child – and two women did not have such necessary genes.
But Historia and Ymir had been able to.
Guests, people of the village, came to visit, to see for their own eyes and to congratulate the happy couple.
"Would you like some of my potato stew?" Sasha asked of them, lifting the small bowl she herself was eating from. She looked at each in turn. "Stew? Stew? You sure? Stew? Okay."
"So, where is it?" said a little girl, grinning so widely to reveal gaps in her front teeth.
Historia smiled, looking up at Ymir but her arms were empty. Ymir was looking down at Historia, shock on her face when she saw that the blonde too didn't hold their Child.
"Here's your stew," came Sasha's voice.
They turned as one, dread swallowing them whole as they watched the brunette pass out small bowls to the guests.
"Sasha…" Ymir growled, her voice hoarse and dangerous and near to tears. "You didn't…"
The brunette froze, turned and saw their empty arms, their expressions full of dread and fear, and realization dawned as a blood-red sun.
"I'm sorry," she wailed, "I'm truly sorry!"
The guests laid their bowls of potato stew down and left, leaving the toothless girl behind. She passed them a small potato-shaped cat. "You can take Nancy," she told them. "He'll look after you. You can have him."
And so they held the potato cat and watched as Sasha bustled and flailed. "I'll get some ste-" She swallowed her words. "I mean I'll get you some tea. I'll make it the special way, the good way, you'll like it. Oh my potato, I'm so sorry."
And then she ran into the hallway, disappearing into the kitchen and moments later they heard a cacophony of shattering cups and glass and plates, and then a single pained groan.
But they did not move, for they had lost their Potato Child and all they had to mourn over was eight bowls of potato stew.
(I have many regrets)