Hello! This is Faylinn and Ellsie with the first installment of our lovely co-written story. Please read and drop us a line.
Her garden had but one variety of flower. The purple Wisteria climbed the garden wall; the pink Wisteria lined the walkway; the white Wisteria draped across the arbor. When she was younger she had begged for variety in her garden. She wanted Sunflowers and Tulips, Daisies and Lilacs, Peonies and Petunias.
But the Gardener had always responded with the same answer. Oh no, Miss Maisie, Wisteria is your flower. He always emphasized your in a funny sort of way. It made her feel rather less like she owned it and rather more like it owned her. He never answered her bewildered why? and no one else would speak of it.
But as the years went by she began to grow fond of the Wisteria, for it made it undeniably her garden. As long as she did not request a different flower, she was free to do whatever she pleased with it. She still did not understand why Wisteria must be her flower, but she found a certain comfort in tending it. So much so that she began to do all her own gardening.
Had it been permissible, she would have dismissed the Gardener altogether. As it was, he did little in her garden but check in on her. She was twelve when he first found her angrily weeding the pink Wisteria garden beds, the only the activity she could think of that involved throwing a fit productively.
He smiled a congratulatory smile and told her she would grow up into a fine young lady. She snapped back that she wished to never grow up, but had insisted on being called her full name, Maeraid, ever since. Unfortunately, everyone else insisted her childhood nickname suited her, and no one respected her request. No one, that is, except the Gardener.
She was sixteen when he found her running her hands dreamily through her purple Wisteria blossoms. She blushed a heated scarlet, still strangely embarrassed to be caught caressing the same blossoms she had insisted be removed for the first ten years of her life. But he only smiled in his mysterious way and wished her a Good Morning, Miss Maeraid as he proceeded to the other palace gardens.
This morning, the morning of her nineteenth birthday, she sat beneath the white Wisteria covered arbor. A few stray branches had fallen through the arbor cracks and brushed blossoms against her forearm. She thought she ought to put them back in their rightful place but hesitated to do so. She rather liked the feel of them brushing gently against her skin. A gust of wind blew back the drapery of white at the arbor entrance (she liked the way the flowers made a curtain of blossoms) and revealed the Gardener standing in the breeze. She thought she ought to have been startled, but the Gardener had ceased to startle her long ago.
"Merry Birthday, Miss Maeraid," he said with his peculiar smile. The wind let up and the blossom curtain drifted shut again. She parted it and stepped through to say Good Morning, Gardener the way she ought, but he was already walking through to the next garden, his gray hair disappearing into the lilac bushes beyond her garden walls.
The flowers brushed against her hand in another breeze, and a strange thought struck her. I don't even know his name. She wasn't sure why it bothered her; any servant with a position unique enough to be the only one was proud to be called by their title. Most even insisted on it. She didn't know the name of Cook or Stable Master or Courier. But Cook and Stable Master and Courier didn't call her Maeraid the way Gardener did. And Cook and Stable Master and Courier didn't give her free reign in her allotment of their realm the way Gardener did. Cook and Stable Master and Courier barely looked her way, much less smiled at her in Gardener's peculiar way. Gardener was more than just Gardener to her, and for the first time she wanted to know who, then, he was.
She made a snap decision, the sort of decision she had tried to reign in since she was twelve, and brusquely walked after him. She let her hand brush against the purple Wisteria climbing the garden wall as she followed it to the garden's edge. Just as she was about to cross the threshold her hand caught in a tangle of purple branches. She stopped, knelt down, and worked at freeing herself. The blossoms had caught and tangled around her wrist, almost like hands, pulling her back. It's alright, she whispered to the blossoms as she untangled them. I'll be careful. The branches loosened and she let her fingers brush over them once more before stepping through the wall and into the next garden.
She had never spent much time in the other manor gardens. Hers was the third largest, after her mother's and father's. She knew this from experience, though she wasn't supposed to. Designated gardens were private and not to be intruded on. But neither her mother nor her father had spent any significant portion of time in their gardens, and she had been able to sneak in when the Gardener wasn't tending them, just for a glimpse of the only other designated gardens at the manor. They were larger, but aside from that they hadn't looked much different than the garden she stood in now. There were all varieties of flowers in neat beds with paths circling around them. As she walked through towards the next garden she found she missed her Wisteria climbing the walls and the arbor, even in the beds along the walkway growing so tall she could reach out and finger the blooms. Next to her garden, which seemed to live and breathe blossoms, this one couldn't help but seem bare in comparison.
She passed quickly through two more simple gardens before she caught a glimpse of a garden door shutting. Maeraid just glimpsed the back of him as he left the garden, but this time he wasn't headed into another garden, nor towards the manor. He was walking out the back entrance, the servant entrance, for those that worked in the manor but didn't live there. Didn't the Gardener live at the manor? she wondered. She couldn't remember ever hearing, and she had only ever seen him inside the garden walls.
She reached the door and hesitated. If the Gardener was just going home it might be rude to follow him. She imagined Tutor following her from her lessons into her garden and grimaced. But that was her garden, and it was forbidden for anyone but Gardener and herself to go there. Homes, on the other hand were open for visits. She opened the door and rushed out, before she could even remember that she wasn't allowed on visits without someone there to escort her.
The Gardener was far ahead of her, but she could still see him walking on the road towards town. She walked hurriedly, but not too hurriedly. She didn't want to lose sight of him and miss which house he went to. But she wasn't sure she wanted to meet him before he reached his home. She had been taught proper etiquette on how to make visits, but no one ever told her proper etiquette for meeting someone on the road. She pushed back the thought that that was because she was never supposed to be in a position where she might be alone on the road in the first place.
Town was larger and closer than she had ever quite realized. Somehow the manor had always seemed so secluded. The occasional visitor had need to visit the manor, but most business her father traveled to, rather than having it come to him. She had never traveled with her father. She rarely traveled at all, and on the few occasions she did, she merely visited neighbors with her mother. She had never been to town. When the Gardener walked past the tree shaded road and into the throngs of people, she hesitated yet again, wondering if she ought to follow this far. Her heart beat heavily within her, nervous at the sight of so many people, none of them familiar. She almost lost sight of the Gardener in her hesitation. Feeling suddenly like he was her lifeline, the only familiar thing about, she chased quickly after him.
Maneuvering in the streets, however, turned out to be quite a chore. Straight, she kept thinking, I just want to go straight. But she went left around this stand and right around that, dodging women carrying basketfuls of vegetables and breads, and jumping out of the way of wagons full of hay. Soon she had lost sight of the gardener altogether. Rather than walking she felt she was merely being pushed about by the throng of people, none of whom seemed to notice her in the least.
"Excuse me. Pardon me," she muttered, though she doubted anyone heard. If I can just get off this street, maybe the others aren't so crowded. She tried to veer towards an adjoining street, skirting around the woman whose children darted about her ankles, nearly running into the man leading a lame horse. She was close now – almost to the other street. She could see it was much less crowded, only half the people this street had. If she could just squeeze past the young couple holding hands, and around the man sitting asking for coins.
"Look out!" someone called, and she could see raised hooves from her periphery. She darted to her right, tripped over the beggar man's legs, and fell headlong into the less crowded street. "Well, that's one way to get there," she muttered as she stood and dusted herself off, wondering where on earth the Gardener was and what she would do now. She glanced about this street and briefly caught eyes with a dark haired man, with slate blue eyes.
"Excuse me, sir?" she said, running up to him. "Do you know where the Gardener lives?"
It was a town like any other town, had been his main thought upon seeing it, lounging amiably in it's green valley. He'd felt a general dislike of it immediately upon entering. It was so very cheerful and peaceful and kind.
Clearly, it was a town that didn't expect to be rained down upon by the flaming arrows of an enemy, or beaten to the ground by a disastrous storm. It didn't know anything of the world he'd come from. Not that there were a lot of flaming arrows there. Temperatures that can freeze saliva in your throat within a matter of moments have a way of putting out unprotected fires.
In any case, he hadn't wanted to come. He'd dragged himself by his feet there, through the green meadows and vibrant forests, clutching his walking stick and pack of belongings with a ferocity. He didn't want to go. He wanted to stay far away from people and towns for as long as he lived—which, for reasons he couldn't understand, was extending itself far longer than it ought to have.
But the fact of the matter was that he needed food. He'd lived off the land as long as he could manage, and he was growing more and more certain that he was starving to death. It was an uncomfortable experience. And for food, he needed money, and for money, he needed work, and for work, he needed people. So he went to town.
He felt hunted in the streets, like everyone's eye was on him and only him. To some extent, it was true. He was an outsider. He wasn't dressed like them, didn't look like them, didn't have a place in this town. But he had nothing to fear from them; he knew this, too. What hunted him came only at night, in the darkest hours, stealing breath, stifling air.
He eyed the people passing by and wondered where he could find work. An inn maybe, or a woodcutter or blacksmith. He could cut wood, hammer iron. He could do most things. In the Blue Desert, he'd been the Champion once. It was a high honor, only given to the best and most able bodied men, who could do all things. It was a long time ago, though. Another life, before the Nightmares changed everything.
He squared his jaw and crossed into a different street, less crowded than the other. He stood in front of some building; it didn't look like anyone occupied the place. He glanced at his walking stick and flicked a knife out of his pocket, finding an area where the wood was still fresh and uncut. He carefully etched one single mark in the wood, before closing the knife and sticking it back in his pocket. One down, eleven to go. Then he'd be gone, one way or another.
He raised his eyes to the street in time to see a girl almost get trampled over and stumble into the same street as him. When she was steady on her feet again, she glanced around and seemed to pick him out of the crowd, running over to him. "Do you know where the Gardener lives?"
He narrowed his eyes slightly and checked her eyes to see if they were focused. He'd seen crazy people and drunk ones, but she seemed actually in earnest. He frowned, shook his head, and gripped his walking stick. He took a step away, then glanced around the street. There weren't any buildings less abandoned than this one. He glanced back at the girl, took a few more steps, and leaned against the wall again, hoping she'd leave him alone.
Unfortunately, she followed after him. "The Gardener? For the manor?" she asked. "Are you certain you don't know him?"
He gave a slight grunt. "Listen, I don't know anyone or anything about your manor. And I don't care either."
"Oh," she said, turning away with disappointment clearly written across her face. She took a few steps away and glanced back at him with a somewhat lost expression. He frowned at her. She turned away again.
He looked at his walking stick and examined the smooth wood under his fingers. He heard a man's voice, deep and lilting.
"Maeraid," an old man was saying, coming up to the girl. "What are you doing here?"
"I...I wanted to know your name," she said, blushing.
He shook his head and walked the other way down the street. They certainly had some strange people in this town. He'd be glad to be away from them. Just eleven more days of this, then he'd be gone to...somewhere else. The next land, the next city. He wondered how long he could do this. His father would have told him he couldn't live this way.
You can't always be wandering, Arash. Everyone needs something of their own. They were words from a long time ago. He'd told his father that he wanted to be like the avadors, ever wandering across the blue desert. They spent a lifetime running, chased by many enemies, but they always got away. Always.
We're wandering anyway, he'd said. What's the difference?
The difference is that we have a purpose, Arash. We have a home. There's nothing wrong with traveling, but we take our homes with us. We have our wives, our children. Our lives. The avadors are always alone.
He squared his shoulders. He was more like the avadors than he wished at the moment, chased, escaping, and always running again. But it didn't matter. There was nothing he could do. "I have my walking stick,"he said aloud, a mock reply to his father. But there was no reply. His father was gone, among the first to go.
Abruptly, another memory entered his mind. Arash, have I ever told you the story of the man at the top of the world, who grows dreams like a garden?
He'd asked what a garden was and had spent more time puzzling over the concept of making food jump out of the ground than actually listening to the story. But he remembered some of it. The man lived far, far away at the unreachable top of the world. It was cold there and warm, at the same time. It was everything all at once, and there was a tower. The man sat in that tower all day, alone, and he made worlds in his mind. That was how everything was so different there—warm and cold at once. There were so many worlds colliding with each other, and he sent them out one by one, to come upon the people sleeping across the world. He made the Nightmares, too, and sent them ravaging across the blue desert.
The man at the top of the world would know about them, about why this was happening to him. Why he hadn't died in all the seven cycles of the moon since the Nightmares came upon him, why everyone else did. Why he was chased across the world like the avador.
If he could find this man—he paused and shook his head. It was a fool's chance and a fool's story. Something made for children, to explain the unexplainable. He wouldn't even know which way the top of the world was, if there was such a thing. He snorted at the stupidity of the idea and went on his way, with just one glance back at the girl and the Gardener. A man at the top of the world who grows dreams like a garden...
Note: an avador is similar to a gazelle but able to survive in much colder temperatures, as Arash lives in a very cold desert land, with blue sand. Faylinn wrote a very spiffy description of the place, but it sadly doesn't quite have a place in the general narrative.