sugar berry

[imeanforever]

Near a stream that pours off a high cliff and then snakes away is a garden, carefully tended, and a house, built of wood and stone and transmuted pearl. Fairies weed the plants. One is fixing the roof. A berrybush, hair atangle with spidery branches, is painting gold stripes onto her purple arms.

Comments

[imeanforever]

"I don't see very well in the dark. It seems inconvenient to have it so frequently."

[infinitely_stranger]

"I suppose. It does make counting time a little more convenient, though. And there's always artificial light sources."

[imeanforever]

"There is that. I seldom find myself needing to count time more accurately than I can by counting sleeps."

[infinitely_stranger]

"I like knowing the time more exactly than that."

[imeanforever]

"Why?"

[infinitely_stranger]

"No particular practical reason. It's just - nicely tidy."

[imeanforever]

Nod.

[infinitely_stranger]

Flight.

The jeweled seas continue to be absolutely beautiful.

[imeanforever]

They do, they really do.

[infinitely_stranger]

And after five days of that, there is one day of nighttime desert, and then a forest. It's a fairly pretty forest, as forests go, but nothing spectacular.

"I remember a nice harmonic tangle right in the middle; let's see if it's still unoccupied."

It is, as advertised, a very large forest. And when Arcane slows down over an unremarkable-looking clearing by the side of a very small stream, it sure doesn't look inhabited.

"Do you like the location?"

[imeanforever]

Promise hovers. She imagines her tree there and her garden there and how nice it would be to be right next to the stream for water.

"Yes."

[infinitely_stranger]

"Good." He drifts down for a landing. "If you give me some paper and a pen I'll draw you a harmonic map."

[imeanforever]

She gives him some paper and a pen. And then she dunks her tree branch in the stream and finds the best place to plant it.

[infinitely_stranger]

Arcane sits by the stream's edge and draws. It takes him half an hour or so. His wings float on the breeze, but when Promise goes past he folds them in to get them out of her way.

The finished map depicts a tangle, all right. There is a harmonic cliff intersecting the stream, dividing the clearing and surrounding sections of forest between two different complex patterns. And Arcane can apparently produce in half an hour a level of detail that would take most sorcerers several years to map.

[imeanforever]

Once Promise has planted her tree and given it the little boost she can manage without any knowledge of local harmonics or long-term familiarity with the place, she watches him draw. Because wow.

[infinitely_stranger]

And eventually, he looks up and smiles and hands her the map. "That should be a help."

[imeanforever]

"So much. Thank you. Thank you so much."

[infinitely_stranger]

"You're welcome," he says cheerfully.

[imeanforever]

"If you ever need anything - you probably won't but - well, you know where to find me."

[infinitely_stranger]

"I'll be back in five or ten years to see how you're doing," he says. "And if I've thought of a favour to ask, I'll say so."

He stands up and unfolds his starry wings.

[imeanforever]

"Have a good flight."

[infinitely_stranger]

"Thank you."

Up he goes and off he zooms.

[imeanforever]

She watches him leave. Then she studies her harmonic map, and grows her tree. She plants her seeds, and eats the last of her stored food, and boosts the garden plants - she brought not only food but also something she can use to make paper and soft pillow-fluff. She sips water from the stream. She boosts all the growing things again. Her tree won't be ready to live in for at least a few days, even with the map, but she can push the food harder than that. When she's rested her wings she explores the area around her new home and finds where there's already edibles growing; leftover cultivars from the breeders, some things apparently wild.