Strengthening Bones

Defi sat beneath the flowering sansu trees, immersed in the Current. Slowly, the land beneath him was recovering. With this recovery, his unconscious reluctance toward owning the land eased bit by bit, and the burdens of his heart lessened.

The sky lightened enough to stir his closed eyes.

He took a deep breath and slowly lifted himself from the swirling depths of the Current. It had always filled him with warmth and security, since the first time his tutor had guided him to wake the wellspring within him and feel the barest ripple of energy underlying the material of the world.

He smiled and stood. Another tree flowered this morning. He walked to inspect it, touching the smooth uncracked bark, rubbing the vividly green leaves. He inhaled the fragrance of the newly flowered sansu blooms and his smile widened.

As of this morning, there were nine healthy trees comfortably sustained by the land. It would take another day of healing before it could sustain another. It was a fast pace, really. The month he spent sitting under the first and only flowering sansu, strengthening the land underneath the small orchard and stimulating its vitality, was worth it.

The land was recovering faster than he thought, after that first month. Maybe in a week or two, the vitality of the land would be strong enough to revive one tree every day.

He stretched, tired but feeling accomplished.

It was still false dawn.

"Shall we take a short walk this morning, Turq?"

The slime on his head bounced to his shoulder.

"That's a yes, isn't it?" He laughed a little. Turq was always energetic after each healing session.

Defi walked through the sansu orchard. There were seventeen still in poor condition, made even more unsightly by the healthy ones blooming beside them. He patted an expanse of cracked bark as he passed. "Don't worry, you'll be as beautiful soon enough."

Not far from the orchard was the northwestern boundary of the property. It was marked by a simple fence – posts pounded into the ground with planks and ropes nailed across them. The land beyond the boundary was poor, though it fared better than the orchard.

The land was obviously in use, but it had not been tilled yet after the harvest. That was odd. It should have already been planted by now. Pity it was owned. A farmer couple, their child, and an elderly father lived there.

The neighbors had showed up to welcome him a few weeks after he moved in. He had two neighbors to the south, one a single middle-aged herbalist, the other an older couple retired from trade. They were happy to see him, as the southern end of the homestead had fared the worst. They had both bought parts of the Garge homestead five or so years back, as had the farmer couple who owned the land he was looking at now.

The land to the west had been sold to the town more recently, which had set tongues wagging. The town bought land at cheaper prices than the market should. It was a failsafe for poor land-owners, a sort of loan, with the expectation that they could buy their land back.

The land directly west of the farm had fared better than the southern end. He planned to develop his illicit herb garden there. There were no nearby farms in that direction as well, so there wouldn't be complaints. What furor would there be with the neighbors, if they knew he was going to plant Kern's hybrids?

Defi laughed dryly. They might petition to throw him out of town. From the gossip around the couple's disappearance, it was only because Leraine's family had owned the Garge homestead for generations that they hadn't done it to Kern.

He made a round of the northwest boundary, then walked back to the house.

From a distance, the house didn't look like anything special. It was wood, with a foundation of stone. The house had changed over the centuries, according to Aire, who had some knowledge of the town history. It had been rebuilt a few times, and at its largest once topped three storeys.

Some decades ago, there was a fire that reduced the family to poorer circumstances. That was the reason the stone floor foundation was extensive while the current house had only one level.

Yesterday, Karles had even found the food storage room, its entrance cleverly concealed in the kitchen alcove where the large pots were stored. It had been built underground, and was over a quarter the size of the entire floor area of the house.

Karles determined it was also a room where the family members hid when threatened. Bandits used to be common around the lake. He inspected the stone walls of the hidden store room and said they were sound, would even last a few hundred years without too much maintenance.

It was colder under the house, the air surprisingly not stale or damp, empty but for a few sacks of grain. Defi had cleaned it out and used it to store the barrels of dried seafood, the one-year casks, and the jars of jam that Lergen and Aire kept sending him.

Did he look that much like one of their orphans?

Still, he never failed to go to the day of Suns gathering without something in hand for the children. He'd slept late one day and they all turned up at the homestead to drag him to the orphanage.

So, the house didn't look like much on the outside, but inside it was sturdily and carefully built.

The walls were wood, with an outer layer to protect against the weather and make it easier to replace without unduly discomforting the inhabitants. The inner layer was unpainted, but with a polished shine. Possibly a wax of some kind. The strong beams and posts were carved with emblems which were carefully positioned to best advantage both function and aesthetic.

Karles said there were emblems hidden everywhere. The visible ones were the most obvious protections. His grandfather had been the one to build the house, so he knew much about it and was stoically enthusiastic about telling Defi. It was adorable, so despite his disinterest in architecture, how could Defi stop him?

A house so carefully built, and the last owner had tossed it at Defi for love or anger…

He felt a little like he'd taken advantage of a woman out of her mind. But then, hadn't she used him simply because he was the person in closest proximity?

He had not wanted the property.

But it had given him a path to tread.

He entered the kitchen, caught sight of the blue of Larimar nestled next to the green of the other two. Oh, he would have to try out an idea that had been running around his mind for a while. Fed on zaziphos alone, the viscosity of the extract from Lars was thinning a little, only just noticeable. It was also growing more fragrant.

He readied the cloth-covered buckets marked for milking slime extract. Each slime took less than a quarter-hour of kneading to be agitated enough to burst.

He tested the two types of vinegar. They had changed somewhat, similarly to that of Lars. The extract from Mal and Jar was incrementally becoming sweeter.

He poured the extract into the appropriate quartels, then washed the cloth and the buckets, and placed the slimes in the basket of zaziphos.

The slight difference in taste wasn't too bad now, but it was evident he needed to adjust each slime's diet.

"I'll have to go to the dawn market." He patted the slimes. Should he leave Turq here? It hadn't eaten yet.

He glanced out the window. The sun had not breached the horizon yet. The dawn market was already in full swing at this time.

He needed to hurry if he wanted to catch the sellers. "Turq, Jar, Mal, Lar, I'm going out."

He shouldered the travelsack; it was getting more use these days than he imagined.

He pressed his fingers against the emblem-powered bar on the door, to make sure none entered. Security in Ascharon was convenient, wasn't it?

He jogged to the pier. Nearby, the warehouse was gutted, piles of debris around it. The three workers that Karles promised had begun repairing the foundation. They would be here again at mid-morning, so he needed more bread.

The design Karles had made in one night was levels above what he thought up, and Defi was pleased that he found nothing to complain about.

He could stop worrying about the warehouse.

He turned his focus to the river and in moments he was pushing away from the pier. He maneuvered toward the faster waters a bit further from the bank, and pulled in his pole as the scow got caught in the current.

Eyes sharp, he watched the river.

Apart from obstacles and the occasional giant fish, he didn't want to get pulled closer into the center of the river, too far from the bank.

This was, after all, still a part of the Little Treachery. He had escaped fate twice in these waters. He didn't think he was that lucky.

The dawn market was mostly fish, from the fishing boats returning with their catches before heading out again. They handed over the catch to family members or the fishers' guild who sold it immediately, fresh and still wriggling, to the eager hands of the Lowpool townspeople and the roving merchants who supplied land-locked towns and villages.

The market was full of hawkers, noisy and lively, with people both good-natured and vicious competing for buyers.

Fish of many kinds were abundant in the morning markets, with sunstripe bass, purpleback carp, and green tiger zander being the most sought after. Of the popular catches, there was also the whisker snake, the blue shrimp, and the ironhead rockworm. The sable crab, the lone mystic animal in the lake, was of course the most hunted and the least caught.

He moved through makeshift counters, people deftly scaling and filleting fish. There were even a number of people offering to cook the fresh seafood for the morning crowd. The scents of smoke and cooking enticed more than a few to take a break from the hectic scenes of barter around them.

Defi could not resist buying a freshly grilled lake squid. It was doused in a sharply sour fruity red-brown sauce and placed in a paper holder. He blinked in surprise. He thought he would have to try at least a dozen fruits in the market before coming across one like this.

"What fruit is in this?" he asked the griller.

The man handed out a few more squid, and looked quizzically at Defi as he flipped the squid on his grill. The noise of the market meant a number of people were making gestures to communicate.

"What fruit is in the sauce?" He spoke louder.

The man grinned. "Starcherry! Delicious?"

"It's great!" Defi sent the man a happy smile and a wave, leaving to make way for the other customers. The grilled squid was popular.

He finished the squid long before he found the sellers he was looking for. A pair of old women who sold filleted silver-blue carp.

"How many kilogar?" asked one of them, while the other readied the blade.

"I'd like to buy the bones, actually."

Defi's research on seakraits did not give him much to work on, other than that the beasts came in several colors and they were mostly bone and skin with no edible flesh. Their delicate rib-bones which were thin and numerous were melted to make wax.

They were vicious and swift, and catching them was difficult. They also mainly stayed in the sea.

The odds of Defi regularly sourcing one to feed Lar was slim.

In the end, all he had to go on were folktales.

There was a children's book of old legends that said a silver carp once breached the garden of a deity and leaped into the pond. The sacred water of the pond seeped into the carp and made it into a blue seakrait, trapping it in the small body of water. The deity took pity on it and made it into a water dragon so it could fly free but not abandon the waters where it grew. The carp turned seakrait turned dragon served the deity faithfully from then on and went on many adventures.

If Erlaen knew he was doing this, she'd probably laugh viciously and deny all association with an idiot like him. But Defi had no other data. At this point, he was willing to try anything.

The two old women were looking at him disbelievingly.

"It's for my pets," he said.

"Ah." Their faces were enlightened and the disbelief waned. "Are you experimenting with feed? It is good for young people to be diligent."

"If it goes well, you might have something new for the beast breeders, hm?" The old woman started slicing off the guts from the fish skeletons in the refuse pile.

The silver-blue carp had blue-tinged bones. They were very distinctive.

"I'd like all of them. Every day, if possible, as much as you have. I'd be willing to pay ten rond per kilogar."

"That's too much! Don't waste your money, young man. Have some care! We'll give them to you."

So he was scolded for extravagance but managed to at least pay for the barrel and the emblem that prevented the fishy smell from spreading. They were in the market every day, in charge of their family's carp catch.

Learning that their family were fishers, he sourced discarded crab shells from them. Jar's flavorful vinegar was influenced by the mystic sable crab, so he thought lesser crabs would at least maintain the distinct taste.

Unfortunately, Defi didn't manage to a wholesaler of starcherry in the market, or any other fruits that approximated the taste of suirberry.

He pushed his scow away from the docks after adding another eight loaves of bread to his purchases.

He needed to head for the dawn market everyday from now on, but the boat ride in the morning was pleasant and he was progressing in his understanding of slime diets. It was worth the effort.