A Confession

Zagan shifted uncomfortably. The first time that Li had seen the demon visibly perturbed. "A possibility, but one that I cannot see occurring. The current Burning One is a demon of great wisdom, of arcane might, insightful visions, and tactical prowess. He of all should know he musters no ability to defeat you. Even the shining human of the past invasion would be a hard-fought battle."

"Sunstar?" asked Li. "The history books aren't lying about that part? That spandex wearing idiot managed to kill a demon king?"

Old Thane nodded. "Aye, lad. Tore the past demon general limb from limb. It is small wonder that the ordinary folk consider him a god now."

"The shining human is the only mortal that has ever commanded respect among the demons, for his strength was unmatched, and strength we respect," said Zagan. "But even for the shining human, the Burning One spoke of a means to dispose of him using magic he had gleaned from Al-Thoth, the slumbering Old One, yet such magic would never work upon you." Zagan pointed his snout to Li. "An Old One of even greater might."

"If he's intelligent, then that's all the more reason to think that he's found a way to threaten me." Li crossed his arms. His jaw clenched ever so slightly as he reasoned whether to pay the demons a visit. "Maybe I'll go west and stop him before he gets more silly ideas in his head."

"If I may request, Great One," said Zagan. "I beseech you to leave this matter to another day. It is my hope that the situation shall resolve itself. It is possible that the Burning One has yet to come to terms with the end of the invasion he longed so very many ages for, but I am confident that he will see reason soon enough."

"I see. You want to spare unnecessary losses for your kind." Li nodded. "I can minimize the losses and call out the Burning One to a duel. I'm sure your kind would allow that. All I have to do is crush the head and the swarm fades, right?"

"You are correct, Great One, and yet I still ask that you yet hold your hand. The Burning One, I still consider a valued comrade and he considers the same of me, and because of that bond, I am certain he will come to see reason soon enough."

"I can respect that request. But what if he doesn't? What if he keeps pressing east?"

Zagan did not hold back. "Then he deserves to be crushed by the strong, for that is the primal law."

_____________________

With the next day came the first harvest that Old Thane's farm had seen in over five years.

And it was a bountiful one.

When the morning sun rose in the sky, it rained down a swathe of sunny rays that danced atop the golden wheat, amplifying its luster. As the heads of golden ripe wheat swayed in the wind, they seemed to twinkle, the life and shine of summer embodied in each and every one of those stalks of wheat.

But when the stalks came together, packing closely in the field, their individual shine intensified so that the entire field seemed to be a sheet of gold. Even in the morning, there were a few farmers from neighboring fields that had abandoned their own grounds to catch a glimpse of the wheat.

Li and Old Thane hadn't minded them any business as they had work to do. Li didn't know if the wheat would rot as quickly as it had grown, but he didn't want to take any chances. Both old man and young god rolled up their sleeves and went to work, leaving the other farmers slack-jawed at what appeared to be a late but extraordinary bountiful harvest.

The work went by quickly. Li and Old Thane had to dig up a few sickles that had rusted in a little storage shed out at the back of the cottage, for the first few hours of the early morning, they had wiped the sickles down to get the rust off. Charles's builders came by to help, hammering out kinks in the metal and polishing the sickles until they shone with an almost new gleam.

With their tools ready, Li and Old Thane worked until noon, cutting the heads of golden grain and putting them all on a tarp. When noon struck and the late summer heat got intense enough that Old Thane's sweat drenched through his linen shirt, they took a break, sitting beside the fields and gazing at the wheat heads that they had piled atop a few tarps, forming neat and sizable piles of golden stalks and kernels.

"Gods, I'd forgotten how incredible honest labor at a harvest was," said Old Thane as he rolled his shoulders around. "To think I even dared call myself a farmer for the past few years."

"Knock it off, old man, you're just as much a farmer as anyone else, even if you didn't get to have harvests," said Li. "Every single day for the past five years, you still got up early in the morning, put your hands deep in the dirt, and put in a day of honest work. Every single day for five years while blind and alone – that's more than what the farmers watching us can ever speak for."

Li looked back at the main road where a few farmers were still watching in awe. In turn, a couple of adventurers lined up at the stall were watching the farmers, wondering why these strange men had suddenly started spying on the land of their foremost herb supplier. Eventually, the adventurers came up to the farmers and talked them away.

Not too many adventurers came by to the stall today, and the few that did come didn't get out on the main road to the woods. Likely because there were still residual fears about the Lerneas. It had been driven off, not killed, after all, so there was no guarantee it wouldn't be back.

But the few adventurers that did show up offered up waves and smiles to Li once they bought their equipment, and Li afforded them enough decency to wave back.

____________________

It took a couple of hours, when the afternoon got late enough that the sunlight turned from golden to a darker amber shade, but the adventurers most important to the farm showed up.

"Old Thane! We're here!" shouted Jeanne as she skipped up to the fields from the main road, energy and happiness back in her step. She wasn't dressed in her usual armor, instead wearing a free flowing, loose-fitting white robe with a golden sun hewn at the chest.

"Blessed be the gods to know you are safe," said Old Thane as he tossed his sickle aside and strode out the fields, his arms wide open.

They hugged before Jeanne broke it off, her nose crinkling. "Goodness, you need a bath!"

She smiled, and it was truly a wonder how radiant hers was. It was wide and genuine, laughter creasing the sides of her eyes and her immaculately white teeth flashing even in the dull late afternoon sun.

"But all this sweat is proof of hardwork, and it brings my heart no greater happiness than to see you at work again."

Sylvie came up behind Jeanne. Her smile was comparatively cold. She didn't show her teeth, and only the sides of her lip had the courage to curve upwards. It wasn't because she didn't feel happy, it was just how she was. Not that expressive. Li knew that well – he was like that too when it came to smiles.

Azhar didn't smile, but when he reached out to give the old man's shoulder a hearty slap, it was obvious that the hinterlander was glad to see the old man.

Li came to the old man's side, and the adventurers greeted him in the usual routine. Jeanne curtseying, Sylvie bowing, and Azhar nodding.

"It's good to see you all alive as well," said Li. He gave Sylvie an acknowledging nod. "And it's nice to know you keep your promises."

"Oh, I wager she would keep most any promise for you," commented Jeanne.

"We wanted to help as soon as we could," cut in Sylvie in a rush before she threw Jeanne a quick but withering glare.

She then pointed towards the piles of wheat heads that Li and Old Thane had harvested. By now, they had almost finished up clearing the entire acre that encompassed the field. A solid job for a two man team without any modern technology.

"It looks as if you still have to thresh and winnow the wheat. We can handle that while you harvest up the rest. We could have helped with the harvesting too, but someone slept a little too long."

Jeanne shyly rubbed her head. "Ah well, I am quite the sleeper." She stretched out her arms and bent them at the elbow, showing off the outlines of her trained musculature. "But I'm all rested and ready to work now!"

"Still a damn near miracle that yer' in one piece," said Azhar. He shrugged. "But hells, I ain't complainin'." He rolled up the sleeves of his tunic, a ragged brown thing, and smirked. "Ain't a lotta' daylight left. Let's get to workin'."

"Just what I was about to say," nodded Li.

Li thought he would have to tell Triple Threat what to do, but they knew exactly how to thresh the wheat.

Li watched with some admiration as they separated the big piles of wheat and divided them down into more manageable bushels on uncluttered, sunbaked earth. With a couple of threshing flails – basically small wooden sticks attached by rope to dangle on larger sticks - that Old Thane had stored, they started beating on the stalks of wheat.

The wheat, now thoroughly dried from spending the day under the sun, shuddered under the constant blows, and each shake loosed off grains that scattered on the ground below. Like this, they beat the kernels from the stalks until a sizable pile of gold started to collect beneath their feet.

Li could appreciate the speed with which they worked. They knew how to do this, having been taught by Old Thane many years ago when they were children, but their superhuman physical abilities let them thresh the wheat so much faster than normal. Where an ordinary human would need an hour just to thresh one bushel of wheat, the adventurers could bulldoze through almost seven or eight.

The harvest had come at maximum yield, presenting about sixty-five bushels of wheat. The adventurers managed to thresh all sixty-five in just three hours, right in time for the sun to begin setting.

That only left winnowing to get through. Threshing might have removed the grain from the stalks, but the grain was still encased in chaff, a dried-out husk surrounding each kernel, and the grain had to be separated from the chaff before it could be used.

The winnowing process was simple. Everyone would get large wooden buckets and pile them with the unchaffed grain - the grain that hadn't been separated from the husks. Then they would dump the buckets back to the ground. The husk was much lighter than the grain itself, so as the grain fell, the breeze would catch the husks and tear them away, leaving just the grain.

The breeze tended to pick up as the day melded into the night, so right now, during sunset, was the perfect time to winnow.

As the sun started to hide away, its light fading, Li, Old Thane, and the adventurers had fun scooping up piles of wheat and tossing them in the air, watching as the husks floated away like petals.

"Up you go!" said Jeanne as she raised her bucket to the heavens, tossing up another pile of grain. The husks scattered in the wind, catching onto Sylvie's hair.

"Watch it," said Sylvie as she roughed up her silver locks, tousling out husks.

"Ah, my mistake." Jeanne gave her a knowing look. "You spent so much time prettying up too."

"I did not!" Sylvie felt the breeze change course, and a mischievous smile struck on her usually controlled face. She also tossed her bucketload of grain in the air, and the husks attacked Jeanne, sticking to her white robes and golden hair.

Jeanne picked a dried husk from her hair and smiled. "A duel, is it?" She scooped up another pile of wheat and Sylvie followed suit. The air tensed as a competitive aura filled the space between them.

"Knock it off, you two," said Li, though he did manage to smile at them. "You'll get the chaffed and unchaffed piles all mixed up like that."

"Let them have some merriment, lad," said Old Thane with a laugh. "Day by day you become more the old grump, and I the lazy young man!"

_________________________

Like that, sunset passed into night, and they kept winnowing under the guidance of Jeanne's holy light spells and ordinary lanterns until, finally, when the moon and stars began to start their reign, they had managed to pile the chaffed wheat into one big mound.

That, they poured into big wooden vats by the bucketful, hacking away at the mound. In the middle of it all, when the mound was half its size and when Li had just tossed in a fresh bucketful of wheat, he heard Sylvie calling from behind the cottage, where the storage shed was. She had gone there a minute before to look for a special rune inscribed tarp meant to drape over the vats and keep them temperature and moisture controlled for storage.

Her voice came a little muffled as the shed was a fair bit away from where they were winnowing.

"Li, do forgive me, but I cannot seem to find the elusive thing."

Jeanne dropped her bucket, her hands covering her mouth in excitement. When she saw Li looking at her, she coughed into her hand and quickly picked her bucket back up to keep shoveling the wheat.

Li shrugged, put down his bucket and went over to help Sylvie.

He found her kneeling in front of the wooden shed, her hands sifting through piles of gloves, rope, sticks, buckets, and other old and decaying junk. The shed was a small little thing of hardy but weather worn wood, just a little larger than a modern wardrobe, but it was utterly packed, so he could understand her difficulty.

"It should be rolled up in a tight bundle near the back," said Li as he came forwards.

Sylvie froze, and Li followed suit. The air around her had changed, growing far more solemn.

"Is there something wrong?" he said. He wasn't clueless about how these things went. He figured she was going to ask him out for some alone time. A drink between them or maybe a stroll through the city. In other words, a date. Nothing too serious, probably, just something to get to know each other.

Sylvie stood up, but she still faced the shed. The breeze picked up again, and her black tunic rippled at its hem, swaying around her waist. Considering she had on black leather leggings, if she didn't have strikingly silver hair, she might as well have completely blended in with the darkness.

"You saved Jeanne, didn't you? And you killed the Lerneas as well, correct?"

In other words, not a date.