Hostility over Hospitality

Ariana stepped away from the ring and off through the forest. She wandered past trees and bushes, the odd fox or owl, and strange glowing flowers. In the distance, she could hear voices. She moved towards them. “Hello?” She called out. The voices go quiet. She cautiously followed the source of the sound. “Is there anyone out there?” She asked.

She emerged from the woods to find three men on a dirt path. They point bows at her. She shrieks and covers her head. “Don’t shoot, don’t shoot!” One of the men approaches her with some visible hostility. “And why shouldn’t we, demon?” He spoke with clear disdain. She carefully peeks from under an arm at the man. “I… I’m lost, horribly lost, I’m not from here!” “You don’t say?” One of the men interrupted with sarcasm.

She carefully lowered her arms a bit. “Yes, I’m looking for my son, he’s just a boy, about 10 or so, have you seen him?” The men seem wary of her, but less hostile. “A boy?” The last man chimed in. “A demon boy?” Ariana glares at him. “My son is not a demon! Who are you to call him that!?” The men train their bows on her again. A thought occurs to her. “Why are you calling us demons?” The men all look at each other. The first looks back at her again. “Because that’s what you are!”

“How can you say that to someone you’ve just met!?” She yelled. The first man yells back. “What else could you possibly be!? Look at you! Devoid of color and eyes like an animal, that’s what a demon looks like!” Ariana looked at her pale hands. They were probably right; she might not look human to them. “I…” she spoke hesitantly. “I remember being told I died… but my son, he’s alive, he must still be human! That’s how this works, right!?”

The men seemed as confused as she did. She brought her hands down. “Please,” she begged, “help me find my son…” The men lowered their bows. “This one’s harmless,” one of the other men stated, “She has no attack magic.” This one had a strange glow to his eyes. The first man looked at him. “Are you sure?” The eyes of the second man faded to a less ethereal color. “Not even a fireball,” he affirmed. The men seemed at a loss.

The first man looked firmly at her. “Looking for your son, huh?” He rubbed the back of his head with a free hand. After a long silence, the man groaned and sighed. “We’ll keep an eye out for a strange boy.” Ariana breathed a sigh of relief. “Thank you so much…” The men turned back down the road. She watched them go. After a minute or two, she realized that the road meant traveling people. She walked down the road in the same direction as the men.

She followed the road for a considerable distance. It was night by the time she made it out of the forest. She saw wide open grassy plains for miles and miles as she looked from left to right. At the end of her scan of the horizon, she spotted a village with what looked like a handful of clouds to one side. She figured that must be where the men went. She wanted to go there, but with how those men reacted to her… and while the lands she saw were wondrous, they were also a grim reminder of how far away her son could be now.

She thought she could try the village when the sun was up and ask around. Until then, she would need lodging. She went out into the open plains, up onto a hill where she could see the village from. Once at the top, she focused her magic. She knelt. Her left arm reached over to the right as she stood. With this motion, a bundle of roots sprang up, forming a flat tree at that angle, only just taller than herself. She knelt again and did the same motion with her right arm to the left, summoning another flat tree to meet the first. With this, she formed a sort of tent.

With one last toss back of her hands in a cape-flicking motion, she summoned another large leaf along the ground of the makeshift tent. She knelt again to crawl inside. She sat within, contemplating the events of the day. As she did, she took one of the leaves from the tent. She fanned her free hand out and made the leaf grow to about that size.

By the moonlight, she traced her fingers along the leaf’s veins. She twisted them around and around in new patterns and forms. She changed their paths until they resembled a picture of her son. She clutched it close to her chest and lay down. She felt like she was about to pass out. Tomorrow, she thought, in broad daylight. Surely they’d help, wouldn’t they?

In the morning, Ariana woke to the sound of a strange jingle. She looked around, confused, then at the facade of her son and thought. Perhaps she could make more of these and give them out to people so they know who to look for. So she did. She made about a dozen leaves with her son’s likeness. Doing so left her feeling winded. Perhaps it was not a good idea to use her magic so freely. She gathered up the facades and clutched them close. She set out from the tent towards the village.

It was an hour’s walk to the village. The village was settled on either side of a wide dirt road. Houses sparsely lined the road; some of them had merchant stalls in front of them. At the far end of the road was a bend to the right, and a larger house marked the end of the village proper.

As she suspected, people were cautious of her. She pushed the thoughts from her mind and approached the first person she saw. She saw a mustached man with a boy about her son’s age. “Sir, please,” she blurted with some urgency, holding up one of the facades, “have you seen this boy?” The man pushed the child back away from her. “Never seen him.” She couldn’t help feeling a bit hurt, but went on regardless. “Please, take this, if you see him, I… I have a tent on the hill that way.” The man grumbles. He hesitantly takes the facade and gives it a look over. “What is this?”

She went on to the next person without another word. She saw an old woman who looked at her with suspicion. She asked the old woman questions and gave her a facade. She went to as many people as she could and gave them all the leaves. Everywhere she went, there was a general vibe that she was unwelcome. All the while, not one of them had seen her son.

At about midday, she was beginning to feel hungry. She saw a market stall that was selling produce. She approached the stall, run by a particularly grumpy-looking older woman. “Excuse me, miss…” “Huh?” The woman gave the impression that she didn’t want to do business. “Is there… any way that you have something to spare?” The woman scoffed. She took up a basket of rotten things. She grabbed a particularly ripe tomato and tossed it at Ariana’s face. She screamed. The woman leaned over the stalls. “There’s your charity, demon! Go back to the pit you crawled from!”

Ariana ran out of town. She reached her tent again and wiped the tomato from her face. She was covered in rotten gunk, slime, seeds, and… she realized something. Seeds. She had magic to make plants grow. She did her best to clean off and scrape up as much tomato as she could. She took this handful of stuff and placed it on the ground. She focused hard on the gunk. Her hand slowly rose. Some thin green vines spiraled up out of the ground.

With intense focus and a great deal of energy expended, she grew a tomato plant in 4 hours. She plucked a tomato from the vine and took a bite. It was just barely ripe enough and had a bitter flavor, but it was edible. She ate 3 of them. She plucked the remaining tomatoes from the vine, set one aside to grow more, and summoned up a leafy basket to put the rest in. Maybe she could make the villagers trust her more if she used her magic to help them. Though before that, she would need to wash the rest of the rotten tomato off.

She then remembered the light. It told her she could also use water magic. She waved her hand in slow, circular motions, thinking of water… water… water… and it came. Two little dew drops floated before her. She felt some excitement. She continued to wave that hand in circles and form a larger water ball. It was about the size of her head. She plunged her head into it and rinsed thoroughly. When she freed her head, the water splashed to the ground.

She took up the tomato basket and took a deep breath… then walked back to the village. By the time she returned, the sun was setting and the market was closing. She went to the woman at the produce stall and looked at her again. “Excuse me, miss, I…” The woman let out a deep sigh and turned to look at Ariana. She looked at the basket of tomatoes skeptically.

Ariana continued. “I don’t know what everyone has against demons, but… I don’t want any part of that. I’m just trying to find my son.” She held the basket out. “I used my magic to grow these from the one you… gave me.” The woman shook her head and waved dismissively. Unsure what to do, Ariana left the tomatoes on the stall and returned to her tent. The sun had set.

She took to another night of making facades. She was feeling thoroughly drained at this point. In the morning, she ate the last tomato, being careful to pick out some seeds to grow another plant. Finishing her breakfast, she took up her facades and went back to the village to hand them out. While doing this, she fainted.