1.14: To the victor go the toils

Entering the village known as Wheats wasn’t as grandiose as I had originally thought. I was expecting my first step outside Secundis to be a lot more emotional, but we were pretty chill about the whole thing. To be honest, I was just trying not to throw up dinner.

As it so happens, I had apparently gotten a bad case of motion sickness. This wasn’t exactly a pleasant thing for a traveler, and as much as Ed was trying to help me, Anna chose not to waste the opportunity and kept bugging me about it.

“Naww! Does little Lune need to take a break? I wonder if you’re really cut out for the world.”

“Come on, Annie, he’s really not doing well. Don’t tease him.”

“No…she’s right. This isn’t how a traveler is meant to act…brurgh!”

Alas, no matter what I told myself, last night’s dinner really wanted to breathe some fresh air, so it promptly found egress. Ed was quick on the uptake and grabbed a nearby bag for me to throw up in. Anna saw this and looked away in disgust, so I guess she got her dose of karma on this one.

After we exited the wagon (and I hurled my guts out), I felt a lot better and was back to my usual spunky self. We had made it around evening time, so we decided to tour the village at a later time. Until then we went to Ed’s uncle’s place to seek lodging for the night.

***

*knock knock*

Ed lightly tapped the doors, he was probably worried his uncle would be sleeping and didn’t want to get on his grumpy side. He seems to be really accommodating in that sense.

“Yes?” a somewhat young man’s voice rang out.

Ed said he was nearing his mid-thirties, so we definitely weren’t expecting anything else, but the way he answered gave me a weird feeling for whatever reason.

“Eddie?!” he gasped.

“Heya, uncle Ridge! How’ve you been?”

“I-I’m fine? What are you doing here at this time? Did my brother say you guys were visiting these days?”

It was at this time that I realized how bad this idea was. When Ed’s uncle finds out we essentially ran away, he’d most definitely either take us back or call our parents to come pick us up. First of all: this’ll push our plans back a fair amount, secondly: our parent’s will beat the crap out of us.

“Yeah,” said Ed without skipping a beat, “but it’s only me and my friends. I got permission from dad to visit you, and these guys wanted to tag along.”

Oh? Ed’s lying ability can sometimes be very scary, maybe even more than me.

“I see,” uncle continued, “then come on in, I wasn’t expecting visitors so you’ll have to wait for supper, though.”

“(Psst! Ed)”

“(Yeah?)”

“(This lie might be a good short-term solution, but what’ll you do when your uncle notifies your parents?)”

He chuckled a bit and said:

“(Oh, that? Don’t worry, fastest a letter could get from here to Whitehood is a good week or so, plus the week for them to get here, and that’s only if the letter doesn’t get lost in the mail.)”

Surprisingly, before my very eyes stood a boy who had this entire detour planned out. I guess I wasn’t the only one who grew during this period. He accounted for the possibility of getting his location found out and still made the proper arrangements to visit his uncle and take a breather without any issues.

Anna mostly followed along in silence. Either she was shy or her seeing me throw up really traumatized her, fifty-fifty really.

***

As I woke up from my bed and left the guest room while these two were still asleep, I saw Ed’s uncle toiling in his yard. I got dressed and went outside to greet him.

“Good morning, uncle.”

“Oh, morning. I believe Eddie called you…Grim, was it?”

“Ah,” I corrected him, “that’s just his way of addressing me, my actual name is Lune.”

“I see. Well then, Luney, what do your need?”

I guess bad nicknames run in their family, I’ll let it slide for now.

“I just wanted to see what you’re doing. I understand you’re tending to your crops, but that’s about it.”

“Hah! A green iro wanting to learn about these things? Are you wearing contacts or is the morning sunrise deceiving my eyes into thinking they’re blue?”

He was a brown iro, by the way. They believe in living a simple life; going to school, work, finding a significant other, have kids, retire and die is the standard formula for these people. There’s nothing bad about it, and they aren’t at all unhappy with having realistic and boring goals. Though I will never for the life of me understand how they remain complacent with these goals, I can at least say with certainty that they’re good people (at least the ones I’ve met are).

The iro he mentioned, blue, is the color of creation. Blue eyed individuals possess an unquenchable thirst for answers, their curiosity ever-growing. Most technological advances are created thanks to these people. Anna possesses a blue iro, She often likes to play around in the kitchen, trying out all sorts of recipes. As a side note, while I was in Whitehood my dad said my mom’s eyes flashed blue when I was being conceived, but when she heard that she blushed and smacked him on the arm. No clue what “being conceived” means, but it sounds like a good thing judging by his face as he said it. Now back to the conversation:

“I’d rather learn about potatoes and wheat than listen to Ed’s and Anna’s snoring and snoozing (respectively).”

“Well then, by all means!”

He kept a smile on his face as he gave me a hoe and made me toil the morning away. You’d think I’d be peeved at that, but his talks about agriculture we’re really interesting, and he gave me regular breaks since according to him “Even the most professional of farmers need some time in the shade.”

Sometime during noon, Ed and Anna woke up and joined me, although since uncle went to get us some food and refreshments, they weren’t as excited as I was in farming.

About a week passed and Anna already started getting restless, saying things like “Leins is close by, let’s at least scope it out” and other such babbles, meanwhile Ed and I spent our days basking in the Sun, sweating our asses off and playing around in the wheat fields. Since Anna’s a city girl, I guess she didn’t see the beauty of village life like we did.