Chapter 220: Day 219

Day 219,

Yep, as expected, I’m sore this morning.  

At least it’s mostly just my arms.  And my back.  And my neck.  But hey, it’s not my legs, and those are what I mostly plan to be using today.  Speaking of which, I better get going and head out.  With Tristan being on the opposite side of the circuit, it’ll be past dark before I get back as it is, assuming I’m estimating distance and personal pace correctly.

 

And I’m back home.  It is very late, I am very tired, and I need to get up very early in the morning, so I’ll be abridging this.

• Left early, although later than I meant too.  Like I said earlier, I was sore from rowing/paddling yesterday and slow to get up and moving.
• On my way out, Maiko asked if I was really sure I wanted to make the trip alone.  I assured her I was fine.  I’d be sticking to the road the whole time and there are patrols after dark.
• I was basically heading from the south-southeast to the west-northwest part of the circuit.  While on a map it would have been shorter to go clockwise, that would have taken me through the Village proper and its tangle of streets and people that might want to stop and talk to me.  Also, I hadn’t traveled the other half of the circuit except briefly to visit the star lake that one time and I wanted to see it.  So widdershins my path was.
• From what I’ve been told the nightly guard patrols take the full sundown to sunup to complete a circuit.  So about twelve hours.  The brothers Ettor and Ynigo made it in just over seven in their race but kinda wrecked themselves in the process.  I figured based on how long it usually takes me to get from home to the library I could do it in nine or ten on a good day if I pushed it, but I hadn’t had a good day in over a month.
• It didn’t take long after I left the house for the nature sprite to appear.  Much like it had on the last couple solo trips I made between the Village and the house it did nothing but keep pace with me, slightly ahead and to my left.
• I’m pretty sure I recognized the turnoff to the lake when I passed it.  About an hour after that, while sitting on the side of the road, taking a break to catch and staring down the sprite who’d crouched down opposite from me it suddenly tilted its head, paused for a moment, then disappeared into a flutter of leaves.  A few moments later a group of kids and teens came down the road from the way I’d been going.  We exchanged greetings as they passed by.  They seemed to recognize me as the Archivist.  I told them what I was doing (leaving out Tristan’s name) and they told me they were off to the star lake.  I guess it’s still the popular youth hangout spot that Lin remembered.  The sprite re-appeared beside me once they’d left and I got going again.
• Once the road passed out of the forest and into more open spaces the sprite pulled its disappearing act again.  I suspect it was still following me, but was trying to keep unseen now that the trees weren’t blocking lines of sight for long distances.
• A bit before noon, after the circuit had curved in so that I was going more west than north,  I found a building on the side of the road with a quartet of guardsmen seated around a table playing cards.  Apparently it was an outpost so that the night patrols could start from (almost) opposite ends of the circuit so as not to leave broad stretches unattended for half the night.  Once again, they knew the Archivist on sight - or at least my pendant - and invited me into the shade of the outpost for an early lunch and a break from boredom.  I apologized for not having time to do a telling for them, but I was able to give news, such as it was, of things that had come up for me to record in the past couple of months.  Not that their posting was anywhere near that long.  They switch out each mist night so they’d only actually been there a few days, but it gets dull out there fast.  Except, they told me, on days when the wind blows in just right from the Blossom Field.  I couldn’t tell if they were serious about that last part or if I’d walked into a running in-joke between guards.  There was some more (maybe) joking suggestions that’s why it’s always either all men or all women at the outpost at any given time.
• That was a longer break than I’d hoped, but I was still roughly on schedule, albeit a schedule that would put me home after dark.
• As I passed by that northward-most stretch of road I finally got to see the (in)famous Blossom Field.  The road runs along a ridge at that point, the edge of a broad, shallow valley of sorts, so I was able to get a good view of it.  And what a view it was.  A hundred different colors all swaying in the breeze, stretching all the way to the treeline of the jungle that fills the northern half of the island.  It took me the better part of an hour to walk past it and, at a rough guess, I would estimate it would take me at least as long if I were to cut across it to reach the jungle.  Even from up on the ridge the fragrance was heady, but not unpleasant.  I caught myself briefly thinking that the “old me” wouldn’t have been able to smell it so keenly and perhaps would have been sneezing.  A curious notion, one that I’m not sure to be thankful for or jealous of.  By the time I put the field behind me I found myself feeling oddly flushed in a way that was unrelated to my long walk in the noonday sun.  I think I’m starting to get what Daianna said way back when about cutting through not being helpful for getting work done.
• After the Blossom Field came what I believe to be the turnoff the crystal collectors take into the jungle, and then some time after that, the side road leading to Tristan’s farm.  They’re not big on signage around here, but when I’d asked around about Tristan ahead of time I was told to look for a tree with a knot like a sheep’s face at the corner of the turn and I found something that pretty much looked to fit the bill.
• Thankfully, by the time I reached Tristan’s the flush from the Blossom Field had worn off.  Now I was just the regular kind of hot and sweaty.
• I found myself passing by fields not too unlike the ones near me, but with fewer vegetables and more livestock.  When I hailed one of the fieldhands to make sure I was on the right track to find Tristan, I shouldn’t have been as surprised as I was to learn I’d just met his son.  Farmers have the biggest families around here and Tristan had married into one.  For once, I wasn’t recognized right away but once I explained what I was doing here I was welcomed.  The Archivist coming calling is a thing to be excited about it seems.
• The road led to a house, and at the house I went through a similar round of introductions and was let in to see Tristan.  He was an older man now, in his sixties or seventies I’d guess, and not quite up to working the fields these days.  He did recognize my pendant, but not me.  As we sat down together and I explained why I was there he started to wax nostalgic about back when he told the old archivist about that trip (two archivists back actually; my predecessor’s predecessor).
• At first, I learned little I hadn’t already heard or read save for his motivation for being out there in the first place: he was trying to impress his then-sweetheart-now-wife and got the idea in his head that if he went far out enough he could land a catch no one had seen before.
• When I asked if he’d remembered anything unusual about the island or his meeting with Iole, things that might not have made it into the old archivist’s records, he grew hesitant.  Eventually he did admit that there were some “unwholesome” elements that had him too spooked to mention back then and that he hasn’t talked about much since, but it’s been long enough now that he supposed there was no harm in adding it to the record if I wanted.
• Apparently back then Iole had been “obsessed” with attempting to translate the book she’d found, almost aggressive in wanting to show the book to Tristan and explain her theories.  She seemed more happy to have someone to share her ideas with than any prospect of rescue.  The “twisted” statuettes she’d carved and scattered about her hut and the drawings she’d made on the walls were equally unnerving.  All in all, a rather different picture from the one Maiko metaphorically painted in her tale.
• Iole’s unsettling manic energy aside, the thing that really drove Tristan to leave and never come back was the song.  Iole was just as eager to show him that as she was her book, and listening to it together was the only time he ever saw her calm.  It had a similar effect on him.  Gentle.  Soothing.  Loving.  He claimed that if he hadn’t already given his heart to another he never would have left.  That’s what jolted him out of reverie and sent him running for his boat.  The realization that if he stayed much longer, he might not want to leave either and wouldn’t see his sweetheart again.
• That’s… worrying to say the least, but a good warning to have.  Cass and Lin didn’t have their reaction during our brief stop there, but the songs do seem to be dimmed somewhat by the presence of the floating island.  We’ll need to be careful about Lin and Cass going to that part of the island.  Maiko and I might be fine given the adverse reactions we’ve had to the song.
• The other part of the visit that went as I’d hoped was that I was able to get Tristan to do some rough sketches of islands we might pass by and/or stop at on the way there and back.  It’s been long enough that his memory is a bit foggy so we can’t guarantee accuracy and certainly not precision, but it’s something.  Should be good for cross-referencing with Maiko’s memory of her long ago trip to the healing spring.  Unfortunately, we were all reeling too much from Maiko’s abrupt departure at the time to do much in the way of aerial sketching of the surrounding area.
• Once we finished conversing, I thanked Tristan profusely for his time and promised to come back and tell him what we find.  Maybe I shouldn’t have told him about the plan to check up on Iole, but we’ll be gone before he can tell anyone.
• Once I reached the forested section of road again the nature sprite made itself visible.  This time around I tried making conversation with it as we walked.  It would turn its head back to look at me from time to time, sometimes cock its head to one side or the other, but that was it for responses.  I wound up telling it much of how I felt about it.  And about the incident.  Who knows how much it understood.  Or cares.
• I was still a good two hours out from the Village proper when the sun went down, but at least I had a lantern.  I couldn’t decide if having the nature sprite escorting me at that point was comforting or unsettling.
• The nature sprite disappeared once more an hour later at the sight of light coming up the path.  A pair of guards on the night patrol, much as I’d encountered that time I fell asleep at Siren Overlook.  Not too far off from that spot either actually.  It wasn’t the same ones, but they had heard the story and recognized me well enough to ask if that’s what happened again.  I forced a laugh and said it was official archival business this time.  They asked me what the occasion was and I joked that they could come read about it sometime.  They took the remark in good humor and offered to have one of them walk me back to the Village.  I wanted to decline, but frankly I was too tired to say no.
• When he dropped me off at the edge of the Village some time later I was sorely tempted to just spend the night at the archive, but I’d told Maiko I’d be back tonight and pushed on.  As it turned out, she’d gotten concerned that I was already later than I said I’d expected to be and was waiting for me on the other side of the Village.
• I filled her in on my day on that last stretch of walk.  I’ll admit, I half expected her to pick me up and carry me the number of times she asked if I was alright.  I must have looked awful.  I certainly felt it.
• Upon dragging myself into the house I forced something to eat down my throat, stumbled into the bathroom to clean off the sweat and grime, and then into my bedroom to make a few quick notes before collapsing into bed.

A few quick notes…

How much did I just write?

Got into one of those flow states again.

This is why I have such a hard time waking up most mornings.

 

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