Saga - PT Saga - Legends What She Saw (OC Revolution Summer 2018 challenge; Book of Gand OCs)

Author: Findswoman
Title: What She Saw
Era: Saga—PT (roughly somewhere before about 15 BBY; later than that at the end but still within the PT timeframe)
Characters: OCs from The Book of Gand and related stories (see below)
Genre: Vignette; slice of life; introspection
Summary: A Gand child discovers she has a gift for seeing lost objects…
Notes: A very quick-and-dirty, last-minute contribution to the OC Revolution Summer 2018 challenge, proposed by @Ewok Poet: “An event from your OC’s childhood that influenced them and change them, whether it was for better or worse.” I reworked this from an “outtake” from a much earlier draft of The Book of Gand, and it takes place before the action of that story.

For further details on the Gand self-reference conventions used within this story, along with a list of related stories, please see here.

Finally, I should admit that I unfortunately did not have time to have this properly beta-read, which I daresay will probably show.

* * *​

In N’xid, the smallest and poorest of the pocket colonies that loom from the mists of Gand, there was a cottage. It was small, but behind it was a large, crowded, fenced-in garden with a small glasshouse, and its variety of flowers, leaves, shapes, and colors contrasted starkly with the dinginess of the surrounding neighborhood.

This cottage, and this garden, belonged to two honest, hardworking Gand Seculars: a married couple, Viuraanvi and Lekli, each with only a single name. They were gardeners, growing flowers, fruits, herbs, and vegetables of every description for every purpose, and they had one daughter, still small, still nameless. Almost every day the family could be seen hard at work in their garden, hoeing, digging, feeding, planting, and harvesting. When they were not there they were at the local market selling their wares: the mother and father at their modest booth at the corner of the marketplace, the daughter walking about with her basket of fruit, selling fresh blue togu, plump red zyll-berries, or trogg citrus, as the season provided.

It was a bright but chill morning during the transitional season between the times of rain and dryness, and the gardener family was out working as usual. The mother, clad in a heavy, patched brown work tunic, was making a careful circuit of the garden, pinching off any dead leaves and flowers into a basket that she periodically took over to empty into a compost pile in one corner of the garden. Her husband, a somewhat scruffy male with a craggy, dark brown exoskeleton and heavy, soil-splotched boots, was struggling to untangle burrs and weed-vines from a lush, red-leafed climbing shrub that dominated an entire side of the surrounding. Their daughter went from bed to bed pulling up weeds, and there could not be a greater contrast between parents and child: where the former were sturdy and heavy in build, the latter was slight of build, small even for her age, and her chitin was the light golden-tan typical for a female in the nymph stage of development. As she looked about at the abundant flowers and foliage, the colors of the sky were reflected in her golden compound eyes.

Her father crunched his mandibles as he wrenched a particularly difficult cluster of vines from the red-leafed shrub. “Fog and blood! Viurraanvi doesn’t understand this! How did all this befoggèd bindscrub get here?! Just look!” He brandished a fistful of the torn vegetation. “The stems have gone all woody! Bindscrub isn’t supposed to be woody, for fog’s sake!”

“It’s been known to do that when it gets enough water,” said his wife matter-of-factly as she pulled a handful of gray, withered blooms from one of the lulan trees. “And this was a rainier season than usual. You’ll save yourself some work if you get the pruning shears from the shed.”

The little girl perked up as she heard the word “shears,” though neither of her parents noticed.

“Gand still can’t find ’em,” Viurraanvi grunted, yanking off another clump of bindscrub. “Gand probably dropped ’em in a hole by accident back when you and he were replanting the vryth bushes. Viurraanvi would buy a new pair if they weren’t so befoggèd expensive.”

“There are the hedge clippers—”

Viurraanvi’s mouthparts clattered querulously to cut her off. “No way in the name of the Holy Madman’s boot buckles is Viurraanvi is going to use that huge long blade just for bindscrub. It’ll just slice up the ighll too. Ah, nothing to be done about it. They’re gone, and that’s that.”

Clacking his mandibles in resignation, he returned to his work. All of them worked on in silence, for several more minutes, in the morning chill.

Including the gardeners’ daughter. Shears… she had seen something like that just recently, hadn’t she? Not just seen but seen, that time when she went into the glasshouse just to sit and be alone and think (which Mother and Father hate because it means that Gand is not doing her work). Shall she tell them? She shall. She shall tell Father first; he doesn’t usually get quite as annoyed about things like this.

So, after dutifully pitching her handful of weeds on the compost pile, she walked over to him and tapped him shyly on the arm with one delicate claw.

“Father?”

Viurraanvi answered with a desultory “Yes, what is it, little one?”

“Well—” Now think before you say this, little Gand. Are you absolutely sure of yourself?

“Well what, little one?”

“Gand, don’t bother your father while he’s working,” her mother called over from the garden’s opposite corner, where she was sprinkling fertilizer on a bed of vegetable plants.

“It’s no trouble,” rejoined Viurraanvi. “Now, what is it, little Gand? Out with it, now.”

“Did you say something about some shears?”

“Yes, Father did. Why?”

“Well, er—” Pause for a moment. Think back to what you saw that time. “Gand thinks she might—er—know”—careful using that word, little one!—“know where they are.”

Her father stopped for a moment and looked up, and his mandibles spread open cheerfully. “Oh, you must be thinking of the hedge clippers, too! Nice thought, little Gand, but didn’t you just hear Father say that those wouldn’t work?”

“No, Father. These are different.” You’re sure about that, are you? Don’t say anything unless you’re—“The blades are shorter. And they’ve got long wooden handles with your name carved on them. And they’re—” Pause again. Be sure of what you saw, of what you say. “They’re in—” You saw a big pile of soil and humus and dead plants, right? But there’s soil and dead growth all over the garden, so what does that really mean?—

“They’re at the bottom of the compost pile.”

The girl’s response startled Viurraanvi. “And what were you doing digging in the—”

He stopped short as he glanced at the compost pile in the far back corner of the garden. It was in good, compact order, and it certainly didn’t look as though anyone had been digging in it recently. In any case, his daughter had never been one for playing in the dirt beyond her usual gardening duties…

His wife cut in again. “Viurrraanvi, you shouldn’t let her distract you. You have work to do.”

But Viurraanvi had already fetched the spade from where it leaned against the side of the shed. “Couldn’t hurt to check, at least.” He paused beside his daughter, raising his voice. “And if she’s telling tales? Well, then, she gets no quaag after supper. Simple.”

So saying, the sturdy Gand gardener hefted the spade and began to dig through the compost pile. He handled the large implement deftly, with all the facility of one who had worked the ground all his life. His daughter looked on anxiously as the gray-brown detritus flew and squelched. What if you’re wrong, little Gand? What if what you saw was just your silly imagination? Are you just making things up to distract Mother and Father from their work? If so, you deserve to lose your quaag…

CLANK! The girl started, and even at the opposite corner of the garden her mother turned and looked as well. The spade had struck metal. “FOG AND BLOOD!” Viurraanvi exclaimed, almost dropping the spade.

“Gand! Watch your language!”

“Many apologies, Lekli dear…” muttered the gardener as he dropped to his knees and began to rummage through the compost. After a few moments he extracted what seemed to be a large, wood-handled lopping shears, caked with dirt, which he rubbed clean on the side of his coveralls. Carved crudely but recognizably into one handle was the name VIURRAANVI.

“Gentle Visionary Mists above… it’s really… they’re really…” He looked from the shears over to his wife, then over to his daughter, whose golden eyes were turned downward as she fidgeted nervously with her scarf. Looks like you were right this time, little one. This time…

Finally Lekli broke the silence with a clack of her mandibles. “Well, Viurraanvi, no more procrastination. Time to get to work on all that bindscrub.”

“Yes, of course,” replied Viurraanvi absently. He started slowly back toward the ighll vine but stopped suddenly and gave his daughter a friendly tap on the head with one claw. “Not bad, little Gand. Have as much quaag as you want after supper.”

“Thank you, Father,” came the meek response as little Gand returned to her weeding.

But she knew what she wanted even more than quaag. After supper, as the evening mists fell and the shadows lengthened, while her parents sat on the porch drinking their djelatha, she would go once again into the glasshouse and sit and think—and perhaps, once again, see. There’s the button mouthpart that fell off your doll that time… and one of the spoons from the djelatha set… and the scarf that Mother lost…

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...and your Sacred Visionary Mists scattered by the invaders’ machines… and your sacred shrines trampled and dirtied by their plasteel feet… and him, both Findsmaster and beloved…

Yes, Telfien Viurraanvi had tried to think and see those things too as she sat before the large plate-window of this small, cramped room. It was really not so different from that glasshouse in her parents’ little garden long ago, where the eventide mists had once shown her lost garden tools, buttons, scarves, spoons. And should it not be easier now that she was a fully fledged Gand Findswoman, at the height of her powers? Oh, but you should know by now what happens when you get too sure of yourself, little Gand…

She knew. For the plate-window was the viewport of a starship—and the blue light outside the window was not the calm silver-blue glow of Gand’s evening Mists. It was the blinding, blue-white vortex of hyperspace, and with each passing second it whirled her farther and farther away from her home. ¶

Spoiler: Notes

(under construction—to come soon)

 

Thanks to you all for reading and commenting!

Thanks so much, as always, Ny! I enjoyed returning to the Gand; it’s been a while. I had an earlier version of this story tucked away in some notes, and it was originally planned to be an earlier chapter of BOG, but when I reworked that story it was one of the “outtakes” that I set aside in case it could become a vignette someday. And the day came, thanks to this wonderful OC challenge prompt from EP—that’s when I added the end reflections, of Telfien as a grown-up Findswoman. Glad as always to have you here and that you enjoyed this!

Thank you! Telfien’s family has been gardeners since the the very first (I had in mind the family of the heroine of a novel I read in one of my German literature classes in college), and when I was younger things like my grandmother’s garden and the botanic garden always seemed like magical places, so I’m trying to capture some of that for her here. In terms of being a gardener myself, I’m still pretty new at it, but I now appreciate all the more the hard, tiresome work that goes into creating the beautiful, harmonious, magical place (and I’m right with you on bindweed—what a scourge). In writing the Viurraanvi family garden both here and in BOG I’ve tried to bring both those aspects together.

I struggled a bunch with those voices of self-doubt as a kid myself, and still sometimes do, and I know how much of a difference it makes to have even one person listen and trust like that. Viurraanvi (the dad) doesn’t know it, perhaps, but that day in the garden he played a pioneering role in making her what she becomes later.

That’s right—and…

Spoiler

…that lost “Findsmaster and beloved” became another who trusted and listened to her, who respected her abilities and played an instrumental role in helping her cultivate them. At this calamitous juncture she’s been turned loose and has lost them both—but the skills she has learned will always be with her as she continues her search.

Thank you so much—it was wonderful to come “back to my roots” here and it made me keen on doing more! And it’s wonderful to see this universe and this character still remembered with fondness after all this time—this is why I love you readers.

Thanks! It was interesting to contemplate how that kind of thing might work in such a staid, almost laconic culture, and I was able to have some fun with it here and in the other Gand stories—glad it worked well for you!

Thanks so much for commenting, diva—so great to have you here! You’re right to pick up on those differences between the Gand girl and her parents, and the pivotal thing here of course is how her parents perceive and react to those differences. Her father’s encouragement and trust makes the difference it does precisely because of the difference he sees between himself and his daughter, one could say. He has an inkling that she has this ability to Find, and although he may not share it or even understand it, he encourages it.

Oh yes, lost heritage and home are a very different thing from lost buttons and scarves: the process of finding them, or at least whatever may be left of them, is going to be very different, and may or may not be successful. Though both journeys, in their way, start in that same place of “sitting and thinking.” Once again, thank you so much for being here and giving this little story a go!

 

I've made a timeline, of sorts, to make my way through the rest of the stories in your Gand!verse, and I was so happy to be at a point in Part Two where I felt that I could rightly read about smol!Telfien without spoiling anything! Because this story was absolutely delightful, and I enjoyed every word.

Oh, yes! This is something I wanted to comment on with Part Two, but don't think I did, so I will fix that now! I was really struck by the juxtaposition with this spot of beauty - an oasis in its own right, no matter how hardly won, Raissa really said it best - as compared to the tired, worn appearance of the rest N'xid as a whole. It's such a spot of life, and that really mirrors Telfien as a similar "diamond in the rough".

Your details were so impactful throughout this story! I absolutely felt like I was there with this family, gardening, and Telfien was a bright spot in my mind's eye.

Your Gand cursing - just like your Lasat cursing - really is just the best. Viurraanvi really gave me quite the chuckle more than once throughout this story.

Ooh, did she now?

Bebeh!Findswoman, bebeh!Findswoman!

It really is a tough family dynamic that she's growing up in - her family's circumstances are hard, even harsh, and that's created a hard, no-nonsense couple in her parents who, in their own way, are doing the best they can - but I'm glad that there is this softer (soft being a relative word, of course) edge to her father, at least.

She's just so dainty and adorable, my goodness.

I appreciate how Viurraanvi and Lekli complement each other, as well.

Even her thoughts are just so ginger! While a lot of this may be her natural disposition - I have more to learn about Telfien in Part Three, I know! - it's hard, again, seeing a child who feels that she has to be this careful so as to not vex her elders.

This was such an effective narrative device, between her spoken and unspoken thoughts!

More great details! I could hear and see and smell the compost turning.

. . . not that I had any doubt, of course.

I loved this detail, too.

What an awful, nagging voice. I hope that Telfien is able to quash that inner-doubt in time.

I'm glad that Telfien had these good moments with her parents to remember, too.

I JUST LOVE HER SO MUCH, SHE'S SO PRECIOUS

Now this was an A1 transition from then to now if ever there was one! What a stunning piece of writing from a narrative standpoint, as much as an emotive one!

If the Mists are at all clouded like the Force . . .

Besides being another great use of imagery, this was a powerful bit of writing to end the story on! Telfien is still seeking, trying to see, and in time, I trust that everything's going to become clear as she finds her way. Still, it's a hard, long road until then as it takes her farther and farther away from home.


But, for now, it's time for me to dive back in and read more about that road - for both Telfien and Zuckuss. Thank you for sharing thus further glimpse into the world of TBoG! I am thoroughly enjoying the journey thus far.