Hamburger -5minutefreewrite (Chapter 6 of Nanowrimo novel set in Chibera)

For https://steemit.com/freewrite/@mariannewest/day-388-5-minute-freewrite-monday-prompt-hamburger
I'm using #freewrite prompts each day to set me off on my path as I write this novel for nanowrimo. We're many days and 6 chapters in. I'm a little bit behind on the word count, but not so very that I've lost hope or anything. I've been catching up the last three days including this one.

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Lavender thought of her mom suddenly. Coriander, who was probably beating some tough mutton to make it tender, maybe grinding it into easier-to-chew meat patties, would have been fascinated by this woman who had glided out of the forest like a confused stalk hawk. She didn't appear to have heard Lavender, but Lavender had learned a lot of patience from spending her days and weeks and months standing in a quiet meadow listening to sheep munch.
"Yes. They are beautiful." came Jani's reply after she had watched the wasp on the tip of Lavender's spear of timothy settle in and begin to wash itself.
"You going into town with them all?" Lavender motioned to the pack, swarm, flock, horde of buzzing wasps trailing Jani, settled on Jani, preceding Jani.
Jani looked at this human for a long time. The human just stood there, holding the grass with the wasp on it, looking back. They looked until Jani broke the silence.
"Do you know about those people in metal who are killing the forest?"
"The Gem clan? Yeah. They're rich."
"And popular?"
"Um, I dunno. Is the wolf popular with the sheep? No, that's a bad analogy. Is the sheep popular with the grass? No... that's not it either." As Jani began to open her mouth, Lavender held up a finger. "Hang ON. I'll get it. Um, is the ... is the. Hang ON."
Jani waited in silence as Lavender turned in circles, still holding up one finger on one hand and delicately pinching the blade of grasp between thumb and forefinger on the other. The timothy bent and swayed, and the wasp on it clung as it bent and swayed, but it neither lost its grip nor gave up and flew away of its own accord.
"Is the shepherd popular with the crook?" Lavender looked proud of this comparison, in spite of being a crookless shepherd herself.
"I'd let you explain yourself if you wanted to," Jani remained a few steps away, but she'd drawn closer, bemused, amused and altogether entranced by this silly shepherd.
"Alright. I'd call the people of Kittrosk useful, in general. We help where we can with whatever needs doing. The Gems put most of us to use. But if someone else were to use us, we'd be just as useful. We can't even fathom what the shepherd is using us for, but we neither bear him goodwill nor ill. He's simply someone who picks us up and discards us. I've seen the child through fences. She's about my sister's age, I think, but she never got to play with us. I've no idea what any of them are like, really."

"If I told you they were very bad people, would you believe me?"

"Not particularly. Not because I don't believe that you believe that, nor because I think they're especially good people, but rather because I don't know what you think is bad. Maybe you think it's bad to watch sheep all day. But that's what I do, and I don't think I'm bad."

Jani felt like some part of her had lit up inside. It had been a confusing, exhausting, exciting, worrisome, overwhelming, and entirely new past few days, but she hadn't realized until this moment how dim she'd been feeling. Moving toward revenge or justice or anger... hadn't warmed or brightened her. But now, listening to this positively effluvient effervescence she felt that ...bulb? candle- wick into life. Her heart was warm again. She wanted to sit in the field and tell this woman all her stories and hear all of the stories.

But there was a swarm of wasps.

"I'm coming back." said Jani, without precursor, and began walking toward the village.

"I'm coming with," said Lavender, and she maaaaaaaah-ed once and the flock of sheep ambled along with them. A flock of sheep, a swarm of wasps, and two young women meandered toward a small town full of friendly folk and a few that had a troublesome view of their own rights.

Chapter 6

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Coriander didn't notice the shape of the shadow that past, but Eeep did. One of the only non-humans in town, Eeep had found that being silent helped him remain as unnoticed as a dark elf can be in small human town. Which was very. He'd been watching, lurking in the shadows for 20 years as this town grew prosperous. He hadn't spent all his time here, of course. He'd been through the woods to Morraw and back more than once, but each time he passed through the forest, he felt a shiver, as if the forest knew him. Knew he was there, and would have kicked him out if he hadn't been hurrying out as quickly as he could on his own.

Eeep hadn't ever seen an Elf in Kittrosk before. Kittrosk was a human town. A very human town, with the foibles that humans have and the prejudices and the opportunities. He wouldn't be here himself if it weren't for the mana man machines that the Gem clan had had built. Monstrosities of great power. If he could wield them somehow, and so, after he'd seen the first hints of them 20 years ago, he'd been visiting regularly, trying to find his way into the control of them without being seen. An easier job than he'd expected really. He'd expected it to be easy to evade humans for a while, but by now he was almost embarrassed for them. An elf here, though. That could be trouble. Where the humans were easy, elves were... different. This one seemed young and distracted. She kept a swarm of wasps at hand. Protection, perhaps, but they surely kept buzzing in her ear, and how was she supposed to hear anything? And she was accompanied by a slight human. One who was followed by a quiet flock of sheep. They didn't bleat, but surely their bodies, their footfalls, would muffle him even further from the keen ears of an elf. Of course elves... this one had come from the forest. Well, everyone comes from the forest to get to Kittrosk, but this one smelled of deep forest. The deep forest elves, druids, perhaps, had some other way of knowing. They didn't hear or smell or see... they felt through the earth somehow. He was not too old to remember the stories of his childhood, but those had been children's stories, and hadn't gone into technical detail. Regardless, she was one to be wary of.

Why would she be here? Had she heard of the Gem clan's monstrosities, too, and was here to steal them right out from under his nose? Oh, no. She would not get them. But neither would he. He would not allow power like that to fall into the hands of elves.

---

Kittrosk had one inn. It had a sign that said "Inn". It had a bedroom, but Kittrosk didn't see many travelers passing through. When there were traders, they sold to the Gem clan, and the Gem clan put them up. What Kittrosk lacked in travelers it made up for in drinkers. While every small town has a place for folk to gather and exchange the news of the day, not all towns have a place that keeps quarts on handles to serve bitter mead in. Inn specialized in drink. The barkeeper was stout, like you hope any barkeeper will be, and she enjoyed her provenance as well as any two of her customers did. She was always willing to take what you had in trade if you had no coins and so she had an eclectic collection of trinkets that threatened to crowd her tables. Somehow there was always room for another drinker, though. She also had a deep pantry of cured meats, jams, pickled beets, and nuts. From time to time, she'd throw a feast for all her drinkers just so she could make room for more of these things. Though they were trading their goods for her bitter mead, she always preferred to believe they were giving her gifts, and she was just playing hostess. If she stopped to consider the value of what she took from them as payment, she'd be a bit overwhelmed with the idea that she was greedy. It had just become what she was used to, though, and nothing less would do. And where else would they get bitter mead? Not the Gem clan. They may have the power and the money, but they also had some prudish ideas in their heads about what was and was not the right way to spend your pennies. So they could be relied on for a dull time, and Chanbun could be relied on to be the remedy.

Chanbun was still sleeping when a swarm of wasps, an elf girl, and her dear friend Coriander's eldest, Lavender took seats at her empty bar. The sheep stayed outside, mostly. One followed Lavender in, and got a few head scratchings as its prize.

"I don't need an inn." Jani never protested weakly, but if she had ever wanted to protest weakly, now was the time.
"Chanbun!" Jani winced as Lavender called out brazenly. All the sneakiness and stealth that they'd been so good about for the past two kilometers was for naught if Lavender was going to holler that the whole town should come take a look at an elf.
Lavender noticed the wince and shook her head. "I don't know if you and I have the same meanings for 'bad', but I know that Chanbun knows bad and good, and she'll set you straight if you need to be set straight. And if you are already straight, she'll help. Or maybe she'll set you crooked as a shepherd's crook." Lavender smiled the smile of a woman who was trying to relive a recent glory. Jani couldn't believe how charming she found the oddness of Lavender. There were sheep more straightforward, Jani thought. Then she said it.
"Well, that isn't hard. Sheep are very straightforward." Lavender shook her head and called again, "Chanbun!"

This time, Chanbun came rolly-polly down the steps from the single bedroom, leapt from halfway down, and landed behind the bar. "Ack! Wasps!" and before anyone, Lavender in particular, could stop her, she was waving a wool sweater at the swarm. Jani's hand snaked out and plucked the sweater from Chanbun, and without anyone breathing twice, she wound it around Chanbun's torso, immobilizing her completely.

The wasps, which had begun buzzing aggressively toward Chanbun, which had only been kept from stinging her to death by the split mind of Jani, the one half entirely consumed with the idea of protecting her wards, the other managing to float up long enough and strongly enough to halt the imminent onslaught with her own buzzing, drawing power from that newly kindled light deep inside.

Lavender did breathe twice then. She felt the electricity of the wasps, and looking down, the sheep that had followed her now stood stock still, as if by not moving it would be made invisible. It was not. Sheep can always be seen except during especially strong snowstorms.

Lavender breathed two more times, but then worried that she was breathing too much. "Chanbun, this is. Oh. I don't know who you are."
"I am..." Jani paused. She'd begun thinking of herself as Jani, but was she Janice or Jan. Who was having these feelings and lighting this light? Who wasn't worried about her mother anymore, who wasn't as confident about one path and no others as she'd once been? It was too much. "I am Jani...kind of" she finished, and again she would have finished weakly if she'd been capable of finishing weakly, but as it was, she finished with the kind of facility with words that only comes when you're very out of practice.
"Lavender, love, your Jani is holding me rather tightly." Chanbun's deep tones were not as gentle as the words that came from them.
"Are you going to kill a wasp?" Jani struck Chanbun with her fiercest shreep, which is halfway between a shrill and a weep.