unloved. And it felt like a betrayal.
It doesn’t deserve such an attitude. It gave her its warmth and safety. At least things are clear, simple and unambiguous here.
What to do, what not to do. Who to be and who not to be.
Why does she leave it every time so easily and joyfully? Without a shadow of gratitude? Will it miss her?
It’s painful to feel unloved and discarded, but it’s also a pain to feel you can’t give love and care to something that desperately needs it. Because you just don’t have it inside you.
Sorry, the old boy. Don’t be angry with me. I… just can’t. Try with someone more capable.
So… It was time to wave, try to smile and say goodbye to everyone from afar.
And to hide the unwelcomed smile on a face and portray the sadness of parting.
Because in half a cycle, or maybe even much sooner, she will return here. And, if she’ll have a happy face now, others will have the same maliciously satisfied look later, when she comes back, the echo of her wide happy smile multiplied many times.
“She didn’t crawl far. The place of your birth is the place where you will be of use.”
Remembering about it would surely get her steps faster.
Let’s run from our local problems to the other ones.
For a moment, an epiphany hit her again.
Problems can’t be avoided anywhere, no matter how hard and how far you try to run away from them.
They can only be solved by standing up and confronting them head-on. She won’t be happy. Anywhere. Ever.
Why try harder?..
…And. What to do? Drop everything? Go back? Lie about being ill? The family will definitely approve of it. Boss wouldn’t mind postponing or discarding this stupid witch business.
“The Fertility Festival”
Aye…
Ami huffed in annoyance.
Yeah. Let’s go then. Bye, the house, bye, Kantine. Be well.
She turned around slowly and carefully, trying to minimise the inertial movement of her heavy bags, and strode out of town, dusting and shuffling her feet along the familiar part of the Great Road.
The Kantine vagabond loved the heavy therapy of wandering. It reduced her usual high adrenaline level and stopped her messy chaotic thoughts with tiredness.
Before she could move, she stopped abruptly, swaying from the weight of the load and with some difficulty maintaining her balance. There was one thing she really wanted to do. No matter what. And she had no intention of denying herself the pleasure.
It would be nice to see the city with the fresh, unaccustomed eyes of her replacement!
The best way to do it was to climb the hill on the way out of the city.
Ami carefully dropped her things on the ground and nimbly climbed up the hill.
…The settlement looked quite harmless from there. Even… nice.
It was fair to say that despite the unimpressive, squat, plain buildings, it was a very beautiful and charming town. In its own way.
It has fields. Yellow, green, in the colours of the plantings.
Ami had never been able to learn all of their names, which was reason enough for her immediate surroundings to look at her with some pity.
The scents of fruit and flowers from the gardens reached here too.
The growth and blooming is everywhere. Even on rooftops.
A quiet, measured, delicious and nourishing life. Labour that yields a pleasant harvest, pleasing to the eye and stomach. Peace and stability.
Quiet, peaceful… too peaceful for her.
Maybe it’s her fault. This service woman preferred traveling work to operational work, because she didn’t want to engage much with people’s business. And they say once it was something more or less interesting when she was absent. A couple of amnesia cases, to be specific. And one missing person at the same time, there were no special worries here. People are leaving this city time to time not telling anyone or getting lost in a Forest. It’s a usual thing.
There’s nothing to remember much in this place, if we’re talking about amnesias. Days and cycles are similar, sowing and harvesting, warm and cold winds and the clouds running over it all.
Maybe it could be a curious quest to find yourself again. To begin to know life and yourself anew. Right here. Right now. Who you are. What you want…
But does it mean your unconscious programs go away also? If they’re not… this is pointless…
Ami didn’t have an opportunity to finish her thoughts, because her attention was fully drawn to the gloomy dark clouds that were gathering in the sky above the city, apparently coming from somewhere in the Wastelands.
The Kantinian frowned synchronically.
She hadn’t noticed them before. They looked kind of… ominous. Not like normal clouds. At the least, they made Ami uncomfortable.
Then why to look at it. The rain doesn’t add comfort to a journey. Let’s get on the road.
She got down the hill, grabbed her belongings, and walked to a wide trade route leading to the next town.
It’s an easy trip. You can’t get lost here. Not if you tried hard enough. Just go. And go. And you’ll find Omill inevitably. And what’s nice – there was no hurry this time.
Maybe the journey will be more comfortable if she waited for the caravan. But she spent too much time being trapped by the home-work route. She really needed some physical activity. As well as something to chew.
It would make the walk more pleasant. She left the house a moment ago, and her appetite was already whetted as if she’d walked a good part of the way.
She’s a Glutton. Kantinians were considered gluttons, but who wouldn’t be, with all this food splendour? No surprises. They worked a lot, they ate a lot.
A peasant slipped her hand into the small bag hanging over the belly and fumbled for a large chunk of her favourite dried vegetable.
She found one, took a good bite and started to slowly chew it with pleasure and satisfaction.
There was surely something good about her homeland. These vegetables. Such important things seemed so insignificant while they were within reach. But, when you suddenly realise that there’s no way to get them.
Ami looked carefully, with a new look, at the piece of vegetable in her hand.
“We’re not going away for too long. There’s enough of them in our storage.
Anyway, нou’ll have time to eat your fill of them. Don’t you want something new for a change?”
Quite. She already ate here and here she goes to reduce Omill’s supplies of coffee and flat cookies.
Light 8. Hot Reception
Ami appeared on the doorstep of the Precinct, clutching her pre-retrieved travel cloths from her bag resolutely in her hand. I wonder who she would be assigned to? What would she be doing? Handle conflict situations? Search for missing persons and missing things? Escort valuable packages…?
At home, she was best at the former. And how will she do it with her not-so-pure Omillian?
It would soon become clear.
She was confidently heading towards the secretary’s booth she already knew from earlier visits when suddenly, before she realised what was happening, her body bounced a decent distance away from something. And in good time, too.
A field