Chapter Thirteen - Coinflip

Camping out in the Vastness was... well, frankly, I’d never camped outside of them. Couldn’t tell you how hard it was compared to other things, but from the whining I’d heard from some caravaneers, it was a whole lot harder than doing the same elsewhere.

There was no setting up a tent. The ground was either sand or stone. There was no fire. For a fire you’d need something to burn. Half the shrubs would kill you with their smoke alone. And the few trees around were usually nearly impossible to light.

The smoke would give your position away too, which was the last thing you wanted. Instead, if you were lucky, you’d use your mech as a small home.

“There you go,” I said with a pleased smile, lit by a dull orange glow as my small portable stove’s heating coil began warming up.

Clin sat down hard onto the sand next to me. “That’s what you cook with?” he asked.

We were sitting out next to an outcropping, somewhere where it would be hard to see us from most directions, and where, when the sun rose, we’d have a bit of cover.

“Yeah,” I said.

My burner wasn’t anything special. Just a spiralling heating element in a slightly dented and scratched-up steel case, a plug on the side of it meant to connect directly into a port on Rusty's back. The front of the casing featured a brass on/off switch and a bit of wire I’d wrapped around where the control knob used to be. A trickle of magical energy went in and got the coil nice and hot. Good enough for cooking. I’d even turned it on inside the mech one or twice when it got unbearably cold.

“Hope you enjoy hardtack,” I said as I pulled a package open. The gnomes had nice, sealed boxes, the sort that would keep for a long time. Those I left in Rusty. Instead I had one of my own meals, a tin of hardtack that I blew on to remove the sand, some cans filled with beans and lentils and a few other dried things.

“Wonderful,” Clin said as he took his piece of bread and inspected it. “Is there sand on everything?”

“Yes,” I said. Sand was a fact of life.

The elf shook his hardtack, rubbed on it, then sighed and bit in. “Oh, this is hard!”

“It’s called hardtack,” I said. “Wait until the beans are cooked. Dipping them in bean sauce makes them less hard.” That was a flat lie. Nothing made the hardtack less hard.

Once everything was at a boil, I shut off the burner’s element, unplugged it, and split half the bean goop into a bowl. I kept the pan for myself as I handed the bowl to Clin with a spork. I started to eat while enjoying the shift from the oppressive heat of the day to the cooler night. The vastness was a rough place to live in, but it had its moments of calm and rest and beauty.

When the sun was setting, that little moment when the sky was still blue but the dark was coming, that was my favorite time of day. I’d always used it to reflect, to think.

“How long have you been a bounty hunter?” Clin asked.

I glared over to the elf, but he was trying--in vain- to cut into his hardtack with the edge of his spork. “A few years,” I said. “Was a plain old hunter before that.”

“Why the change?”

“Pay’s better, work is nearly the same,” I said.

The elf nodded. “Isn’t it dangerous, though?”

I shrugged a shoulder. “It’s not an old man’s job. But sometimes I make in a month what a water farmer makes in a year. And other times I get these nice opportunities, or find something worth dragging back to town. Makes for good stories at the saloon.”

“I suppose,” Clin said.

“Don’t see elves often,” I said. “What’s it like, on the other side of your mountains?”

Clin considered it for a while. “A lot more green,” he settled on. “The land is quiet but peaceful. Food is abundant, and you can have a nice, quiet life if you know what you’re doing.”

“That what you’re aiming for?” I asked.

Clin’s ears twitched. “Sorry. I didn’t answer your question. I spoke of the land, not the people. Elves, at least those that are from around Lunastrum, are quiet, reserved. They move slow and die long.”

“You like that too?” I asked.

The elf’s lips twitched. “Perhaps. This is entirely inedible,” he added, raising the hardtack.

“Just gnaw on it, and pray your blessings that we’re not eating sand wyrm meat,” I said.

He chuckled. “I’ve tried that, actually. The gnomes mulch it and serve it on the streets with a gravy. It’s... an acquired taste.”

“Hrm,” I said. I went for another scoop of bean goop with my spork and came up empty. Back on the now-cold stove my pan went, and I leaned back against Rusty’s foot, the metal there still warm from the sun. “So, how did you get to be here?”

“Only if you tell me your story,” Clin said.

I considered it. “Neither of us want to taste the fruit first,” I said.

His ears twitched. “I’m not familiar with that one. What does it mean?”

I crossed my arms and leaned my head back until the brim of my hat bent against Rusty’s leg. “The Vasts don’t have much for plants, as you may have noticed. There’s flowers that’ll sprout after a rain, and a few tough sorts of bushes, but you can go a league without seeing anything green. On the edges though, it’s nicer.”

“I crossed those, I think,” Clin said. “Lots of little bushes, a few trees. Not exactly lush.”

“It’s as lush as it’ll be now,” I said. “‘Till the next storm. Plants can feel them coming and will shed leaves or sink back down under the sands. ‘Cept for the more magical sorts. Anyway, the expression.”

“Yes, do go on,” he said.

“There’s this tree, takes maybe three or four years to grow. About as tall as Rusty here. Got these little fruit on them, like prunes but rounder, flat. The tree’s called a coinflip.”

“On account of the fruit,” Clin said.

“Yup. Now there’s this other sort of tree. Takes maybe three or four years to grow. About as tall as Rusty here. Got these little fruit on them, like prunes but rounder. flat. The tree’s called a coinflip.”

The elf’s ears twitched again. Was wondering what that meant. “Are there two different trees with the same name?”

“And the same look to them too,” I said. “Now, the one, its fruits are some of the nicest you’ll ever taste. Sweet, so sweet it’ll make your gums rot, and with this flavour that’ll stick with your all day. Juicy too. Lots of little seeds in them, but they crunch nice.”

“Maybe I’ll try one, one day,” he said.

“Don’t hold well,” I said. “Go bad fast. You need to freeze them, and then they burst. Trees only give fruit once, about four years in, then they die. It’s tradition to shit in the sand after you ate some fruit, to get the seeds out.”

“Lovely.”

“Yup. Now, the other tree with the same name and looks, its fruit tastes even better. Saw a man start weeping once, said he’d found a path to heaven itself.”

The elf just stared, waiting for me to go on.

“They’ll kill you within the day. Half a day, even. Stomach twists up, you stop sweating. You can’t stop sweating out here. Fruit makes you warm up with a nasty fever. You go red as a vulture’s neck, then keel over and die. Animals tend to dig themselves into the dirt when they get too hot, that’s where they’ll die. Spreads the seeds well though. I figure most of the coinflips you see will leave you dead.”

“Well, that’s horrific,” he said.

I shrugged my shoulders. “It’s what it is. That’s what it means, to be the first to try the fruit.”

“Does anyone cultivate them? The good ones, I mean,” he asked.

“Maybe. Takes four years and you end up with a little basket of fruit, and there are some clever birds out there that’ll catch on to someone keeping only the good sort around.”

I pushed myself up to my feet, then climbed up Rusty’s side.

“Where are you going?” Clin asked.

“You don’t want to sleep on the sand. We’re resting on Rusty’s hands. I’ve got spare blankets.”

The elf rose up, placed his bowl into my pan, then helped me set some blankets down onto Rusty’s cupped hands. We packed everything up after that. I kept my coat on. It could get cold, and I grabbed a blanket I’d taken from the gnome mechs to cover myself up some more. Rusty’s fingers dug into my back in a familiar caress, the steel still radiating pleasant remnants of the day’s heat against the increasingly cold desert air.

“Good night,” Clin said.

I tipped my hat down over my eyes. “G’night.”

***