Chapter 36

A Tale For The Gypsy Folk

“Wake up! Time to get up!”

“No,” I moaned, forcing my eyes shut whilst kicking my foot as I fidgeted underneath my blanket. “Not yet! Jeez, mother! Not yet!”

“Mother!?” An unfamiliar feminine voice exclaimed at the notion. A jolt from the carriage lurching on a particularly stubborn rock along with the swift dismissal of the heat that my grass blanket provided woke me up shrieking. But that wasn’t the reason I was shrieking, I was half-naked, and there was a female stranger in my oak room, who uncovered me. “No, don't look!” I tried to hide my delicate body, away from the uninterested eyes who gave it a once over, then snickered unimpressed.

“I’m not impressed.” She tittered. Clearly she was impressed, she just did not want to word it. Because of my high strength and constitution rating, my muscle’s contours became more refined, rippling by the natural vibrance of the young and delicate. With the pubescent emerald tint of my skin, I looked like a perfect avatar of the human figure, albeit small in proportions, against the consternation of those who don’t know what true beauty is.

But I digress. “What do you mean, I'm not impressed?” I lied, asking my question.

“Uhmmm.” The grass lass, pale in greenish tint, placed her finger on her lips as she gave me another once over. “You’re not very...Manly.”

“Manly?” I squealed, my voice going a few octaves at the thought. “I’m plenty manly!” I complained, crossing my arms. Realizing my pickle nipples were bare, I retracted back my arms to veil them once more from the inquisitive inspection, of a lass who doesn’t know personal space. Her name was Soma, and she was the youngest daughter of the wizened folk Gan, who was a cantankerous old man, to be a father of three daughters.

And let me tell you, those daughters are worse than Sera. They kept on nagging me about my contraptions to my dissatisfaction, and why I wasn’t a regular grass folk who usually pay homage to one's grass. Yes, the first thing my fair friends did when they entered this small locomotive grove, was to marvel at the grass and its mesmerizing splendor. Especially Wink, who had cried when he saw tall cultivated grass, it’s been long so he hugged it, albeit not as eager as before. For his passions were substituted from tall grass to the tall female giants of the world outside.

“Anyways,” She drawl, knowing her pausing glance was making my green complexion go beat red at the ogling discomfort. She continued, “Papa, asked me to wake you up, your brunch is going cold.”

“Papa,” I tittered, “You still call your father papa? Ha.”

She shoved me back into the bed and jumped atop me to smother my face in with a grass pillow.

“Enough, please, have mercy!”

Soma got off me, putting a knee on my stomach as she hopped off. I groaned at the plummet, clutching my stomach when she turned.

“See, not manly at all.”

“What? What do you mean my brunch is going cold? Vegetables don’t go cold.” I contorted at the idea. Well, technically they do, but they never were hot, to begin with. I slid off the borrowed cot I had rested on to stretch out my arms at the repose, wincing at a tender bruise I garnered from the abrupt wrestle.

“Come on!” She exited the oak room to swivel her head to give me a smirking once over. Covering myself from her ogling, I stared back at her with an exasperated expression. She gave me a wink, then retired from my abashed sight. I swear, people just get off on annoying me and my humble personage. Manly, she said. ‘I bet she never met a grass folk with a cool scar on his cheek.’ Scratching my old scar, I ruminated on the squire and his disgust of all things small.

“Must have been bullied by the smallfolk when he was a kid.” I sagely muttered. Giggling at the image, I walked out to have breakfast with Gan’s family and my small crew. Afterward, I washed the baby’s butt, yet again from the mire of his filth against the gleaming glimmer he gave me.

‘This baby is loving this.’ “Not for long though. You will miss my tender hands, one day, you little giant.” I slapped his bottom and walked off with my nosed clenched to the farting smell he responded with. Cursing the heavens for my toil, I sat outside the opened wagon door in the morning camp we had set. Sera had opted to train and ride the mecha, throughout all yesterday and most likely today. She had focused herself on being an expert when handling the mecha, in case troubles and the situations called for it, and I was unable, she vowed on being more involved with our journey, instead of babysitting the baby. Of course, this was just an assumption of mine. I did not truly know what was in her mind, but from the sparse words she had uttered to me throughout our journey out from Ebenfurth, I felt I had an inkling I knew what she was going through.

The feeling of helplessness when someone close to you dies, and your painful reminder of regrets of things you should have done. At Least we shared one thing in common at the moment, but more me, than her, for I had the power and the inclination to have done so. After everyone uncamped, I stayed inside the locomotive grove to meditate and rest next beside Wink, who was sitting prone in meditation. He was cultivating the life essence he had gathered from outside within himself.

A peculiar thought crossed my mind. “Why do you cultivate?”

“Hmmm, for the grass and me.”

“Yeah, but what do you get out of it?”

“Life essence.”

“Yes, yes, but what does life essences do?”

“Makes you stronger.”

My face widened agape at this. “You mean level up? Right?”

“Rarely we level up, but yes, we gather and share the essence we gather from the air that is dense with it.” He continued, his eyes closed as he spoke with a monotone voice, like repeating a passage from his classification. “Death is a cycle of life, life can die prematurely or they can die naturally which gives life essence to the world, which we then cultivate into our grass and ourselves.”

“Is this a passive skill? You gained when you were classified?” I think I heard this once before when I had researched with my father a long time ago, judging it moot at the time, because I wasn’t too keen on the idea of leveling up, but instead, I was focused on the magical ingredients on building my mecha. I had once thought mana was what Grass Cultivator’s cultivated, but what is mana? 'Is it life essence?' That could explain a few things, but still, it was strange. So if sentient creatures in this plain, have life essences, then they have mana?

“Yes, that's the main way of getting the Passive Skill.”

“Wait, you can get it without the classification?!” I said my face agape at the tidbit.

“Yes.” He mantra, his eyes still close, as he furrowed his brow at my constant badgering.

“How?”

“I don’t know. It’s something to do with wisdom.”

“Do you know someone who does?”

“Maybe an elder Cultivator.”

‘Oh jeez,’ I thought I was reborn into a high fantasy world, not some wuxia style world. The idea had nulled me to consider what kind of genre of world Iris hurled me into. Cursing her name once more and my indifference earlier. I shrugged it off and stood to walk away from the annoyed expression of a Grass Cultivator, who had lost his mediating composure.

When the carriage jolted to move, I tried to search for my sidekick Peb within the interior. Noticing he was not inside, I went to the front of the archaic vehicle to a strange sight. The human Merrywind was having a scholarly discussion with Peb, who was sitting on a pile of gathered stones, munching on his conundrum.

“Personally, the taste of sea salt rocks is more refined, than the average salt rock..”

“I’ve never had sea salt rocks before? What do they taste like?” Peb pique at the new rock, he was licking his lips as he asked.

“Taste like the sea, my wee friend, taste like the sea.”

“The sea must be tasty.” He marveled, then hunched, a bit peeved at the idea, that he never heard of the sea before.

“The sea is tasty,” I remarked, recalling the seafood in my past life. Peb turned to me with a scowl, he was displeased I never mentioned to him about the sea before. I shrugged. “So where are we headed?”

“Well…” Merrywind, flick the bridle on the two donkeys who had stammered to halt and graze to move once more, he spoke. “Duke Agenchord resides in Stratenport, so It will take us maybe 2 or three days, to get there. But Gan wants us to reach the hamlet TaelLeaf before we go.”

“What’s there?”

“Ah, children.”

“Children?” I stared at the back of the human in befuddling consternation.

“We go there from time to time, when we cross Armont, in our travels. It’s a resting place for us gypsies.”

“So it’s a gypsy place?” I suggested with a shrug.

“Yeah, you could say that. The baron of those lands usually allows us to settle there for a season before we travel again the spans of this fair continent.”

“I see.”

After another couple of hours, when morning turned into midday and midday turned close to midafternoon, we had reached a caravan of wagons, all different in their array of design and colored roofing. There were so many people all, crowded around each other, with camped already set, and wafting smoke, churning meat spikes into a tantalizing smell. But the meat wasn’t the reason, I was awestruck, it was the different variety of individuals that set the population of the gypsy caravan.

They were so alien to my human brain to comprehend, I just stood there agape. There were large bird men, with their feathers and wings, flexing when they moved their arms to speak and lift. There was a family of wolf-looking beastkin, feeding a baby minotaur, which had a bib on his chest as he wailed for more ladled milk. Humans were there, and even small folks. There was a mushroom house atop one of the caravan roofs, with a few mushroom folk, removing pricked sprigs from their fungi hats. It was a giant community full of strange and varied sorts of races.

My teeth instantly clenched as I saw a motley crew of juvenile goblins chasing a small redhead girl who was kicking a small leather patched ball aways from them. Focusing my sights on them, I realized they were just playing a ball game, that I could not figure or discern the rules. This gypsy caravan was an amalgamation of different races, all calling themselves one people.

The Gypsies.

“Time to do our thing.” Wilavar hollered with a wide and goofy smile. He jumped off the front of the wagon and went around to the back, to retrieve a portable hardwood table. Gan went to the front and hollered for Sera in Amelia to come by. When Sera did, Gan signaled her to lift him up and place him atop Amelia’s pauldron.

“Where are we going?” Sera curiously asked.

“To the head and leader of this established caravan.” He pointed.

So off they went Mecha and Grass folk, into the throng of strange and peculiar races. I sat besides Peb, as I marveled around at such a bustling and oddly concordant crowd.

“Sink?” The bard called my name.

“Yes?” I answered with my shrill voice.

The human winced at my vocal cords then asked me. “I heard you are a unique songwriter, with odd-sounding beats and lyrics.”

“Yes…” My face widened at the compliment, but then paled at my talent.

“Want to help us in our new play that I and Gan devised?”

“A new play? Like a story that includes a song?”

The bard nodded at my run-down, as he opened the wooden leg stilts that were stocked underneath the wooden plank, that was the table.

“I’ll be happy to help.” Happy at the request, I accepted. I had a plethora of old songs embedded in my memory, which I was happy to bestow on this strange community of folks.

“Peb you too.” The bard suggested. Peb had stopped licking a stone and groaned, trying to conceptualize what the taste of the sea would taste like. With a nod and a shrug, he followed me as we headed to the bard, who was constructing a stage for the small folk in his company.

When the afternoon shade came, a crowd of small children and motley onlookers headed to our stage. I opted to not participate in the play, already done with my part, for I had feared for those people’s ears, listening to my shrieking vocal cords. The children sat, watched agape at the wooden platform before them. There was the baby Art, wearing a yellow grass-made crown, sitting upright on his wicker basket, with twigs and wooden small boards around to resemble a small wooden fort and the humans within.

Wink was the main character to portray our friend Teka. He growled and groaned, to then dither a wide slump to the likeness and stiffness of Teka, while holding on a grass blunted spear. Peb, garbed himself with a costume of stone and muddied grime, to look like the part of the troll, but a smaller form in kind. A variety of different races of children watched in awe as the drama unfolded within the small tent that was atop the hardwood table.

“I am the Grass Knight. I challenge you and your army to stop and battle, for these humans behind me, live in peace against your violence.” Wink hollered, pointing at Peb, and a cloud of shadowed soldiers behind him. Merrywind the bard, and his classification of the Mesmer, allowed him to create small illusions as props in the play. He fabricated a mirage scenery of grass and native forestry, around and within the play, which had inspired astoundment and applause to the floored audience sitting down below.

Then Soma stood up and out with her two other sisters, who were hidden by the edges of the wicker basket. They started the song I had shared with them, a familiar song from my old life, that was oddly fitting to the scene they were playing. It wasn’t ‘Mama mia’ but something more relevant to the tale before them.

“Where have all the good men gone

And where are all the gods?

Where's the streetwise Hercules to fight the rising odds?

Isn't there a Grass knight upon a fiery steed?

Late at night I toss and I turn

And I dream of what I need”

I sat at the opened front of the bard’s caravan, as I watched Soma’s rendition of ‘Holding out for a Hero’ by Bonnie Taylor. My eyes gleaming in merriment as I watch Wink portraying our friend as he spun and slash at Peb, who was growling and cursing, whilst licking his costume pieces when he had a moment to. Then the two grass sisters behind Soma who were ready to sing the chorus, both raise their sultry octaves in a choir of sounds.

“I need a hero

I'm holding out for a hero 'til the end of the night

He's gotta be strong

And he's gotta be fast

And he's gotta be fresh from the fight

I need a hero”

The chorus of the song had crescendo the baby Art to grab a few loose twigs from the wooden fort around him to then instinctively drum them to the catchy beat. I smiled at the surprisingly resourceful movement. This infant is clever, well he has to be---he was my charge. I smiled and clapped as the crowd of onlookers hollered at the toddler to keep drumming, as Wink continued on his battle with Peb.

The glimmer of steel pauldrons alerted me to the presence of my Mecha, and Sera, who opted not to participate in the shindig. She parked Amelia next to the bard’s caravan, jumping off her holding a grass wrap item. She directed herself towards me, to then beside me. As she sat, she examined the musical performance in front of us with a wistful look.

Putting the grass wrapping on her lap, she spoke to me. “It’s not your fault, Sink.”

I turned to her, the sad and mirthful expression mixed on my face, sobering into utter confoundment. “Huh.”

“You don’t have to blame yourself for Teka’s death.”

My face blanched at her words, as I tensed myself to argue back at her statement.

“He made his choice. Stupid as it is, he made it, himself. So I don’t blame you Sink.”

Sera then handed me the unwrapped grass package she had borne here. Smelling the tantalizing aroma, my hands gingerly opened further the grass wrapping. It was a lump of seared roast meat spiked with a twig. My eyes had watered down teardrops, as I stared down at the most cherished gift someone had given me in these troubling times. I turned to her to give her a stupid and goofy smile. “Thank you.” I deeply and gratefully said, thanking her both for the gift and her forgiveness at what I had burdened myself all throughout my grief.

She gave me a nod then turned to watch the show beyond us, of Teka the Grass Knight. I sat beside her, watching as I cried, chewing the crispy meat, with my tongue slightly burnt from the effort.