For the next two weeks, give or take, I spent my days shadowing Conifer. He took me to the fields during the day and showed me how to help with the pepper harvesting, which took up a large amount of time for me. Normally I’d hate the work, as despite having done so much exercising and fighting within that short period of time, I still remained unathletic and rather weak. Sure I improved, but improvement meant I went from trash to subpar. Still, the harvest was wonderful for me. Menial work with low, constant effort. Exactly what I needed to keep my body too busy for my head to fill with constant intrusions.

Conifer made for good company as well. He was an easy going guy for the most part, and spent a lot of his free time playing music in the square. A sizeable crowd would come by and check him out, all pretty much the same group each day. And he’d just play, seemingly different songs each time. One night he told me he played everything off the cuff, that it was all improvisational. Though that didn’t surprise me, it still left me speechless. Talent like that felt wasted out here in the boonies, lost among a bunch of poor refugees.

Then again, Conifer and the people never seemed to complain really.

Perhaps a week after I’d met him, when we were at his little shack after the day was done and the sun was almost completely gone, I asked him, “Conifer?”

“Hmm?” he mumbled, strumming his lute quietly.

“Why are the people here so…” I struggled for words.

“Content?” he finished, a small smile on his face. I nodded.

“Yeah. You guys are all war refugees, right? That means there really isn’t any reason for you guys not to be unhappy, or scared. I haven’t even seen someone cry since I got here.”

He quit strumming and sighed, sitting up straight. The rings under his eyes were darker than usual, and it highlighted how bright his eyes were, like a pair of unrelenting suns. “That’s right. We’ve all got our reasons, but we’re all generally here because the strong drove us off.”

“What do you mean?” I asked, dumbly.

“Well, a war is simply the strong displaying their power,” he said, his voice growing more full and confident. He tended to do this when he felt preachy. It worked, and I found myself listening to his rants with increased interest whenever he did this. Conifer was a passionate man, and it exuded off of him and touched those he spoke to. “I’m sure even you could guess that, despite not experiencing it first hand. Many of us are weak people, here on the Orange islands. That’s why our trade loop doesn’t include other countries, we survive all alone out here, fending for ourselves and only fighting off the stray pirate here and there with a highly trained force, a force that's only strong because of our king.

“We are weak, and have every reason to despise the countries that have sent us here, hate even our neighbors because of it. But we all share a commonality, even with our geographical differences. Know what that is?” he asked, a dubious smile on his face.

I shook my head, mystified.

“Our despair,” he said matter-of-factly. “In our shared experiences of running in fear, we all know what it is like to be driven from our home. So each of us does our part to make everyone here feel at home, even though we are all sick for homes that may or may not even exist anymore. Do you understand what I’m saying, Mint?”

Shrugging, I said, “I think so. Is that why you ended up talking to me?”

Surprised, he scratched his head nervously. “Kind of, yeah. You looked pretty sad to me, and I knew that you were new here so I decided to see if you needed a friend.”

More than you could possibly have known, I thought.

He asked me then what had brought me there with Sage, and for the most part I told him the truth, only leaving out the part where I’m a prince. When I told him about how Sage was teaching me to fight, his face lit up with excitement.

“Really? Wow, our king must have really taken a shine to you.”

“I wish he hadn’t,” I said gloomily. “He’s overzealous, and he has to have seen that I have no talent for fighting. I’m more of a scholar than some kind of hero.”

“You might feel that way, but he certainly doesn’t if he still believes in you,” Conifer said, confidence permeating his words. He placed a firm hand on my shoulder and I felt at ease. “I see it in you, too.”

I looked up at his grinning face and felt happy to have met him. “Thanks, Conifer. You’re a good friend.”

“As are you,” he said. “Now let’s get to bed.”

During this time, I also noticed that when he would play his music in the square, his eyes would often stray to this woman and her daughter who would come see him every day.

Every day except for one, that is.

The day they didn’t come, he tuned his lute for a while before getting up suddenly and leaving. I had to jog after him, which was hard after a long day of harvesting.

“Hey! Wait for a moment!” I called, gasping for breath by the time I caught up to him. “Where are you going?” I asked. “You didn’t even start to play. I do something wrong?”

“Oh,” he said, as if he didn’t realize I was there until just then. “Sorry about that, I guess I did just get up and leave, didn’t I?”

“Yeah, you did,” I said, giggling. “Now what’s going on? You okay?”

“Yeah, yeah I’m fine,” he said. “I just noticed that Parsley and her daughter Rose weren’t there to watch me today, and I figured I’d go check up on them.”

“Oh, okay,” I said, still concerned. Everyday a similar crowd showed up, but there were days where one or two people would be missing and those times it seemed like Conifer didn’t even notice.

We walked down the winding Kiyomi alleys, squeezing past people until we finally made it to a little shack on the north end of town, which was an unfortunate distance for my legs to walk. To my surprise, Conifer didn’t bother knocking. He just started to play a song, one with an exceedingly jaunty melody accompanied by his broad grin.

“Open the door for me,” he whispered to me, and I did.

Both women were very surprised to see us, but without a second thought let us in and gave a warm reception. Rose had been ill that day so her mother was taking care of her, and they were both disappointed that they couldn’t come visit Conifer that day.

“Well you know, Rose, they say a good song will strike any illness back,” Conifer said, then he belted out in a charismatic performance, which was new for him, or at least new for me; usually he just played his lute without singing.

I don’t remember the lyrics, but they were silly and made up as he went along, the sort of thing you’d sing to yourself on a quiet day alone to entertain yourself. From anyone else it would be embarrassing, but Conifer made it work and had us all laughing, even comically timing the lute to his words for dramatic effect. At one point, Conifer stopped his crooning to talk to me. I’d been standing in the doorway, unsure of where to go since the place was as small as Conifer’s place, which would mean I’d be sitting next to someone which wasn’t something I wanted to do.

“What are you doing standing there, Mint? Come on in, sit down next to Rose here. She could use your company,” he sang the last sentence and winked at me, which got me to blush and made the ladies laugh. Reluctantly, I sulked over to the small spot between Rose and the wall. Her long auburn hair smelled of sweat and wood, and her face was ghostly pale, but her dark eyes were bright and alive. She gave me this look as if she had never seen me before, a glance that padded over me entirely in an instant so as not to cause too much discomfort for myself, but was also long enough to let me know she was interested in me.

Women were something of a mystery to me at this point in my life. Sure I knew what they were, it’s not as if they were like the creatures on Durian. I’d encountered plenty in the castle back at Persea; many were cooks or servants, a couple had forced their way into the army, and of course my mother and I were very close. But those relationships, outside of the one with my mother, were very surface level and if you can’t tell, involved no interactions with girls my own age.

When Rose looked at me that way, despite her being sick and obviously not looking her best, I was suddenly very intrigued by this girl I’d seen in the background at every single performance of Conifer’s. We didn’t talk to each other or anything, but we enjoyed his private performance together and the memory has stuck with me for all these years simply because of how she made me feel that day. I was simultaneously uncomfortably nauseous and filled with excitement, a drive to impress this girl who I just met but nowhere near confident enough to actually do anything.

Parsley left to go use the fire pit in the square to cook some food for us, and when she came back we all feasted on the standard meal during the summer on Mango: semi-charred salmon. Most of the times I ate that, I thought it was serviceable, but something about the salmon I had with them that night was impeccable and I can still taste how both juicy and crispy it was even now, just thinking about it.

When the sun got too low, Rose and Parsley felt tired and thanked us for coming, Parsley especially. She was very close to Conifer, it seemed, and she gave him a hug before he left that night. When me and him walked back home, in between fantasies of what I should have said or done with Rose, I remembered that all of this was rather random. So I asked Conifer what we were doing there, why we ended up going over when most days we just hung out in the square anyway.

“I just knew there was a reason for why they weren’t there tonight,” he said, simply. “Rose and her mother love my music, and I decided if they were having a rough day I’d go make it brighter.”

“But why?” I asked. “It’s not as if you had to do that. Besides, I’m sure the other people who are fans of yours would have enjoyed your songs.”

Conifer ruffled my hair and smirked. “Well, you’re perceptive. I wanted to go over there because I’m especially close to those two.”

Stretching out my arms and yawning at the moon, I asked him why they were so close.

He just gave me a look I can only describe as bittersweet.

“Is it because you and Parsley are in love?” I asked him. That got him to clam up, and I started laughing.

“It’s not nice to make accusations like that, Mint,” he chided.

“Yeah, well then tell me what’s going on, Conifer,” I said, big smile on my face. “What’s the deal with helping them over the rest? Come on, I told you all about why I’m here, you can trust me. We’re friends.”

He heaved a heavy sigh and tousled his hair. “Do I have to?”

I nodded and crossed my arms at him. “Of course you do.”

“Fine, fine.” We turned the corner, onto the street where his shack was, and he stared up at the moon. It was nearly full, and very bright that night. He opened his mouth, then before he said anything he laughed and said, “Well, I guess I do love Parsley, you caught me Mint.”

“Why was that so hard to say?” I said, pushing him playfully. He just laughed some more, and we made our way back and laid down. Something felt off, though. Maybe it was just paranoia on my part.

The truth is, everyone I’ve ever been close to has lied to me at one point or another. That’s probably normal for everyone. Doesn’t make it any less disturbing.

A few days later, while we were out in the fields harvesting peppers, I found myself bothered by something. Conifer caught it, seeing that I was working slower, stopping more and staring off into space. He called for us to take a rest and we sat down beneath a tree not far from where we had left our tools, and he asked if I was alright.

“The other night you asked me why I ended up here, but I just realized I never asked you why you ended up here. I don’t even know what you were like before you were here.”

Conifer grinned. “Is that all? Well you don’t need to worry about something like that, Mint! We’re friends now, and that’s all that matters. Knowing what someone was like before you knew them shouldn’t affect your relationship with them in the future. People change, and they tend to change based on those around them.”

I nodded, as I did when he began his preaching. “I understand all that, but I still want to know.”

Nodding, he conceded. “I guess you deserve to know, seeing as you told me about yourself.” He scratched his head, frowning. “Just don’t think differently of me, okay?”

I agreed I wouldn’t, and then I shut up while he told me about why he left his homeland.

“I lived on the island of Honeydew,” he began. “It’s the island directly south Kiwi. It’s known primarily as the location of the annual fighting tournament held there, where the big countries will enter their prized fighters and auction them up. We also had some small trade going on with Kiwi since we were so close, as well as Almond south of us. We were a fairly neutral territory because of the games, and my life there was ordinary and quiet. It was myself, my wife Nutmeg and my daughter Cinnamon—little Cinny—all living there in a little house in the capital city. We lived in poverty, probably eating worse than we do here. I made a living playing music in town, which wasn’t much of a living, and Nutmeg would help me by dancing. Even little Cinny helped when she got older, warbling child songs. I didn’t like the way we lived, but the music is all I knew, and all I know now.”

He shook his head. “I should have appreciated the life I had with them more while it was happening, not now when they’re gone.

“About eight years ago, Honeydew was ransacked by a group of warriors that traveled there on boats from the north. We weren’t ready. Honeydew doesn’t have a proper military, you see. The only warriors ever in that area are usually there for the competition, and when that’s over they leave. Our major trade in Honeydew was weapons and armor. More blacksmiths live in Honeydew than any other country here in Tamarind, even though it is also the smallest country in the whole Tamarind Sea. These people came to gut us of our weapons, and those who didn’t submit paid with their lives.

“I said we were simple musicians, my family, and that’s true. But these people didn’t realize that, and they tormented us. When I told them I didn’t have anything to give them, the man who was holding me and my family hostage stole my girls away from me.”

Conifer then pulled his tunic up, showing me for the first time a massive scar that went from where his hip met his belly all the way up to just under his collar bone, going from left to right across his chest. It had obviously healed a long time ago, but even so it made my eyes bug out just seeing the thing. If I had seen that the first time I met him, I’d have thought he was a warrior. Most warriors I’ve met, in fact, have scars that pale in comparison to that one.

“When they stole my girls from me, something broke in me that day. I ran after the man and tried to fight him off, but this is what he left me with. I would probably have died had someone not found me and nursed me back to health. The men were all gone by the time I was able to walk again, and I had no clue what had happened to my girls. It took a lot of asking around, but I found out about the Orange Archipelago being a land for refugees, and I came here and searched for them across all the islands. No one has ever seen or heard of them though.”

By the time he finished, his eyes were glistening and he was rubbing his nose preemptively.

“I’m sorry,” I said, sheepishly. I wasn’t sure what I could even say to that.

“Don’t worry about it, Mint,” he said, forcing a grin and a laugh. “Not like you knew my story would be so depressing. Besides, we’re two lads with the same cane, you know? Since we both are missing family due to war and all.”

“Yeah, but you got left with that thing,” I said, pointing at his chest. He just laughed at that.

“Yeah, well. Parsley seems to like it, so that’s fine. I’ve my health and that’s all that I care about.”

I nodded and headed back to work, thinking everything over all the while. I hadn’t realized until then that there were probably tons of families like that on the Orange islands, blended like that due to war. Parsley obviously had some husband or a lover wherever she was from, but lost him circumstantially in the same way Conifer lost his wife and daughter. It made me wonder if I was some sort of filler, like I was there to help fill the void for his daughter. Then I started wondering if he was there to fill the void for my father, and I had to stop going down that dark corner of thought. Theorizing on all that made my head hurt.

I did have one question for Conifer later, though.

“Who was it that attacked your island? Did a country betray you, or was it pirates?”

He just kept working, eyes low to the ground, before finally saying, “I’m not sure. They could still be out there, holding my family hostage.”

I told him I’d help him find his family, but he declined. I think he had given up on them a long time ago, and I couldn’t blame him. The longer I was away from home, the more I figured my mom was a lost cause, dead and gone. Time and distance were devouring them, even taking the memories we had of them.

It was scary for me. For him, too.