‘Rice Brings Health to the Valley’ was bored! Utterly, bone-deep, breath-takingly, muscle achingly bored!

It was the third day of the autumn rice harvest, and they were already so, so tired of it. They weren’t old enough to be trusted with the sickles and knives used to cut the rice, so their job was simply to hang around and see if anyone needed anything.

Boring! Boring boring boring.

Ok, there were bursts of activity now and again, helping to hang the rice so it dried properly, lending a hand where somebody else needed a break, but overall. It was the worst!

Once the rice bundles were dry, they would be ready to be threshed, and Health, as they called themselves, would have more work to do, but for now. Boring! Rice rice rice, who cared!

Ok fine, the autumn harvest was important sure. It meant that there would be food for another year. It meant that the village would have something to trade, which meant new clothes, and meat for the winter, but Health didn’t care about any of that. All they cared about was the fact that it was just so Gods. Damned. Boring!

Ugh!

The valley spread out below them, rows and rows of green terraces, green and healthy in the light. Some, nearer the top, were already drained of water, the rice bundled neatly up, but others were as of yet untouched. The whole village was out working, and a few people had even come from the settlement further down the mountain to help.

As they kicked at the edges of the wall they were using as a seat and stared down at the people below, some so far away that they looked like insects, Health thought about all the things they hated.

First and foremost was Rice, both as a crop and as a way of life, but a close second was the nothing, backwoods, stupid boring dumb village that they were currently forced to reside in.

The stupid naming conventions were a solid third. Everyone in the village was named after Rice! Their sister, ‘Rice Grows Up in Terraces Green’ and their mother, ‘The Fish Swim Amongst the Rice’, their father, ‘Brings Prosperity to the Family through Rice’, it was never-ending! Even the village was named Ricetown, after the stupid rice!

It was so stupid and dumb and stupid and they hated it. Why couldn't they have been born somewhere more interesting, ugh!

Health understood why they were all named this way, of course. The names were whispered by the birds of the sky and the fish in the waters. They came in on the wind and down in the rain and every now and again even from the gods themselves, but really. Couldn’t they all work together and come up with a broader theme, something not related to Rice!

Another kick at the wall, a loud huff, and finally, a few surreptitious glances around, just to make sure nobody was watching. Health was sitting on one of the highest terraces. Their father was a whole four levels down, and their mother wasn’t even in sight. There were any number of cousins and relatives around, but everyone was busy, focused…

Far over to their right, and one level down, was ‘White Rice with a Pearlescent Sheen’, their best friend, and a victim of similar circumstance. Health stared at her for a moment, and that brief moment of eye contact between the two was all it took.

Time to escape! Scramble, scramble, up through the dry and empty fields, ducking past the frames and bales, scrambling up the walls, over drying earth and into the surrounding woods.

Most people in the village kept the Rice part of their name, out of some sort of stupid misplaced price. Their mother was Ricefish, their dad Ricebrings, but they called themselves Health, and their best friend Pearl.

It was a bit weird to have a single word name, but not that uncommon. Apparently, it had been more unusual when their grandparents were young, as there was a lot of muttering about “dog names” and other such old-person nonsense, but Health and Pearl didn’t care about any of that. As long as they could distance themselves from the “rice” part of their name, that was all that mattered!

Health's mother had tried forcing different variations on them over the years. They couldn’t be Ricebrings, that was their father and you never took the same name as somebody else, but she had tried Ricevalley and Ricehealth and Villagerice and all sorts of other stupid iterations on the theme, before Health had thrown their arms up and vetoed them all. Loudly, along with a couple of other social conventions while they were at it.

The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.

Pearl was in much the same situation with her family, except with an extra layer of taboo for shortening the ‘escent’ off the end. As they scrambled together through the trees which marked the boundaries of their land, Health was proud of her for that. She was two years younger than them but even more stubborn!

-

A couple of months back, in the heat of summer, when the rice had been thick and green, the two of them had found a cave in the woods.

The place had been nothing more than a depression in the mountain face when they’d first found it, but a bit of digging into the earth had revealed a wall of crumbling mud bricks, slowly turning back to earth after years of absorbing moisture from the land.

That first day, after breaking down the wall, they had explored only a short way in. The place they'd uncovered seemed to consist of a single long corridor, with rooms on either side, filled with echoes and darkness. Over the next few weeks, they had spent a little time checking through the first couple, but harvest season was coming up and the two of them had been roped into work, quite literally.

The autumn harvest was the busiest time of year, and even the children were set to work, arranging and mending baskets, ropes and bags, all of which would be needed for the harvest. Around them, adults sharpened sickles and made the appropriate offerings to the gods, that the weather might be bright and clear. The basic things that a village needed to have sorted out before the real work started.

They were upon it now. The way the sun shone directly into the cave at this time of the day made it appear like a corridor to another world, a door to elsewhere, placed there by some laughing god.

The complex within was interesting. At some point in the long distant past, it had been chipped out of the rock, and then later on small magics had been used to conceal it.

Pearl had a strong talent for Change, and it was her who had found the wall, by spotting the tiny glimmers of failing magic. Colours and sparkles in the air, she said.

Health had no magical talent whatsoever, and was quite content to keep it that way. They weren’t going to be a growth-battery, trapped in the village forever and guilted into never leaving. Bugger that! The moment they were old enough, they were gone. Outta here! Vamoose!

Change had been used to make the wall mimic stone, Pearl explained anyway, and with some searching they'd found signs that the surrounding vegetation had also been altered, to cling where it shouldn’t. Still, whatever had been done, it had been many, many years ago, and those magics were now all but gone.

Inside, the walls and ceiling had been chiselled to look like bricks, but there was no other ornamentation. All the rooms they found were empty, the floors seemingly brushed clean and the walls bare.

Some experimentation did reveal that the floor sloped a little towards the outside. It would be a perfect place to shelter in a rainstorm.

Even the corridor seemed to end abruptly in a bare stone wall, but careful searching and nudging from Pearl had revealed it as what it was. Another bricked up doorway.

-

Between them, they had “borrowed” tools from the village, hiding them in one of the rooms until they were ready, and today was that day. Today, they were ready to break through the back wall.

“You sure we should be doing this?” Pearl seemed unusually hesitant, as she tossed her hammer from hand to hand. “What if there’s like, a monster back there or somethin’”

Health shook their head, holding the large chisel out in front of themselves like a sword, “you said that about the first wall, and there was nothin’, it’ll be fine, c’mon!”

Pearl chewed on her lip for a moment, studying them, before shrugging and settling the hammer in her left hand, turning towards the back of the cave.

It wasn’t badly lit, once they’d cleared the undergrowth and such from the front entrance, but they’d bought a lantern anyway. The doorway behind them was south-facing, and the mid-morning sun streamed in, illuminating almost all the way to the back.

Pearl had also done something to their eyes. It muted colours but allowed them both to see much better in the dim light. It would be fixed before they went home, of course, couldn’t have the adults asking weird questions, but for now, it allowed them both to see easily in the dark.

Change wasn’t a well-regarded magic in the village, to the relief of both of them. It didn’t help with growing rice, therefore it was no good!

Growth? Now that was a talent more valuable than gold, but Change? Change was… Insubstantial? Ephemeral? Gaudy and pointless and nothing to do with Rice! It was a magic used by thieves and con artists, and nothing more. Add the fact it was almost impossible to make something into something that it didn’t want to be, and that the changes didn't tend to be permanent, well, you just get that nonsense out of your head right now young lady! Why couldn't you grow rice, like a good kid!

Then one day, a traveller had appeared at the entrance to their village, dressed up like an animal and almost glowing with magic, even to Health’s poor magical vision. It had been early evening when they'd arrived, and the elders had gone out to meet them with torches and stern words.

Health had snuck out and hidden flat against a roof, watching the exchange with their hands across their mouth. The traveller had left, walking away into the night, and that was all that had become of it. Nobody had ever spoken of it again, except Health and Pearl.

They had recounted it to her later that night, and it had been mind-blowing to the younger girl. Not the adult's reaction, but that you could do that!

She had never been allowed to use her magic outside of small repairs, had never even considered that it could be used that way, to change your own body. Over the next year, the two of them had experimented in the woods until they could replicate something that matched how that traveller looked, with their own spin, of course.

If their parents or the other villagers ever found out, then their world would end. The two of them might even be exiled! But so far nobody had found out, so it was all fine.

Pearl reached out, tugging on Health’s shirt to catch their waning attention, and with a nod, the two of them headed towards the wall.