"Let's hope she likes this kind of cake, I suppose." I say to myself before returning to my otherwise quiet walk. This box isn't too heavy, but I keep stopping to look at it. I've no clue if she'll like it, and I most certainly do not know if I will. It looked pretty, so I bought this one. The cake is pale with icing and has an oddly shaped, red fruit with little chutes on it. Seeds rest in them, they apparently pop.

Or so the baker insisted...

A burstberry, I think he called it? Apparently, the name comes from the process of harvesting them. One cannot simply pick them from the plant, you have to carefully take away all leaves and root connections. Or, it will shoot all of its seeds out at a supposedly cutting speed.

He also told me his son was temporarily blinded when he forgot to pick them properly. He didn't have goggles on and when it went pop. Right into his eye! While the boy has my sympathies, I also find it a bit funny that such dangerous fruit is on such an eye-pleaser of a cake.

Reaching the flower gardens, I look around for anyone who sticks out and catch onto the sound of tapping. Double checking that it's not just someone's heels, I spot Rianta-chira's unique hair. Speeding up, I catch up to the misery stricken woman as she aimlessly walks. She sniffles and turns to face me, my hands presenting the cake.

"I got us some lunch, Rianta-chira." I tell her, smiling clear and bright in the hopes it will cheer her up. Even if only a little. I blink and properly take in the state of her face. Wet, puffy.

She looks away and goes to a tree, huddling up against it, "Am... Am I a bad person... Einervaene?"

Trying my best not to be stumped. Each hiccup from her is all the more daunting. This is quite a heavy question to be throwing around, especially to someone like myself. I am not a well-known friend of hers. Not one with a close relationship... Yet, in doing her this kindness, I will find myself with what I have been without for some time now.

Going down onto my knees, I settle my things about in front of us both, "Can you please explain it a little more?"

"More...?" she lets out, her eyes wayward as her mind tries its best to get into order. She looks away and then up to the clear blue sky. A long sigh escapes her.

"Well, what brought on this question? I asked you about the dress, you talked a little. And then you got upset. We are not all that familiar with the past of either, so I am confused as to what happened."

"I see... Am... Am I a bad person for leaving my flower to stay with my precious love...? I was something very important in my home. Something too important to simply throw away, and I did. All to be with my love..."

I frown as my thoughts think of home. I get her, I really do. Mother sent me away because she believed me to be in more danger within the walls of our castle than out on the open water of the All-Coast. While I trust her, I really do trust her. There have been times I have questioned such a choice, whatever it is that scares her, we could've faced it together.

And, well, here I am now, on a journey to undo what seems to be the cause of it all.

"Why do you consider staying with someone you love so dearly to be bad? It's a beautiful thing to want to be with someone like you do." I finally answer and not even a hint of pride smiles itself upon her face. Her eyes only quiver.

I shuffle a little closer as she seems to find the tree she's on to be uncomfortable. Letting her lean on me, I try to accommodate her over my own wants. It's a surprising thing to have happened, but I feel like I am getting used to it nice and easy. Oddly, it's surprisingly natural.

This book's true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.

"As an ivy-mother, you have a duty to your people... My people... A responsibility to be there for the mothers-to-be. A responsibility to the children and how they help the flower grow. And... And... I left them, I left them without my guidance, something we aelenvari desperately need. The Gilded-Bark insisted I get myself together, wait for the right time to put down my staff... I spat on that request, blinded it out of the conversation. I have deprived them of their ivy-mother and all because I want to be with someone... I was selfish, unforgivably so."

"They will grow without you, no?" I suggest, defaulting to the idea that she must be on about a city or something. A lot of her terminology doesn't process right for me. I can only assume its meaning. She left her hometown, having been its head priestess or something, all for Nin-kischu?

I can make a lot of guesses, but nothing compares to the actual answer-

"NO!" she snaps, her face suddenly in mine as her head things burn my forehead.

I lean back away from this aggression and she retreats the opposite way.

"No, it can't! We need an Ivy-Mother to look after our children as they grow! Tell me, do you know what it is like, to be a part of something so much and being forced to watch it die off year after year and being able to do nothing about it!? I thought maybe if I stayed with my love I'd be able to help my flower, give them the sons they needed to get back to how we used to be so very long ago... AND THEN- But I can't do that anymore because I am here with a love who..." she rants tearfully, her body breaking down into a heaving mess.

Blinking my confusion away as she curls up, I try to orient the information the right way.

"What happened...?" I ask her, my concern bluntly adorning my features. Did Nin-kischu do something foul? Did something that he could not do occur? Is this journey to Suhurlodst the cause or coincidental?

"No... I won't say... I won't... I won't betray the one duty I still have!" she snaps, and while she moves back, I raise my hands to show my lack of threat. I can't quite get what is going on, but maybe it is for the best? I do not know, I really do not. Yet, I also cannot stomach the idea of knowing she is bothered this much and that I can do nothing.

"So... Why leave with him? Why not stay there for as long as you can? If helping your people means so much to you... Why did you leave?" I ask and I regret saying it, as I feel as if I am being unfair. Given my situation, do I have the right to ask anyone why they have to leave the familiar?

"Because I love him! I love him and I want to be with him!" she reiterates, and I try to nod in understanding.

"Why do you love him?" I ask, perhaps a little too sharp-edged. Regret burns up my insides and my shoulders close inwards. I am pushing far deeper than I have any right to...

Yet, her mouth opens without a sign of anger, "Because... Because he is strong, the strongest I... The strongest I had seen back then. The strength to give me many sons and turn back the decline the Pestilence brought unto us..."

Pestilence...? No matter!

"Then how have you failed your people?" I ask, latching onto this clear, golden lifeline!

"Huh...?" she goes.

"If your duty to your people is to provide them with sons. Then, by being with your lover, you continue to allow that to be a possibility. This future you're dreading, it is going to be one with sons. Teeming, filled with them! How can you say you have failed your people when you will have a... An entire farm of seeds!" I explain, filling in with such a strange sentence at the end.

Thinking of babies as a farm is... Strange. Very strange.

"I've failed them because I am not there to perform an essential service... I am not there to help them. I cannot guide them, nurture them or build them up if I am not there. My duty isn't just to rear- It wasn't that alone. As an ivy-mother, I was a part of a long line of sacred wisdom passed onto me by my forebears. By leaving, I have cut off such an important link!"

"Unless you are the only ivy-mother in existence, it is not as severe as you are seemingly painting it. You left with the with the intent that your love for Nin-ki- Nin. You left them so that your love for Nin might help them. You haven't left them where it matters, you can still help them. Body and spirit." I try to convince her with and it seems to find some ground in the mystery of her head.

"How...? How am I there for them when I am not even living with them? How am I there for them when I got rid of it all just so I could stay with my love!?" she asks.

"Because if Nin is as strong as you say he is... And, if you truly do love him with all your heart and more... Then... Then..." I begin to say, unhelpfully trailing off, "Then, as long as you keep making new sons to bless our world with. To impress the gods and goddesses with... Then, you will always be serving them. If the problem is that your people are dying off, then your duty is to keep making them sons."

"As long as I keep making new sons..." she repeats with a whisper, her hands clutching her belly while her cheeks take on the red of an innocent blush.