Over the next few weekends, the Eigeroy siblings were forced to watch as their own ancestral land was torn up and fundamentally altered. The father and the B father took the cabin boat out together and brought it back full of wood planks of a foreign color and grain. They made piles of the planks. Then, the Eigeroys’ own dirt was dug up and replaced with some kind of concrete stuff – ugly and gravely, not even a little like earth, or stones, or grass. Beams went up, then planks up for walls. The parents even brought some foreigner in to put some crazy kind of pipes all around. “Like snakes in my walls”, Arlendr mumbled an objection to himself. The project came together quickly. The faun siblings spent the transitional weekends hiding, sulking, and watching the progress from afar.
If not for Solveis’s affection for Livia, Solveis would not have spent time with her peers at all. She made one of the party only when Livia requested her presence, and only if they stayed far from the construction. She also patronized the real – the original – cabin, only when she had to, to eat meals with her fellow children and to sleep.
One morning, when Solveis woke early to work on the garden with the old man, she vented to him. “How come they have to make that-that-that thing? I could hate it,” she declared in a serious little voice.
“I’ll admit, it’s not how I would have done it. It’s not native wood, and the design is very... modern. It doesn’t quite fit.”
That thought helped Solveis to understand why she hated the new edifice so. It didn’t fit. It was like the intruders. They didn’t fit. They broke the natural way of things and were destructive. This new head pike was the same, except it was permanent too.
It made her pensive about her own original cabin. It didn’t really fit either, now that she thought about it. It broke the smooth curve of the hill. It broke the transitions from rocky shore, to earthen hillside, to cliffs. It existed at unnatural right angles. It too was an offensive impediment. At least though, the color of the wood seemed to match, and it was worn a little down in the same was that the foot paths were. It seemed to have made a compromise with its surroundings and bowed to them in a humble way, which could only be respected.
This new one was uniform in color, and too rectangular, and too big. It left no room for natural beauty. It was a thief.
“No. It doesn’t fit,” she verbally agreed with the old man. Then, feeling that she could honestly appeal to the old man for feedback, she shyly admitted, “My cabin doesn’t quite fit either, does it? Was it always here?”
The old man smiled knowingly at her. “That’s very honest. You’re right. Both are an affront to the glory of nature.” He sat thoughtfully for a moment, then he continued, “At least the original cabin comes from local wood though, which my people cut down by hand, and only as much as they needed. I think it tries not to be intrusive. – Even this garden could be considered an affront to nature, you know.”
This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.
It was true. Solveis could see it. They were putting in plants that the soil hadn’t asked for. She thought aloud, “You’re right. Now I’m sorry about it. – Am I ok to make my potatoes?”
The old man answered, “I try to make up for the invasion by being as cooperative and mutually beneficial as possible. Like – for example – that weed you’re pulling up. Can I see it?”
Solveis pushed the pile of dark green vines toward him.
The old man continued his explanation, “This stuff grows everywhere. It can choke out other plants, but it is good too. I always try to move it, and not just kill it. It’s very useful you know. It’s greevine. I’m sure you’ve heard of it. It’s edible. You could actually live on it, it has just about all the nutrients you need. It has to be cooked to death though because it’s rough on most people’s systems. – Here, I’ll give it a place to grow. Maybe I’ll put a lattice up for it.”
“It looks like that horrible stuff… pickvine, I think.”
“It’s related. That stuff is not so horrible you know. It’s in everything. It’s also very nutritious, and if you can get past the vinegar taste, it's savory and nice. Pickvine is dried and made into flakes that are added to everything from protein formula to pasta.”
“I do like that green pasta. It is savory. How do they get the green stuff to taste good, since it starts out so weird?”
“You should ask your neighbors.”
Since the old man didn’t continue his explanation, Solveis figured that she was meant to figure out his meaning. “What neighbors? We have none, except Livia, sort of, but she’s not even really a neighbor.”
“No. Silly. Your neighbors on the other side.”
“Deyani?” Solveis asked, referring to one of the members of the deer-hu family who lived on a little island to their west.
“I don’t know all their names, but yes, the island with the deer-hu colony. They farm the stuff. Pretty much the whole island is a pickvine farm.”
“Is that the horrible smell that passes over Molil once a sol?!” Solveis asked, horrified. For a few weeks, every solar year, a horrible smell wafted from the other island. It was like sour vinegar and spoiled produce. It permeated everything, and made them all smelly, even their cloths were infected by the smell.
“When you don’t have much, you make do with what you have. That horrible smell lets that family have an independent living.”
“Are they bad neighbors, or are we?” Solveis asked thoughtfully.
“I think you’re both uninvolved neighbors.”
“I know the one girl, Deyani – Dey. I like her. But those boys who come with her though…” Solveis let an exasperated breath out. “And there are so many of them. And they just swim here, no raft or anything.”
He crooked one eye at her and asked, “like Livia?”.
“Yeah. Well, huh. I didn’t know that was where the smell came from.”