Sunflower - Chapter 11 (Patreon)

My friend is staring at me.

In a way, I have grown accustomed to her doing so. In another way, I find it bothersome.

I have taught her to gaze not towards me, but rather, towards the sun.

- Perhaps she is confused today? Perhaps she thinks that I am the sun?

How flattering.

We are taking a break to rest. After arriving on the distant shore on the west side of the great-water, we had walked for the remainder of the day and then we rested.

Now, another new morning has come, but my friend seems to be a little strange today.

Doing the unthinkable, I turn away from the glow of the sun to look at her.

She sits there with crossed legs and just stares.

What is it, friend?

[Sunflower]

You bask in the light of the sun

+ 1 EXP

EXP: 122/240

Do I have something on me?

I hope that I do not. If I had a caterpillar on me, it would be most embarrassing.

My friend, Burch, opens her mouth to speak.

- But then, after a time of silence, she simply closes it again.

Indifferent, I turn back towards the sun and spread my leaves out wide.

It is strange when she speaks to me.

But it is also strange when she does not speak to me.

Life is an oddity.

_____________________________________________________________

The world here, west of the great-water, is… strange.

We have left the shoreline and we have wandered over a grassland, lush. But now, we stand before something that is most unfamiliar to my senses.

The air is numbingly thick with moisture. The foliage, the trees, they grow tighter and denser, the leaves of the plants growing thicker and heavier and the trees growing slimmer with high crowns and no low branches.

- Primordial.

This thing that is before us is no ordinary forest. It is far wetter and full of plants that are entirely unfamiliar to me.

Amazing.

I never knew that there were so many different kinds of plants.

[Sunflower]

You bask in the light of the sun

+ 1 EXP

EXP: 124/240

EXP (Burch): 08/90

Burch adjusts her rucksack, wiping her forehead of her dew, and the two of us trudge along, through the slim, slender openings between the heavy overgrowth of the wet-forest.

_____________________________________________________________

Progress is slow.

The overgrowth hinders us and there is little sunlight here.

This is most depressing.

The trees here, across the great-water, act the same as the trees back on our side of it. They like to steal the sunlight and keep it from ever reaching the brown, mulchy ground.

We watch, as a snake, slender and beautiful, covered in colors ranging from azure to emerald, rises up the body of a sleek tree.

My friend keeps her distance, which is wise of her to do.

At the same time, she swipes through the air, swatting away a group of insects. This forest is rich with life, richer than anything I have ever seen before. The soil is as alive as I am, or she is. Every clump of it contains an abundance of insects, of mycelium and worms and roots and creatures and critters.

The forest is alive.

- Bewildering.

We continue our journey.

I wonder if paradise is close?

I wonder, if the trees there, in paradise, if they like to share the sun with everyone else too?

That would be nice.

_____________________________________________________________

It is night.

We are in a place that is made of stones. They are large and square and look as if they were constructs of her ilk, but made in a time forgotten.

- The wet-forest has come to reclaim most of it.

Burch sits by the fire, which was very difficult to make, as everything is damp here and she gazes into her soil-covered book. Unlike the forest on our side of the world, the wet-forest seems more alive at night, than during the day, given the noises of strange animals all around us.

How curious.

As for the book, whenever we rest, it captivates her.

During the daytime, we travel and she is nourished by my generosity. In turn, she carries me on her back, the two of us forming a powerful symbiosis.

We are two parasites, each feeding off of the other.

- Perhaps that is really what friendship is?

She looks up from her book, staring at me, from the oddly square rock that she sits on.

“It’s a book on magic,” she says, looking back down to the thing in her hands.

Magic?

What an odd term.

I look around at the world that surrounds us. I gaze at the dark night-shadows of the wet-forest, I gaze at the overgrown, massive stones that surround us, I gaze at my friend, who has traveled with me from the great meadows of the east-world and I stare towards the fire, burning brightly, its flames winding like dancing bees around a pungent blossom.

- Is this not all magic?

How can that book be more interesting than all of this?

I simply do not understand.

But perhaps I am simply not meant to?

After all, I am just a sunflower.

_____________________________________________________________

Magic.

What is magic?

My roots dig into my friend’s back and she winces in discomfort as I pierce her flesh.

- Is this magic?

Burch adjusts the rucksack and carries me off into the world, as we march on towards paradise.

But paradise seems to be very far away.

After all, I can not see the sun here, trapped beneath the crowns of the many wet-trees.

Her blood tastes weak today.

Her body is nourished only by my sugars and while this is perhaps enough for an elegant creature, such as myself, the large, crude bodies of the ilk of my friend appear to need more than just sugar to sustain themselves.

How exhausting.

I suppose that it does make sense. I do need minerals as well. But I get them from the soil.

My friend never roots herself into the soil, so it makes sense that she has no minerals.

- Is ‘eating’ magic?

Taking the life-force of another unto ourselves.

What an amazing concept.

I wonder about the man who I drank of, many days ago, the old, gray male. I took in many of his minerals and they have sustained me, some of them are still in my roots and stem, I am sure. They sustain me still.

The waters of the grotto, there are still droplets of it, stuck inside of my reserves. I am sure.

The harsh burns of the too-bright sun on the dry grasslands, the marks they left on my leaves, they too, remain with me.

Everything that we partake in comes with us.

I realize how strong my friend Burch is.

She is not just carrying me to paradise.

She is carrying all of those things too, because they are in me, they are in her.

Wow.

Amazing.

This, this must be magic.

_____________________________________________________________

We clear the wet-forest, coming to a break.

Sharp rocks line the edge of an incline, at the bottom of it sits water.

Fast water.

A river.

It is wide and large and the color of the water is distant from the luxurious azure hues of the great-water. The river is brackish and unclear and its rapid current disturbs all manner of silt and mud.

- Beautiful.

“Wish we had a boat,” says my friend, speaking her first sentence of the day.

It is a good sentence.

A boat would be most useful. The river, strong, could carry us, even with all of the extra weight that we carry ourselves.

But we do not have a boat.

Most unfortunate.

Slowly, carefully, she makes her way down the incline, moving closer towards the water.

We reach it and stare down at the sight.

The river winds on for as far as the eye can see.

Shadows disturb the water, visible even through the murk.

- Life.

The river, like the rich soil of the wet-forest, is teeming with it. It is abundant, as are we.

Here, by the river, where there is no foliage, the sun can reach me once again.

Ah.

I missed you.

[Sunflower]

You bask in the light of the sun

+ 1 EXP

EXP: 132/240

EXP (Burch): 16/90

My friend looks around until she finds a big, long stick of pliant, strong wood.

Together with a rock and some fire that she has made early today, she sharpens it into a stinger, akin to the kind that had pierced her breast and stomach during our escape across the great-water, but much longer.

I did not know that bees could get so large.

Oh no.

A terrifying thought comes to me.

Perhaps I was mistaken from the beginning?

- Perhaps she really is a bee, hoping to pollinate me?

I obscure my face. Please do not pollinate me, friend. It would be most uncomfortable for our continued journey together.

My friend heads to the water and waits, lifting the stinger until a shadow comes close to the edge.

She throws it in and pulls it back out a few moments later.

- Attached to the end of the stinger is a big, fat, flopping fish.

Wow.

How did she do that?

It must have been magic.

For the rest of the day, we sit by the fire and she feasts of fish abundant, until she can eat no more, her belly swelling from her gorging of nutrient rich meat.

Today has been a good day to be a sunflower.