Vignette- Flex for your life

Along a mountain stream, barely worthy of its name compared to the raging monsters in the lowlands, there was a willow tree. It’s trunk and branches gently flexed and fluttered in the omnipresent gale. While the mighty oak stood its ground before the elements, the willow bowed to their presence. Submitted to their assaults. And where the Oak in its pride stood tall against those forces. When the breeze was light, the Oak stood tall and defiant, like a king of the forest.

But when times and the climate were unkind, when it stood alone without it’s brethren or underlings to damp the forces of nature. Then it received the just deserts of it’s arrogance. Hurricane winds shattered it’s inflexible trunk and the heavens opened up to rain lightning on it’s towering crown.

This was not the willow's way. Too small to attract the lightning, too compliant to be broken by the winds. Wise enough to not stand out alone and incite the wrath of the heavens.

It survived. SHE survived. And in survival became so much more. As belief flexed and flowed, a new being was born. Unobserved and unheralded. She was.

And she was determined to stay that way.

Chapter 40

Implementing the food quality reductions was anything but simple. There were hours of debate before the council. Where Jenney was at times horribly against it then partially for it. The whiplash was killing Timothy. It took time that could have been spent exploring the wonders of nature… but sacrifices had to be made. Eventually it was implemented…

And the shit hit the fan once again.

Explanations of why went unheard before the surf of indignation. Screams of ‘woe is me’ competed with accusations of tyranny to create a landscape worthy of Jackson Pollock. To be fair, it was only a small portion of their populace that had issues with it. The least important portion at that. It was still a hot mess, but one that Timothy mostly avoided.

Mostly.

The important bits couldn’t be avoided. He stood up and gave a glaringly naive speech explaining how this was for the benefit of the hold and that it was all his brilliant idea.

Blame carefully self-assigned, he stepped back to let Da take over. To try to make the silly decision of the Ivory tower wizard sort of work in the real world. He really needed to get his tower painted ivory one of these days.

Still he had high hopes that the most skilled of all healers would work her magic.

No, not Jenney.

Time.

Hopes that seemed to be born out for the first few weeks.

Right up until they weren't.

“Were you aware, son of mine, that we have a cult in our basement?” Ma asked with a dangerous degree of patience, her still vibrant red hair in a bit of a fritz, Timothy wondered how she managed it without the usual boxes. Thankfully he was just wise enough not to ask.

Just.

Wait what? Cult?

“Uhh.. what?” He managed turning away from and deactivating his pool, the picturesque vision of a toadstool ring faded from view.

“Cult, a group of fanatics who aspire to nonstandard religious beliefs. Ones that have some very upsetting overtones.” She plopped down on one of the comfy cushions beside him, much comfier than the overly firm pad he was sitting on…. Dammit.

“I know what a cult is, Ma,” Timothy bit out with some exasperation, “but I can’t exactly give a reasonable response without more information.”

“Then your response should have been ‘No’ not ‘uhh… what’. It's very important to clearly express yourself.”

Seeing she was clearly in a bit of a snit, Timothy did the wise thing and gave in promptly, “Fine Ma, my answer is no, I didn’t know there was a cult in our basement and I would greatly appreciate more information on the subject.”

“Hmm, and I will likely give you said information… eventually. First though is a very important question. Why? Why do you not know that there is a cult in our basement? A magically active cult at that!”

Timothy winced, taking a moment to shift his frame of mind and focus on the underlying web of magic, he then scanned his surroundings. There was a sphere around him with a radi of about 20 feet where he would instinctively notice magical fuckery going on. Much like a normal person's sight only in all directions. He could still ‘see’ beyond that if he focused a bit. Maybe doubling the range of detection. Anything beyond that would require the magical equivalent of binoculars.

He hadn’t noticed so it wasn’t in the first radi. He pushed his awareness to the second limit without detecting anything. He considered briefly redirecting the scrying pool, but decided against it. Instead he focused on the rune for magic within his mind. A quick direction rune attached to it and his sight quickly switched from an expanding sphere to a spotlight. They weren’t real runes capable of gathering and using magic, merely conceptual tools to command his will into a familiar pattern. There was a great deal of active magic below him, from Jenney’s familiar touch in the gardens to the the flavor of his own familiar runic enchantments. Even a bit of haze from the brotherhood links where they worked in close proximity. Then he spotted it. A haze of belief flavored with overwhelming arrogance. It stood out like a sore thumb as soon as he bothered to look.

Something he had clearly stopped doing, entranced by what was going on outside the walls.

“Fuck.”

“Language Timothy, you may be too old for me to wash your mouth out but I assure you I can still make my displeasure felt!”

“Sorry Ma.” He sighed. Some things never change.

“Alright then, now kindly answer the question instead of staring off into space. Why didn’t you notice.”

“I am not Panopticon to have 10,000 eyes, Ma. I can only pay attention to so many things at once, and frankly I’ve been trying to give humans a bit more privacy. I already feel like a voyeur. It’s awkward but understandable to keep an eye on our neighbors. It’s a safety thing. Doing that to our own people seems a bit much. Going through the undercity is like treating my brain to an acid bath. Too many private spaces occupied with people doing private things.”

Ms. Agnace must be 70… blegh! Must invent mind bleach…

He quickly shook his head, trying to banish the thoughts, and worse the images they dredged up. Already he could feel the remains of lunch attempting to make his acquaintance once again.

“Besides,” He added a bit guiltily, “There have been some truly fascinating things happening out there.” he gestured vaguely to the north. “A chance to witness what might be a once in a world restart event.” Thinking about it he reactivated the pool for a quick glance.

A glance that enthralled him once again with its complexity and beauty. Turns within turns of multi hued elemental strands about cores of such chaotic mana that he could not find a name for it. Chaos and order, magic tarred with a rainbow of elemental affinities touching threads of purity beyond belief. All of it swirling into a form sketched out by a haze of omnipresent belief. In particular the upper right quadrant was beginning to…

A pair of fingers, no less firm with a bit of age tugged quite painfully on his earlobe. “Son of mine, you are beginning to annoy me. I did not tolerate this nonsense with cellphones, much less a pool of water! Does your mother taking some time out of her busy day to talk to you mean so little? Is asking for your attention for a few moments such a burden to the distinguished wizard? Should I curtsy and beg for a few crumbs of your time?” Her piercing eyes were NOT amused.

Danger Will Robison, Danger! Back away from the edge.

He quickly deactivated the pool once more, though not without a longing glance. But it was a very short longing glance. He’d pushed her patience enough as it was. The judo guilt trip was unlikely to be the end of her displeasure. No, he had some comeuppance on the way.

“Sorry Ma, it’s just so…. Never mind. Again, sorry Ma.” Excuses were like gasoline and he was already on fire.

She kept her eyes fixed on him for a few more uncomfortable moments before letting out a sigh. “Why do I bother, a pool will not become dry for the asking. Enough then! The cult below us is not just a few waco’s finding something new to believe in. It’s our very own group of ne'er-do-wells finding a different way to deny our present uncomfortable reality.”

Come on… get to the point…. He desperately wanted to return to that clearing in the deep forest. So much was happening that he might never get the chance to see again!

Despite, or perhaps because of, his desire for speed, Ma continued at a measured slow pace “The object of their new found zealotry is our dear Neighbor to the north.”

...Bensen…. He had recognized the feel of that magic. He had just been hopping he was wrong.

He wasn’t.

It took a, no doubt, visible amount of willpower to keep the ensuing curses on a mental rather than vocal level. His mind was most certainly on the here and now, thoughts of the clearing pushed so far back that they were no longer intruding at all. He gave a brief mental prayer that he wouldn’t miss the finale… A prayer to who or what though… He was suddenly cognizant of the irony involved.

“You are sure?” He asked, wincing as it slipped out. He knew better, but he was still human and prone to pointless denials. No matter how much he tried to restrain those sorts of stupid questions, they still popped through his filters occasionally. Something to keep working on.

What he received was a look that dragged him back to the 3rd grade and he got caught tracking mud throughout the house. “No, please don’t answer that…”

“Lovely people, apparently when you set about forcing them to acknowledge they weren’t in Kansas anymore they instead asked the wicked witch of the west to give them dreams. For the low, low cost of three prayers a day, Bensen apparently allows them to live in dreamland. Sleeping most of the day away in their memories. Only getting up to eat and for those pesky prayers.”

“Just that? No joke about their immortal souls?”

“I don’t joke about souls. If you find anything about this situation funny then the state of your own could probably stand some scrutiny.”

He ignored that with a well practiced gesture. He couldn’t ignore the cause of it though. “So my fault then?”

He only thought her last look regressed him to childhood. This one was much worse. “Timothy John Mason. You may have been the driving force behind their… questionable decisions, and you will be publicly blamed for it. But I raised you better than to believe the bad decisions of others were on your head. Do you think you control the world and everyone in it? Do I need to get a needle for your head?”

“I’m not being egotistical about this, Ma. I’m not trying to pretend that I sock puppeted them into doing this. I’m merely acknowledging that my decision to force them back into the present has resulted in this mess!”

“Good enough. So next question, what are you going to do about it?” Her eyes still had a warning light to them. A cat waiting for the mouse to stick his head out just a little bit more.

He took a few minutes thinking about it. Trying to come up with a path that didn’t cause more trouble than it solved. Eventually he gave it up. Maybe if he took a couple days he could come up with something. But it was not going to happen under Ma’s hawk like gaze.

“I’ve no idea Ma. I’ll keep thinking about it, but off the top of my head I have nothing.”

“Of course you don’t! I am not asking for the cure for cancer in five minutes or less, Timothy. I’ll give you a partial pass since you admitted you didn’t have all the answers. The next part should be obvious though!”

Obvious? Nothing about this is easy or obvious how am I….oh!

“Ah, Ma, did you, Da and the rest happen to discuss this and come up with some possible solutions?”

The Mona Lisa smile that earned did a lot to ease the earlier sting. “He can be taught! Try to remember this next time, hmm? You don’t live in a bubble and what you do reflects on all of us. She gestured to the hatch, ”Now come on, your pa and the council are waiting in the new government tower.”

He stood quickly, offering her a hand up before opening the hatch and gesturing for her to go first. He kept his grimace to himself at the thought of the new Government tower. Directly opposite his tower on the west side of the hold, the new tower was designed to house those most wretched of beings.

Bureaucrats.

Desks in small rooms with reams of rough newly made paper and charcoal pencils. He had fought a rearguard action to make all writing require magic. He had hoped to limit any paperwork creation to people who were at least bound to a loyalty beyond themselves! Alas it was not to be. The guardians they had, a steadily increasing number as most of the hold was striving to live up to the tenants of the Brotherhood, were still simply too valuable to waste on keeping track of food quantities and simple things like teaching younger children to read.

He did get a small victory in the lights though. Even with a decent number of windows a tower was a hard thing to keep brightly lit. It was fine for walking about and living. Not for reading or writing without eye strain.

The lights he had installed required someone with magic to charge and activate them… about once an hour. It was a very simple, easy enchantment that he designed to give the newly minted Brotherhood mages a chance to practice and be useful at the same time. It was not going to make up for the seven year deficit in a hurry but every bit helped. The more complicated rune combinations might kill them.

The results were the slimy bureaucrats having to request the help of a beginner guardian every hour on the hour. Nicely reminding them of where they sat in the scheme of things.

“Stop muttering about the bureaucrats, Timothy.” Despite walking in front of him, she still easily guessed the direction his mind was going, “You lost, get over it. Unless you WANT to do all the paperwork needed to keep us going?”

HELL NO!

“I did lose, and no I won’t restart that argument.” Damn thing dragged on for hours last time! “I do reserve the right to say ‘I told you so’ when we inevitably have to sign something for each item we pick at breakfast or to account for every sheet of toilet paper!” Not that they exactly had toilet paper… Bidets were not so bad once you got used to them.

“Hmph, you do that Timothy, you do that.” She shot an amused look back over her shoulders before walking up the winding set of stairs. Apparently a ladder wasn’t good enough for the newly minted civil servants.

With a sigh he let it go. He wasn’t going to enjoy the coming conversation, and it was not going to be over quickly.