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theboondogglepub · 6 years ago

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A Land of Gardens Black.Part 3

Part 3: The Middle and Grey Land

Ah, hello! I see you are ready, something quite fortuitous as this part will be heady. What do I mean? You ask with such haste, I mean that this section has quite zesty taste. For now is the part not quite short and a little too long, where the middle roads meet and the crowd is a throng. Now we arrive, or more travel I’ll say, to the Lands of Middle, and the unspoken Grey. Keep up, sally forth, and do not delay, I cannot guarantee you’ll know the way. Down through the crossroads where two armies still block, past the forked, spooned, and knifed road with the clock. Beyond there, beyond fields, we find the encampment of Locke.

“I cannot believe this thing!” He shouted, the multilayered, multicolored goggles flexing robotically to find fixation as Locke shouted and stared out through his many lenses. All eight eyes on his goggles seemed to flex their lenses and refocus on eight different targets in his workshop hanger. Eight giant maneuvering crane arms each the size of a 6 story building steadied around the encampment, their gears churning in loud clacks and creaks lifting various machines and tools of goldbergian nature and design to come to rest in Locke’s hanger workshop for him to work on. He huffed, and looked out at the encampment, and here is what he saw.

The whole of the encampment was easily large enough to fit 300 people with 30 large houses and bunks, and filled to capacity it was. Outside Locke’s hanger workshop the mud streets and metal buildings were filled with people of all shapes and sizes, handing over foodstuffs for coin and trading what meager goods they had. There were those of all races, the Catte (Miqo’te), Hyum (Hyur), Lol (Lalafell), Bunyn (Au Ra), Knief (Elezen), Banner (Roegadyn), and more. It was a poor settlement of people, but it was the only one free. This was The Valley of Spared Parts, more commonly known to most as The Middle, where Locke had begrudgingly accepted refugees from the Botanist Queen and Admiral of Catte’s war. It was a large settlement, and it was well hidden, kept that way by Locke’s crafty inventions that kept the whole Middle invisible from sight of both the Botanist Queen and Admiral of Cattes.

Locke flickered his ears, and pulled up his multitudinous goggles to reveal is glowing blue eyes. “I just can’t figure it out, why won’t it work?” The catte sighed, sitting down and popping the cap on a bottle of black beer. He drank slowly, bitterly and perplexed. “Where is that woman when I need her!?”

“You called?” Anhashy the mani-formed strolled in, today being a young catte woman with soft alabaster features and striking vermillion eyes. Everyone knew Anhashy for though he/she took on a new physical form every day and sometimes every few hours, they were always with vermillion eyes and soft alabaster skin. They always also showed up exactly when not asked for, a remarkable skill to have. “I believe you called for me, yes?” Anhashy the mani-formed strolled into Locke’s hanger and beheld what the catte worked on, idly amazed by it, and idly idle as she looked on at it. About to speak up about her deep and meaningful backstory, chock full of plight and dangerous criminals sure to attract attention, Anhashy was cut off as Locke blurted out.

“You? Nooooooo. No. The other one. Maeze!” Locke indeed blurted out. Stepping out from the shadows came Maeze, with her deck of cards constantly in hand.

“I saw you call for me,” she said, walking forward, a trail of shadows behind her. You said,” Maeze pulled a card from her deck, holding it up to her face and reading it. “You said ‘No. The other one. Maeze.’ I saw you doing that before you did, Locke.” Maeze spoke monotone, detached, cool and collected. Maeze was the manifold, for each day she drew a new card from her deck to divine her future, and each day she decided based on what that card said to be a different thing. Today? “So, are you relenting to let me cut and style your hair Locke?” Today Maeze was a aesthetician. She returned the card to her deck of magical future prediction cards, and prepared her comb and scissor with her free hand. “I have just the haircut picked out. A nice bob in the front, with a large afro in the back. I call it the bofro. It will be all the rage soon.”

Locke shook his head, “No I don’t want my hair cut. Where is the thingamajig? I know I left it in here in the hanger. I need it to connect to the scrabdoodle and the widget. Did you take it? Did Anhashy take it? What about one of the children from the village? This un-Boom won’t finish building itself. It needs my expert mechanical expertise to do. And I don’t have that much time left as is!” Locke looked at his wrist, a thermostat looking piece of glass rising and falling with a cool blue glow indicating some sort of amount of something left. Locke tapped the glass stick, the cool blue color decreasing ever so slightly. “I’m due for a refueling in just a few bells.” Yes, Locke required fuel.

“No,” Maeze shook her head.”Here let me see.” Flicking up a card from her deck, Maeze gently brushed Anhashy’s chalk white hair, debating on what cut to give the demure catte. “I have not seen your thingamajig today. Are you sure it was ever here? Are you sure any of us are ever here?” Maeze looked at the flicked up card. “Ah, yes. The card agrees, your thingamajig isn’t here Locke.”

“I know where it is,” Anhashy answered, her hair being braided as she spoke.

“I KNOW its not here Maeze. What I want to know is where the heck is it? I swear if one of those little brats from outside took her I am going to just-” Locke fumed and paced his hanger, throwing over boxes and baubles and metal containers and tools. He kicked his tool cart and threw his lunch pail. “Can you use your cards to see where its at? I really want to know where it is so I can finish the un-Boom and finally fix this whole place once and for all. Too much war, too much strife. Only thing to do is un-Boom it, then the Botanist Queen and the Admiral of Cattes will understand.

“I know where it is,” Anhashy answered again, her hair being pulled up into a top knot as she spoke.

“Let me look for you Locke,” Maeze pulled another card from her deck. “No, this is what I’m going to be tomorrow.” Maeze shook her head, pulling another card then. “No, this is tomorrow’s lunch.” Another card. “This is how long it takes to read one of my predictions. I’ll save that little one for later.” Another card. “This is where the heart of the world lays, and the mystery will be unfurled for all to understand… rather boring if a little weighty in ramifications.” Another final card. “And this card says… Anhashy knows where the thingamajig is.”

“Wait, Anhashy you know where my thingamajig is?!” Locke jumped up from his slump, his fuel running about half now.

“Yes,” Anhashy said plainly, her hair in a honeycomb weave above her head.

“Well shite, why didn’t yah say so?!” Locke clamored, and then they gathered, and then following Anhashy’s trail, they set out from the hanger into the Valley of Spared Parts, otherwise known as the Middle.

As they traveled across the Middle, one would spy the ever present guardian of the land, Kayne the Pure. Why? You may ask, was he called Kayne the Pure? For one pure reason, he demanded to be the tallest, which was the purest of all desires. He was a bunyn, a very special bunyn, able to leap a near malm with but a single bound, but only if he landed atop the highest perch around. Perched as he was, matter of fact, atop the highest mountain ridge, Kayne the pure looked out across Locke’s encampment, and gave a thumbs up. Everything was clear. Locke returned the gesture, then nodded to Maeze. “Weird f**ker,” Locke said. “But he keeps us safe.” As Locke, Maeze and Anhashy left the encampment, Kayne returned to his secret tryst high above view. A tiny bunyn, the Bunyn Knight in fact, falling into Kayne’s arms. It was romantic, it was sweet, it was... for another day, another tale. For now, we continue out of the encampment.

Beyond the Valley of Spared Parts, Naih the Odd stood guard perched atop her clock. “Do you seek to leave?” She said in a particularly amoral way. “The time is exactly four plus six divided by the participle of the non-existent quadrilateral angled right trapezoid on its leftmost side. Should you seek to return, do so between the bells of nine over zero multiplied by X, where X is the color fuchsia, and seven. Do we have an accord?” Naih asked, again still perched on her elaborate timed clock. She wore robes, plain and simple, and spoke words plain and simple, and it was the riddle of her clock magic that by and large kept Locke and his allies hidden from both factions that would see everything destroyed or put under thumb.

Maeze took the initiative now, replying “We do timekeeper. Please, keep the door ready for whence we return.” Maeze had, in the time of leaving the encampment and meeting Naih the Odd, styled Locke to have a nice bob hairstyle.

On they went. Further and further away from the Middle to the Grey, a place ill-spoken of but for its constant mystery. Anhashy spoke up as they approached it. “I would not seek to go further were it not for the fact that I know who took the thingamajig. She is here, we must simply not call out for her, and she will come.”

Stepping into the Grey’s threshold, they met Aries the small. There wasn’t much to say of Aries save for the price she demanded. “PRESENT YOURSELF,” Aries cried out, and Locke obeyed. In order to cross the barrier of the Grey, one must present themselves. And so, *WHAM* Aries waddled up to Locke, aimed her fist, and crushed his warriors of light, leaving him a wheezing mess on the ground. Price paid, Lock and his two companions proceeded.

A vast expanse of crashed sailing ships, moonlit waters (no matter what time it was in fact) and broken trees, grave markers and battered and rusted weapons, the trio stepped quietly through sand and shallow pools. It was all too quiet, as if the prevalent sound of the Grey itself was silence, and it blocked out all other sounds. As they walked further in, a separate trio of men sat by a firepit, spinning some meat on sticks and laughing to one another. Locke whispered to Anhashy. “Are these the ones who took my thingamajig?” He asked, quizzically so.

“No,” Said someone else not Anhashy. Hanging high above them on a branch a nude figure in stripes of non existence laid spread out, delicate fingers strumming along the wood with a racka-tack-tack. The figure was half there, half not. Parts of her, the most intimate parts, were simply not there, and space was clearly visible between each layer in stripes. Her skin was a mix of tan and white tattoos that trailed her body, and her feet swung back and forth. Her sharp feline eyes stared down, though she was not a catte nor had catte features. “I did.” She said playfully. The Cheshire Katalin.

“Why in the hell did you take my thingamajig?” asked Locke, a bit distracted by the Cheshire Katalin’s form and movements. He knew he did a bad, for asking any question of the Cheshire Katalin, as all knew, drew either the right thing for her to say or the wrong thing, and which was true was never quite known. Insulting, genuine, insightful, infuriating, her words were as mysterious as her existence and lack thereof existence. Her body dissipated, slinking down the tree with acrobatic grace and coming to rest at the trunk roots. The stripes of her body that were missing now were slightly different, but still hiding her most intimate areas.

“Because,” She snickered. “I wanted to move things along. Besides, you’re f**king stupid.” Katalin held out her left hand, and then produced from her right hand the thingamajig. It amounted to an ‘L’ key. “Here, take it, though I don’t see what you’re going to do with it.”

Locke knew this was a trap, but it was also the only way to get correct information from the Cheshire Katalin. He played into it. “I plan on making an un-Boom to fix the land of Gardens Black.” He had laid the bait, and the Cheshire Katalin indulged. Asking her questions was beyond foolish, for you never knew what reply one would get. Making statements however, always prompted the Cheshire Katalin to respond… in excess.

“Ah, I wouldn’t do that,” The Cheshire Katalin replied, unprompted and on queue. “In fact, if you do that there may be horrible repercussions for everyone here in the land of Gardens Black. You could destroy any chance at peace, obliterate any hope of mediation. You’re far better off simply waiting to see what happens I would even say, because trying to fix things yourself and be everything by yourself to solve a problem never turns out the way you think it does.” Locke took a moment to reflect on that, and then opened his mouth to speak. “Additionally,” Katalin said, “Were I in your shoes, I would think the proper solution is to keep everyone safe as you’re already doing, and perhaps make some sort of beneficial technology outside of yet another bomb. Maybe a pair of sunglasses that help you climb stairs more efficiently.”

Locke opened his mouth then to speak, assuming Katalin done.

“Of course,” The Cheshire Katalin said, adding on. “If you bring your weapons to bare against either the Botanist Queen or the Admiral of Cattes, it would prove to cement one side in your favor, and the other against you.”

Locke waited then. Several moments stretching out into a minute. Satisfied she was finished delivering foresight truths, he began to speak. “I can-”

“You can simply not predict what your machine will do once finished, that is the truth of it all.” Katalin added finally, floating majestically through the air like a playful half-corporeal feline hybrid hyum does.

Finally, Locke nodded. “I’m going to do it anyway. What could it hu--” About to ask the Cheshire Katalin a rhetorical question, something no one must ever do, Anhashy stepped forward and shooshed his companion. Speaking of, Anhashy the mani-formed was now a large Bunyn man by the way, replete with vermillion red eyes and chalk white hair… just so you know.

“We’ll be going now. Thank you for returning the thingamajig.” Ahhashy said, towering over Locke and Maeze in height. The Cheshire Katalin nodded in reply, slipping away again into the mists of the Grey.

Stepping back out from the Grey, Locke paid the price again to Aries the Small, and spoke a little higher octave as he and his companions left to return past the forked, spooned, and knife roads to the Middle. Once they would get past Naih and her bizarre clock logic magick, they would be safe once again.

My tale is done, at least for the now, for this chapter ends not with a why but a how. How will it continue? How will it end? Where will the story reach its next bend? Is this all the cast? Is there more to be shown? Would I regale you more even whilst you moan? You seem tired as am I, so we’ll leave here to simmer, though if you’re good I may divulge little bits to glimmer. Small tales here and there as the world gets fleshed out, no need to worry, you’ve no need to pout. The Gardens Black will return strong and quite soon, just as soon as the echo falls under the Moon.

@katalinhunter

#ffxiv rp #short story #Black Garden FC #Mateus

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