Starflower
Just a drabble I wrote because I haven't written anything new in awhile.
Title: Starflower
Word Count: 864
Summary: No town is independant of others.
Starflower
In her village, there were no healers. Her father had once explained that this was because people in Starflower did not need any, that all of their wounds: scrapes, bruises, broken bones; all would mend with time if the wounded believed in him or herself. It was the power of the spirit; not the work of herbalists and doctors that would restore what was lost. It was faith.
Through the years, it seemed like this belief was a law among her people. They worked hard to make their bodies stronger and heartier through training and necessary work. Great trees needed to be struck down for firewood, fences needed to be mended so the cattle would not escape, produce needed to be kept properly for the harvest. They were isolated from the urban areas beyond the forest, untainted by the need to eat more than their bodies needed. ‘A hard body is the key to a hard mind.’ People said proudly to one another when news came of an epidemic of obesity. ‘They let brought it upon themselves.’
And so she worked hard to keep her body sound and her mind clear, resting among the starflowers in the fields when her body told her to. Their perfume drifted through the air like a sweet aphrodisiac, soothing her mind and letting her sleep through the night, sheltered from harm.
She met her husband in that field on the eve of her twentieth birthday, a joyful man whose slim build masked an immense physical strength. A couple months later, they were married and she realized she was carrying another life inside her. The village was brought together for the festivities, a day off work dedicated to sharing time with family and friends.
For the following nine months, she watched her body change, becoming larger and larger until her hard, flat stomach was round and swollen. And then she was left alone in the house for the birth, as was tradition. If the mother and child were strong enough, they would live; if not, the village would mourn their passing and continue with their lives.
The pain she experienced for the next eleven hours was the worst she had experienced in her life. Her mother had told her to think through the pain, to retain her focus so she conserve her strength through the long hours of the night. Finally, when the sun was starting to stretch its pink rays across the western sky, her child was out of her body.
But the girl-child would never experience life outside the womb, having been strangled by the umbilical cord as she passed through the birth canal.
‘There’s always next time.’ Was her only comfort when the news spread throughout the village. She knew her neighbors, even her closest family, would be talking to each other behind her back, saying that ‘The weak ones always die, and a girl’s body is weaker than a man’s.’
But the next year, it was the men who fell first. The sickness seemed to catch a hold of them the easiest, eating away their muscles and their youth, burning their minds with a fever their strong bodies could not overthrow. Their withered bodies were burned away from the wells and the forest. The women, having a little more fat to their bodies, started to lose weight quickly, their curves becoming weaker as their reserves were eaten from within.
And so she tended to her friends, to her widowed mother, to her husband, to people she had known all of her life as they died. She wished they hadn’t turned away the healers at the first wave of men started to yield. She wished that their prideful habits had not stopped them from obtaining knowledge about the sickness that seemed to devour flesh. A few, like her, were immune to the sickness. At first, they said that their strength was what was keeping them alive, that their light burned the sickness right out of their bodies; but as the number of dead continued to increase, they stopped taking pride in their bodies strength. A gift became a curse from the earth around them: that they would have to watch those they loved fall.
Of the original hundred villagers, ten were still standing the following spring when a healer came to town. His words that day would haunt her for the rest of her life:
“I cannot believe you did not try to isolate the first victims! I’ve known your disgusting habit of ignoring a sick person until they die, but I did not believe the same would apply to the Death Fever. I sent word to your village elders about the epidemic, that it was easily treated with the proper medication because of its high contagion rate, but they sprouted the same drivel about not needing any healers as always. It’s like childbirth, we can’t save every one but we give them help so only the smallest amount have to die. The fact you have so many astra around did not help anything. Your bloody starflowers rid the air of possible counter agents. Anyone in the city could have told you that they are weeds.”
Title: Starflower
Word Count: 864
Summary: No town is independant of others.
Starflower
In her village, there were no healers. Her father had once explained that this was because people in Starflower did not need any, that all of their wounds: scrapes, bruises, broken bones; all would mend with time if the wounded believed in him or herself. It was the power of the spirit; not the work of herbalists and doctors that would restore what was lost. It was faith.
Through the years, it seemed like this belief was a law among her people. They worked hard to make their bodies stronger and heartier through training and necessary work. Great trees needed to be struck down for firewood, fences needed to be mended so the cattle would not escape, produce needed to be kept properly for the harvest. They were isolated from the urban areas beyond the forest, untainted by the need to eat more than their bodies needed. ‘A hard body is the key to a hard mind.’ People said proudly to one another when news came of an epidemic of obesity. ‘They let brought it upon themselves.’
And so she worked hard to keep her body sound and her mind clear, resting among the starflowers in the fields when her body told her to. Their perfume drifted through the air like a sweet aphrodisiac, soothing her mind and letting her sleep through the night, sheltered from harm.
She met her husband in that field on the eve of her twentieth birthday, a joyful man whose slim build masked an immense physical strength. A couple months later, they were married and she realized she was carrying another life inside her. The village was brought together for the festivities, a day off work dedicated to sharing time with family and friends.
For the following nine months, she watched her body change, becoming larger and larger until her hard, flat stomach was round and swollen. And then she was left alone in the house for the birth, as was tradition. If the mother and child were strong enough, they would live; if not, the village would mourn their passing and continue with their lives.
The pain she experienced for the next eleven hours was the worst she had experienced in her life. Her mother had told her to think through the pain, to retain her focus so she conserve her strength through the long hours of the night. Finally, when the sun was starting to stretch its pink rays across the western sky, her child was out of her body.
But the girl-child would never experience life outside the womb, having been strangled by the umbilical cord as she passed through the birth canal.
‘There’s always next time.’ Was her only comfort when the news spread throughout the village. She knew her neighbors, even her closest family, would be talking to each other behind her back, saying that ‘The weak ones always die, and a girl’s body is weaker than a man’s.’
But the next year, it was the men who fell first. The sickness seemed to catch a hold of them the easiest, eating away their muscles and their youth, burning their minds with a fever their strong bodies could not overthrow. Their withered bodies were burned away from the wells and the forest. The women, having a little more fat to their bodies, started to lose weight quickly, their curves becoming weaker as their reserves were eaten from within.
And so she tended to her friends, to her widowed mother, to her husband, to people she had known all of her life as they died. She wished they hadn’t turned away the healers at the first wave of men started to yield. She wished that their prideful habits had not stopped them from obtaining knowledge about the sickness that seemed to devour flesh. A few, like her, were immune to the sickness. At first, they said that their strength was what was keeping them alive, that their light burned the sickness right out of their bodies; but as the number of dead continued to increase, they stopped taking pride in their bodies strength. A gift became a curse from the earth around them: that they would have to watch those they loved fall.
Of the original hundred villagers, ten were still standing the following spring when a healer came to town. His words that day would haunt her for the rest of her life:
“I cannot believe you did not try to isolate the first victims! I’ve known your disgusting habit of ignoring a sick person until they die, but I did not believe the same would apply to the Death Fever. I sent word to your village elders about the epidemic, that it was easily treated with the proper medication because of its high contagion rate, but they sprouted the same drivel about not needing any healers as always. It’s like childbirth, we can’t save every one but we give them help so only the smallest amount have to die. The fact you have so many astra around did not help anything. Your bloody starflowers rid the air of possible counter agents. Anyone in the city could have told you that they are weeds.”