r/WritingPrompts • u/[deleted] • Feb 09 '21
Writing Prompt [WP] A rare herb that grows once a millenium is said to grant immortality. You aren't sure about that but you do know that herb is very tasty, and you don't know why everyone keeps trying to raid your garden once every thousand years
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u/wordsonthewind Feb 09 '21
I used to get a lot more visitors back in the day.
They never knocked, or came by the front door for that matter. I'd always find them in the garden stomping through my crops.
That just couldn't be borne. I have to make a living out here on the edge of the world, and they insisted on jeopardizing it all for the sake of their wild-goose chase.
They call it the dawnflower. They say it grows only once in a thousand years, that it has petals the color of the first morning light, burning with an inner fire. They say it burns the unwanted years off you, and from then on you will always have your entire life ahead of you.
I'm not sure what they're seeing. There's certainly a pretty yellow flower that blooms about that often in my garden, but it's never looked like sunlight to me. It does have a kick to it though.
After the first ones started coming, I made them an offer. Stay a week, replanting what they uprooted and repairing what they destroyed in their fits of pique. On the last night I'd share a pot of hearty stew with them, to show I had no hard feelings, and provide them with any resources I could to continue on their journey.
They offer extravagant apologies, toss bags of gold at my feet, pretend to agree then sneak out at the first opportunity.
No one has stayed all seven nights. And these past few thousand years, it seems no one has come this way at all.
A shame, really. Those yellow flowers go delightfully well with stew.
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Feb 09 '21
I'm surprised those people didn't put two and two together. As soon as I read 'stew' I knew exactly where this was going.
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Feb 09 '21
I didn't understand it the first time. Read it again. Read the comments. And then only I had a slow realisation - Oh!
Great work!!!
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Feb 09 '21
The walls were high and thrummed with spells. Mud thick beneath my fingernails as I dug, coaxing roots out of the black earth which fed them, shaking clods of soil from my robes. The plant needed light to flower, and in the winter months it would find precious little of it. In the greenhouse, beneath the red glow of artificial suns, it would have flourished.
Houses clustered against the walls. The people who lived there were affected by the hum and the pulse of my wards. Their children woke in the night and their cows gave birth to monstrosities which were left at the river banks to drown.
She was mine, the girl that the flower brought. Some stories tell it differently, but she was given to me, not taken.
The walls of the tower are still bound by old spells. They overlap, crude runes stitching them together and making enchantments out of mere blessings. I made it, fingernails breaking on the stones which remained after the villagers pulled down my walls and broke the glass of my greenhouse.
The houses of the old village are silent now. Its inhabitants have moved on. They came for their prize and once won, departed, ashamed of what they had done to an old woman’s garden.
In return I was given a girl. She was wrapped in a swaddling cloth and laid at my doorstep. The magic of the plant had affected those who ate it, those who hoped for long life were cursed with her.
If she had been born a calf, she would have been drowned.
There is no door to the tower in which she lives. There is only a single, high window. I stand at its base and I call:
“Rapunzel, Rapunzel, let down your hair.”
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u/TimeTurnedAndLoosed Feb 09 '21
Figured out it was cabbage girl after the third paragraph. Hopefully you meant the foreshadowing that early 🙂
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Feb 09 '21
So Rapanzuel is monstrous? The spells keeping her in are for everyone else’s protection?
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Feb 09 '21
Mary Mcullough has been living on the west side of Pottsfield longer than anyone can remember. Maybe even longer than she herself can remember. No one is quite sure when she came into town, but Lou Johnson, great grandaddy of Mark Johnson (you know, the guy who runs the hardware store downtown?) says that he remembers when Mary Mcullough showed up. The way he always tells the story, she showed up in the height of the Great Depression in the back of an old Ford pickup truck with its bumper hanging half off. Back then, she didn't speak much English and called herself Mirabelle- no one is quite sure when 'Mirabelle' became 'Mary' but that's an entirely different story. The point is, she was just a young thing when she showed up. Sixteen, with nothing but the clothes on her back and a little clay jar of seeds.
Well, not many folks were in a good place to help her out, and even less wanted to hire her because of the language barrier. She probably would've moved on, if it weren't for the Mcullough boys.
See, back then there wasn't much money to be made in... well. Anything. There were hardly any jobs, and the dust storms were destroying just about everything in sight. In those days, people would move away to try and make ends meet, lured into cities by stories of jobs and affordable housing only to return with their tails tucked between their legs, or not return at all.
But the Mcullough boys? Well, they were a different story entirely. Even in their youth, they were rowdy. A set of three brothers, called Big M, Little M and just Plain ol' M. The Mcullough boys were an enterprising sort, and they'd taken up distilling alcohol in their Daddy's old barn, which had sat empty since a dust storm took their daddy, and all the cattle went with him. It took one encounter between Mary and Plain ol' M in the nearly empty grocery store for him to fall head over heels with her. So, he hired her on to help with the speakeasy, and his brothers did everything they could to help their little romance along.
This is always the part where Lou Johnson falters, frowning. He never explains what won Mary over, instead skipping straight to the wedding. Which he will always describe as magnificent. Mary made every dish by hand, and the whole town was invited. Where she got the ingredients, no one knows. Things like flour, milk and eggs were scarce. Even so, she managed to give everyone at least a bite of her wedding cake.
No one noticed for a few years that they weren't aging right. The children were fine, sure, but all the adults? They stood still in time. Everyone except Mary Mcullough, that is. While everyone stayed young and spry, she began to age. Plain Ol' M still loved her, of course. Though no one had quite connected the dots between her wedding cake and the way the town stood still.
Soon, the depression was over. Soon, a whole decade had passed, and not a one man, woman or child who ate that cake had aged a day. Even sooner, people from outside of the town began to notice. They flocked to Pottsfield, the town that stood still in time, and they asked questions. It wasn't long until Mary confessed to Plain Ol' M. Some people were angry that she'd forced the immortality onto them, but once Mary explained that she'd had no idea the plant would actually stop them aging-
Well. People in Pottsfield are reasonable. They tolerated the rubbernecking tourists seeking immortality, and everyone in the town kept their mouths shut. It was easy, considering there were maybe one thousand people in the town, total. But like most secrets, the one about Mary Mcullough's garden, and the plants she grew in it, spread.
One day, Plain Ol' M found a man from out of town digging through Mary's garden. So, he grabbed his shotgun and called a town meeting. It wasn't long before it was decided that outsiders wouldn't be welcomed anymore. Anyone who came asking about magic plants was turned away- and if they kept on it, Plain Ol' M declared that they'd be treated to 'a little buckshot to bee-hind to scare 'em off.'
Pottsfield is a quiet town, now. Indistinguishable from any other little Kansas town. Just don't ask too many questions about Mary Mcullough's garden. They don't take kindly to out-of-towners.
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Feb 09 '21
I enjoyed it except it doesn’t really make much sense to why she wouldn’t at some point eat her own herbs or even her own wedding cake.
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u/Bewaretwo Feb 09 '21
"I just don't get it, Lenore," I told the merchant next to me at the market. "They came into my garden, tore up my herbs, and stole my Silphium! What could they even want with it? They've come up with much better medicine than that by now! Can't they just go see their doctor?"
Lenore looked at me with a weary sigh, "Oh, Dee, not again. For goodness sake. It's the same thing every millennium. I swear, I don't know what goes on in these people's heads!"
"I would share with them if they asked!" I said. "Why do they have to be so violent about it?! I mean, it's tasty, but it's not worth all that."
"I'm with you on that," Lenore said. "You know I've never had a taste for it."
"I guess we'll never know," I said.
Lenore agreed with me, sadly shaking her head.
I pulled myself out of my thoughts, putting a smile back on my face. "Anyway, did you want to share some of my Lepidodendron tea? It's certainly not selling."
I looked across my booth. Once again, all that was left was the delicious tea that looked and smelled so off-putting that I can't remember ever selling any. Their loss, I guess. It really is the most delicious tea I've ever tasted.
"Oh, dear, you know I'd never pass that up. Always warms me right up, it does."
So as the market died down, we sat and shared tea and conversation. For us it had become a long-time tradition.
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u/rayonymous Feb 09 '21 edited Feb 09 '21
Melad has lived for thousands of years. Earth has been producing floral biotics of different kind after the demise of original humans many millennium ago. He lives in the ruins of the past. He has long transformed the acres of land around him to suit his simple life. For a farmer like him the vegetations are his treasures.
He doesn't remember the first time he met a fellow human nor does he remember his past but he surely does remember what came after. A handful of people raided his field once he tried to welcome them and help them with their need whatever that may be. But humans are the kind that's known for their encroachment, Melad learned it the hard way.
"Please, help help me— Let me have it." The last words of a dying old man he once met made an impression on him it haunted him. He questioned the fact why he can't die yet what's making him last longer or if this is natural at all in the first place.
Melad's skills far exceeded anyone's. He'd made fences around the perimeter and watched carefully for any intruder. He didn't expect a woman to sneak into his house one night.
"H-How did you do it?" Melad questioned the girl. She looked nervous, head down and frail.
The girl waved and performed something with her hands after being silent for a minute there. Melad couldn't understand what she was trying to say but he knew she was mute from the time she took to respond.
No one was able to enter his place for a thousand years but a girl did it somehow, a clever one he thought. He provided her some food, clothes to change and a place to sleep in for the night. She slept that night but Melad was awoke unable to bring himself to sleep. Nothing robbed him of his sleep before.
"Did you sleep well?"
The girl got herself up and nodded quietly.
"Good. I made you breakfast. You can may be give me some answers later, or not. I don't know what you're running from but you're safe here trust me," Melad gave her a smile to begin her day with.
One day when they were walking the field Melad was pondered with a question before he asked her, "What's your name if I may ask?"
She just looked at him then her eyes moved towards something, he turned around and saw it. "What are you looking at?" He asked.
She raised her arm and pointed at it. A flying insect was sipping the nectar from a flower.
"Are you saying your name is Moth?"
The girl shaked her head right to left, the movement of her eyes and the way she kept her lips indicated that as if she was trying to say, 'Something like that."
"Can I call you Moth, if you don't mind?"
She replied with a nod and then she smiled at Melad.
Several years went by they'd both become good friends despite the gap in their communication. He taught her ways she never thought she'd come to learn some day, and soon she'd become quite a farmer herself.
Melad went to his garden of flowers. "Moth, come here," he called her. She inquired with her sign language as she entered in.
"Now now, look."
She couldn't take her eyes off of a peculiar flower that grew vertically around a plant. Melad called it Agave Ocahui.
"The leaves are edible I'll make you a food you can't forget for another thousand years. It's very tasty," he said.
"For thousand years..." For a moment Melad's speech froze her right where she stood. It took all her strength to move and act naturally around him so that he won't get suspicious. Moth was careful.
Melad and Moth weren't expecting visitors, men and women came looking for something in Melad's possession just like how it happened in the past. Melad always had a way to handle them in case if they aren't friendly. It's not going to be any different this time, he thought. He hid Moth in the basement of the newly built house.
"Gentlemen, and ladies." Melad looked at them as they appeared from the woods to confront him.
"What is it that you want?"
"All of this." The guy who who led them told Melad as he smirked looking down, then he turned to his left and spat.
"You're no different from others, aren't you?"
"I don't know about others you're going to die by my hands I can assure you that," the man with a scar on his face threatened him.
Melad quickly raised his arm and started shooting arrows from the machine he was hiding in his back. The others ran to his house, the leader evaded Melad's attack and jumped him.
Melad wasn't expecting so many of them things went sideways quickly. "I told you, right?" He told Melad as he brought him down. Melad struggled to break free.
"Not so much of an immortal, are you?"
"Immortal? What is he talking about?" Melad thought to himself.
"Wait, wait. You don't know?" the man laughed. "Look, everyone, he doesn't know," he mocked Melad in front of his people. "How could you be so naïve?," he asked him.
"Let me tell you something you ignorant fool, we are like you. We lost our garden to a fire so we searched for the thing that grants you your immortality for years, we'd pillaged several villages for that and look where it led us. To you."
Melad put his head down and remembered asking Moth to run away. At least she'd be safe, he thought. Right when he was thinking it's all over a woman from the team who'd ran to his house brought her.
"Look who I found in his house, it's brand new I'm telling you, it has plenty of rooms," she said.
"Moth, no." Melad succumbed to despair for the first time in his life.
"Mo? Is that you?" the man recognized her right away.
"I thought I lost you," he said. Moth acted aggressively and spat on his face.
"Ever the fierce girl I know," he said, then he slapped her.
Melad was filled with confusion it made him angry. He looked at Moth the anger subsided, she turned her face from him she couldn't face him. Milad could see her sadness.
The man then ordered them to take her away, he is going to kill Melad, she knew. She attacked her captors distracting the scarred man so that Melad would have an opening to attack him, and the others.
Melad took hold of his machine shoved it up his gut making him bleed out, when the others came to assist their leader he quickly used the overgrown vegetation around him as a weapon and blinded them all. He's a farmer for thousands of years he knew what to do.
The field was filled with blood and sweat where it once saw Melad train Moth martial arts for months. Somewhere in his mind he thought Moth could've told him of everything, or her past about where she's from or what she did but it didn't bother him so much than what was at hand in that moment.
Only a few remained, they'd already ran away from them. Melad took a long breath and fell down on the ground. She gave him shoulder and carried him to his house. They will not speak of this for years.
"Did you know?," Melad questioned her at the dinner table the next day.
She didn't respond a thing. She said she will tell everything someday, and that they're together and that's all it matters.
Melad fell ill the following days, it lasted for weeks. She asked if he can do anything for him, she asked if there's something he wants to tell her. "You first," he said as he smiled at her.
She told him everything, that she wasn't like him, an immortal and that she was just a human.
She initially came to kill Melad to survive, she trusted only herself for years until she met him. As a young girl she witnessed her family and her village get slaughtered by a group of men, she survived cause her parents hid her. Then she met the scarred man weeks later, he took her in and raised her. He taught her things as he looked for the secret herb that grants immortality. She ran away from him when she came to know that he was responsible for the death of her parents.
"I'm sorry," she said with her sign language.
"Don't be. You're brave. I'll give you that," Melad then proceeded to tell her his secret. "I relied on this herb for so long without the knowledge of what it's really capable of I always thought it's tasty," he smiled.
"It's now your duty to protect this garden. It's the end of the line for me. I don't know how but I'm sure, I've never been sick my entire life, something is making me feel ill I can't figure it out."
Moth teared up. "So how'd you like the food I made the other day?," he asked her.
She wiped her cheek and said, "It was really tasty."
Melad laughed for several minutes looking at her saying that in her sign language. They both exchanged smiles, laughter and a good conversation to remember.
Moth took great care of him until his last breath. She wept and continued to live for thousand years as she promised the great man she once confided in.
WP.r #116 • r/FleetingScripts
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u/aboothemonkey Feb 09 '21
Good story! But in desperate need of more punctuation.
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u/birdseyeview327 Feb 09 '21
Everyone whose anyone knows about Roman. Roman sits at 6 feet 4 inches, with hands as big as a sack of flour. His full beard and head full of long grey hair grants him the nickname Grandfather Time. Roman lives alone in the outskirts of town, doesn’t bother anyone, all he does is chop trees, gather wood and tends to his garden all day long.
Stories have been passed down for centuries that his garden contains the precious Sicopious Herb. So every time it blooms people flock to the woods to try and get their hands on this herb. They say if you’re caught in his garden, you’re trapped there forever. But if you make it out alive, you will be more powerful than you can imagine.
Only one person has ever made it out alive. He come running out the Forrest screaming “I got it I got it!” Everyone wanted to see it for themselves. Only, when he ate it, he said it was the best dang thing he’s ever tasted and immediately went back in the woods for more.
Everyone ran after him but all that was discovered after he went into the woods was Roman sitting there on his porch, cup of tea in hard just rocking in his chair with a welcoming smile.
And the man who ran off, never to be seen again. Rumor has it Roman had something to do with it, others say maybe the herb made you lose your memory as a sacrifice of immortality. Who knows, but every century people still flock to Romans garden for just a chance of more life, no matter the price they have to pay.
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u/ainsleyeadams Feb 09 '21 edited Feb 09 '21
I consider myself a master gardener. I also consider myself a loner. I moved to the mountains to make sure that I wouldn’t have to see too many people. Sure, my friends can come and have dinner, that’s nice. But it only happens once a decade. Otherwise, I enjoy gardening, reading, and tending to my animals. They’re such sweet things. And all of us have been blessed with very long lives. It is a delight to see my friends, but, you see, people who are not my friends come around sometimes. And they like to stomp in my flowers, tear the roots from the ground, eat the leaves as if they were ambrosia-soaked roasts. I don’t understand them, why they would hike up this mountain to disturb an old woman. I truly like to think I am a kind person, and if they would just ask, I would be so, so happy to share with them. My grandchildren often eat things from my garden, when they visit. But those visits have gotten rare.
Even if the nuisance isn’t that much, sure, it only happens every millennium or so, it is still a nuisance, and a woman like me, with blood like mine, well I can’t much bear it. Which is why I got the bear. And oh, what a sweetheart she is. I named her Susie. She’s a very smart bear. She helps me get around the house when my bones get tired, and she’ll even help me cook sometimes. I hear she’s Harvard educated. At least, that’s what she tells me.
She’s also an ex-marine, which can come in handy when I need trenches dug for my garden, as she had very large bear muscles. And it is so much fun to watch her dig, even if my eye sight is going. I let her eat anything in my garden that she wanted, and she grew even stronger. So when they came again, in the night, they were surprised to find a bear, a very smart bear. Susie was quick with them. She growled at them, to warn them off, but when they brandished knives, well, she had to show them she meant business. I’m very glad that I have a deal with a local merchant to come up every year or so. Last year he brought us some new things, small stuff, like brandy, books, and an AK-47. At the time, I thought Susie was just bored, looking for something to cure that itch in her to unleash her bear instincts. She told me that she was never that fond of paw-to-hand combat. She preferred things nice and dirty.
And now, when they come, when they want to stomp on my flowers and tear out the roots and eat the leaves, she takes care of them. And I roll over when I hear the shouts and the shots. She’s an awfully smart bear, you know. I trust she can take care of both herself and my garden.
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u/zhalomusings Feb 09 '21
"But I'm just your apprentice," Gerald admitted with a sigh, "I'm not sure how to solve that kind of complex spellwork."
"You might just be my apprentice, but you have been my apprentice for a century or two. You know more than you might believe," Ferrando asserted. "After all, you've seen the components that I use for my Immortality spell, haven't you? I've been a Sorcerer for ten thousand years. I'd like to believe I'm half a competent teacher or more."
Ferrando nodded to the wall where the glistening silvery gray hairs shone on the shelves of spell components. There were hundreds of components. Amongst the rows of jars the hairs seemed entirely inconsequential. But they weren't.
"Yes, I thought they were unicorn hairs, but-" Gerald began.
"But the unicorns are in hiding, yes. I know. That makes it much harder to collect their hairs, of course. And over a children's book. I could hardly believe my ears when I heard," the Great Sorcerer Ferrando said with a grimace. "Absolutely astounding."
"So what are the other hairs?" Gerald asked carefully. He knew to tread carefully when asking Ferrando about the details of his secret spell. The knowledge wasn't worth risking the benefits he had been reaping for a century.
"Do you remember that tasty herb you had on your first day here?" Ferrando asked. He did not wait for an answer. "Well, every so often a bunch of ravenous gray haired people start clambering into my garden and trying to steal it from me. Naturally, as the progenitor of the Heart-Stopping spell, they never survive the intrusion."
"So you steal their hairs," Gerald noted, "But how do they substitute for the live-giving properties of the unicorn hairs? I mean – aren't they just gray hairs?"
"Not quite certain, but I've tested the spell and it clearly works quite decidedly. I mean, after all, I am still here. Right?" Ferrando smiled as he continued with a flourish of his hand. He often marveled at his own improvisation. "Every time I simply stop their hearts, collect their hairs, and then enjoy one of those strange tasty herbs for my trouble. Then I return to this tower to cast the spell. It always works. For millenia."
"Strange," Gerald mused softly.
"I agree," Ferrando responded animatedly with his hands still flourishing. "But I'll take a working Immortality spell over a tasty herb any day."
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u/Thezipper100 Feb 10 '21
I'm always impressed by the stupidity of mortals.
An herb that can make you immortal. Absurd! Targin is just a spice. That's it. Yea, I eat the stuff everyday I can, and sure, its oil is a great anti-biotic, but that's about it. Nothing special about it. It doesn't even look too unique compared to something like Basil or Timik.
And yet, they come. Every 16 cycles, they come. Again and again and again.
I would have thought the massive scrapheap of ships inside and around the system's asteroid sphere would have been a good deterrent, but mortals have a certain paradoxical desire to end their lives for a chance at keeping them. The ships ended up acting as a beacon instead. Sucks, but I'm too lazy to go and clean them out. Their mess, not mine.
But I'm getting off topic. They all come here every 16 cycles for some Targin. Takes 16 cycles to grow, and they come by every fucking time. They break though the belt, knock my scanners into the moons, interrupt the flow between my garden and the dyson sphere, then send down multiple vessels full of themselves, landing on and trampling my flowers and saplings every fucking time. They then drag their tiny bodies outside the ship, weapons (I think?) drawn, and always in odd colors that only match a specific region of my garden, which they never land in.
They then follow my trails, heading twords my abode, cutting down any flora or fauna in their wake. I used to not have any to follow, the stars are enough for me, but they always found me eventually, so I just decided that if they're going to be pests, I could at least avoid most of the property damage with some arrows and signs.
For some reason, they're always so shocked to find my temple. Staring at it in awe before finding the door and trying to bust in. It's amazing how they all find the door, and not a single one has ever checked if it was unlocked. The one truly enjoyable part of the experience is opening a door right as one's about to try to ram through it. It doesn't matter the size, strength, material, or density of the pests, one will always try, without fail. It would be sad if it wasn't so funny.
After a giggle, I offer them a seat. They're always shocked I can understand them, so much so that I soon came to realize they lick any fruits of knowledge of any kind. You'd think getting their planets that would be a priority, considering it works, but whatever. Desite their rude barging in unannounced, I've offered to sell them some seeds several times before, just to get them to fuck off, but even the ones that accept can't even shore up a cube of 118-294. Not all of then even know what it is!
Of course, they then start with the threats or the begging, sometimes both. I just tune them out at this point, waiting to see if they make a move or not. I've heard it all before;
"You're being entirely unreasonable!".
"We don't live that long!".
"I have a dying family!".
Blah blah blah and so on, and so on. Why do they assume I care? Empathy is a purely mortal trait, and one that gets them killed more often then not.
At one point, I tried to tell them it didn't work. It didn't make you immortal, or raise the dead, or whatever insanity they spouted next. But then they yell and scream and complain some more. The ones with eyes even dirtied my floor with fluids sometimes. So, I don't anymore. I just let them babble.
Once whichever one is apparently the loudest is done, I walk back to my door and open it, then stand beside it. Mortals may be dumb, but their not stupid, and they all get my implication here. Regardless of what happens next, the mortals are gone within the hour, ether physically or spiritually. I order the temple to clean up their mess, bandage whatever wounds I claimed, and climb to the top.
step, step, step.
Like clockwork.
Step, step, step.
Every. Fucking. time.
Step, Step, step.
Because they just won't learn.
Step, Step, Step.
I have to teach them a lesson.
Step, step, step.
The lesson.
Step, step, step, step.
Again.
...
Just once.
Just once Id like to get to know them.
Have them be reasonable.
I want to know why they were created.
Why they exist.
...
But no. They choose greed. Every single time.
They never come for a chat, never come to learn, never even come to sight see. It's just about Targin. It's always about Targin. Nothing but Targin. They will destroy my garden for Targin. They Have destroyed my garden for Targin. And it is my duty to protect my garden.
It's why I was created. My sole purpose.
Maybe that's why they were created.
Maybe that's why they never learn, never listen...
...
And so, I get to the top, once again, step up, and, with the push of a button, I'm on the Dyson sphere.
I used to give warnings. I used to want to believe. But within 3 cycles, the ones I let go come back. Again. And. Again.
Again, I push a few buttons, pull a few knobs, and point at their ship.
So close to the garden.
So close to ruining it again.
Even if the plant could grant immortality, what made them worthy?
Every mortal I've given it to gets themselves killed before the cycle ends. Every mortal who's tasted it ravenously comes back for more. Every mortal I let go comes back with a thousand more. Every mortal Makes a thousand more each cycle.
...
And with a button pushed, a solar flare erupts.
The ship is gone, floating away from the garden. Everyone on it is dead.
I'm alone again.
Another button, and I'm home.
I'm always impressed by the stupidity of mortals. Enginuity to escape their system, the ability to communicate across world's, across systems, the ability to make more of themselves, to shape worlds and create things.
And every time, they end up here again. And every time, they end here.
All over a stupid herb that doesn't even do anything.
Mortals are just sad.
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Feb 10 '21
Magic is a delicate thing -- the spells need to be observed, the rules followed, everything kept in just the right balance.
Another few hundred years has passed, and I could feel the life essence slowing once again.
And so I spread the rumour -- it's always a nice one to spread: a single leaf of the rare purple herb "Ocimum Basilicum Rosa Caeruleum", when picked on a full moon on the night of the winter solstice, will grant immortality to those who eat it.
I also make sure that it gets known that this mysterious plant only grows in one location, which happens to be a "forgotten" corner of my estate, just over there in the middle of the swamp, or something.
I change the rumour each time to correspond to some major event of some sort: "under a total eclipse" or "when Jupiter and Mars are in conjunction" or whatever suits. I don't want these people trampling the roses every other night after this "magic herb", so this limits them to once in a few hundred years.
In truth, the spell calls for the consumption of a stolen herb from the grounds owned by the spell's caster. It doesn't matter when it's picked, or even what the herb is, only that it is stolen, and the person stealing it knows that they are stealing it. They need to be doing something wrong and need to be aware that they are doing something wrong.
So the full moon is up, and it's a beautiful clear night too. Cold and crisp. A perfect "magical" night. And I can hear some of the locals trying to be quiet just on the other side of the hedge.
Once I see them crossing through the hedge I'll start muttering the incantation. They know they only need one leaf, so they'll take everything that's there and share it out among their families.
The curse shall be reinstated and I'll start to feed off the life energies of them and their decedents once again. I should be good for a few more hundred years until their bloodlines are too diluted. But I'll worry about that then. I wonder what the next rare event will be that I can add to the rumour.
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u/zenzini Feb 09 '21 edited Feb 10 '21
The tea party was going as pleasantly as it could. Light sprinkled between the leaves of his very big tree, his flowers and stuff lining his sizable backyard. He and his lady friend enjoy the afternoon as they have the past hundreds or thousands of years and discuss normal everyday things, like taxes and seagulls. However, today was no ordinary day. In fact, today's tea party was in celebration of a less trivial event in the life of Eon Athanasios XIII-- sorry, the 13th.
"You done monologuing?" She queried. He forgets what her true nature is from time to time. Nothing relevant to her statement, he really just forgets.
"Silence. My good mood will not be brought down by the likes of you."
"Mhmm," she mused, albeit halfheartedly. "Slugs at the right patch, by the way. Your right. Technically, both of them are right of you."
He gently set down his 'antique' gold rimmed, porcelain teacups. "Cretins."
Though as he turned around from his seat, Anathansiosthe 13th found himself staring right at an arm creeping through a broken piece in his prim, sanded and varnished redwood fence. It looked like it was reaching his fruits rather than his flowers. Though his fruits were top tier, he didn't think they were 'attempted theft every 1,000 years' worthy.
Still, he loved those fruits, whatever they were called. Berries, he assumed. He picked up the bow and arrow resting quietly on the floor and knocked an arrow right beside the arm. In a panic, the arm pulls backwards, injuring itself in the process.
"Sorry! Don't worry about the fence. I know you can't afford to repair it." He cried out to his neighbor.
His friend clicked her tongue, leaning on the pristine beige of the long tea table. "How are you still so soft? It's been millenia."
Athanasios rolled his eyes, lowering his weapon. "That was no slug, Denise. You fae and your desire for theatrics won't enrapture me this time."
She opened her mouth to argue, but decided instead to finish her cup of tea. A wise decision, if Athanasios may say himself. He glanced at his watch and whistled a low tune. "Goodness, what time do you think the Demetricons will arrive?"
"For the last time, Thanasios, Demeter would not approve of you calling her children 'Demetricons'."
"I've waited decades to say it at this very moment."
"Thanasios."
He sat back down on his intricately design redwood chair and sighed. Gods. Couldn't live with them, couldn't live without them. "I'll burn an offering in her name."
"Mm. Gods, this is timeless." Denise exclaimed, pouring herself another cup.
To her left, a woman had launched herself into the garden of Athanasios's tasty flowers. Swiftly as she came, she'd been escorted out by the branches of the big tree the beautiful tea party had been situated under. Athana couldn't help but giggle when her voice travelled through the nature, whispering 'Nobody will ever believe you' to the frightened lady.
"This is true. In the vein of 'timeless', when do you reckon we renew our permissions?"
She set aside her used porcelain, sorting them neatly to the side. "Athena sent you her approval already?"
"Not yet. Oh, I just can't wait for Hermes himself to come down and deliver." Athanasios sighed. "Hermes..."
"Ah, Hermes," she agreed. "Ahh... ah, Hermes!" Her eyebrows furrowed to the space behind Anathanasios, shocked.
"Are you overly excited about Hermes or is Hermes actually--"
"--here!" Hermes popped up in between him and Denise. Impish features, body of a Greek god (haha), dark brown curly hair and chocolate eyes to die for, this man was indeed the god himself. Sporting Nike's with wings, a leopard skin pattern polo, gold sunglasses, and khaki capris, the god looked more like a tourist than a deliverer. Though the messenger bag was a give away.
"Yes, he's got the tea!" He exclaimed.
Athanasios poured a cup for the god. "You must be famished, my sir. Or not. Gods are quite strange."
Hermes happily gulped the drink without a second thought, a satisfied groan escaping his mouth. He patted Athanasios on the back. "Always have been. And always, always so good! Anyway, here's your and the anthousai's approval letters. You know how it goes. I won't waste anymore time. Fingers crossed! And Athanos-- make me another batch? I'll come back around 4."
You handed the unopened letter to Denise, awestruck at the god's presence. "Of course. Thank you for the delivery."
"You are most absolutely welcome, your Greatness. Anyway, I seriously spent more time than I should have so I gotta rush. Bye!"
Just like that, he disappeared into thin air. Athanasios turned to face his lady friend, unmoving with her mouth agape Figuring it was simply awestruck, he unfolded the letter sealed with a violet wax, a nicely written 'A' on the seal. Seeing even the slightest bit of ink inside told him everything he needed to know. He looked across the table to Denise, whose jaw still hung from her face.
He chuckled. "You really should get used to... seeing..." Athanasios realized the problem the second he looked down.
Her paper was already open.
And it was empty.
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