Chapter 310 (2/2)

After it huffed, it turned and left, and Thea and Chrysanthemum followed. Simon hesitated, then gave Randidly a searching look. Randidly nodded, encouraging him, and they left, leaving him alone.

Then he sat cross legged, his eyes burning emerald in the dim tent. Hopefully someone would come back tomorrow and tell him what he would be required to do for this ceremony, because otherwise he would miss out. But for now, it was time to see how much he could heal.

So his will flowed back into his body, and instantly Randidly smiled, his lips curling up at the edges. It had been a good haul, although he had to nearly die to do it. With the assistance of that being that now traveled his body, until he found it one of his own, he now could quiet the Aether shrapnel and remove it at least 10 times as fast, and without the assistance of Simon’s Mending Fluid.

It was going to be a long night.

*****

It was the second day of their participation in the ceremony, and Simon was already dead tired.

He blamed this on two different sources. The first was that the “ceremony” was just a glorified name for chores. As the Wild Rider gathered more and more animals of different species in a giant fenced in area for the ceremony, the Pledgees (and David) took care of them. They carried water up, in increasing quantities, three times a day, the first being long before dawn.

They grew and harvested food. They provided for every animal’s weird diet. They made sure every animal was happy and situated, and that everyone had received enough attention and exercise for the day. IN ADDITION to all that, they had their own individual tasks.

Which was the second reason that Simon was dead tired. The tasks were different things that people had to do, but it made sense for only one or two to participate in. Simon, the fool, had chosen laundry as his chore, and the previous laundry person had only been too happy to give it up and allow Simon to take over.

What should have been a manageable amount of laundry a day spiraled out of control because they had to deal with a lot of animal shit, and a lot of animals who didn’t like to smell other animal’s shit, so the Pledgees had to change their clothes often to keep animals calm and resting.

There was one bright note. Simon had no idea why, but instead of any sort of manual labor, David had chosen to handle the farming and cooking duties. People were dubious that he could manage both at the same time, but the Wild Rider’s weird attitude towards David meant that most of the Pledgees let it slide, ready to pick up the slack if he failed.

David did seem able to keep up, but he was definitely running himself ragged doing it. He was constantly either cooking or checking his plants, and didn’t seem to ever stop moving. It soothed Simon’s heart somewhat to see the other man pressed towards his limits, even if it was just with chores.

There were almost 30 Pledgees, including Simon (and the non-pledging David), who split the chores. Of these, there were three main groups. One was the military leaning people, who possessed classes and came from either Star Crossing or the Refuge. They were here to increase their combat prowess by earning themselves a partner. This group was typified by Heather, from the Refuge, and Kirk, from Star Crossing, who were the most serious and meat headed as glorified animal herders could be.

The second group seemed more to be here due to their love of animals, which was led by Lally, a tired seeming woman who acted as de facto leader of the Pledgees, divvying up their work every day. Her job seemed impossible and thankless, because part of the ceremony was for this group to care for all the animals and monsters, with no guidance, while every day the Wild Rider returned with an even larger group.

The final cohort of people were just the dirty and desperate, who flocked here for safety. There was only a few of these people, but they all kept to themselves and had scared eyes. At first, when Simon asked for their clothes to wash, they almost seemed aghast, before he explained it further.

It was… sad in a way, that these people so quickly forgot the trappings of modern life. Washers and dryers were a thing of the past. Of course it was possible that these people were poor enough they never had these things, but that just made Simon depressed for different reasons.

Still, they were all here now, and working hard. So although it was somewhat of a miracle to make it to the end of the second day, Simon did it, and collapsed into his pallet, satisfied, to his very core.