• Solo • In a Scalveen Garden, by Sir Albert Kittènbee

[Oram Mednix]

39 Vhalar 720

continued from here 39 Vhalar 720

At last, once Emer had finished ministering to his bee-stung hand and laden him with a few more unwelcome observations and pieces of advice, Oram was ready to set out exploring the neighborhood and finding out what might be plaguing her garden. The biqaj wouldn’t give him any peace unless he promised to talk to Mrs. Dyrgen first, so that is what he did, though the conversation he had with her probably wasn’t what Emer had envisioned.

The blacksmith’s wife didn’t get defensive when Oram asked her about her bird-feeding, although she did get a bit annoyed, since that was exactly the tack she had expected her opinionated neighbor to take. ”Yes,” she agreed irritably, ”finches can destroy flowers, but only if there are a lot of them. Now, I’d love to get that many finches in my yard; they’re beautiful. But they don’t flock like starlings. Look!”

She pointed at a small wire cage hanging from a pole. The mesh was very large, too large to keep any but the largest animals in. But that was the point, Oram realized. As he watched, a rosy finch flew up, landed briefly atop the cage, then slipped easily through the wires to eat the seeds within.

”On a good trial, I might get as many as a half-dozen finches at a time, but usually not," Mrs. Dyrgen continued. "Anyway, I don’t have the only bird feeder in the neighborhood, just the nicest one.” She grinned, her earlier irritation briefly forgotten. ”Having a blacksmith for a husband comes in handy sometimes.” A bit more seriously, but still in a better mood than before, she continued: ”I’ve had and used this feeder for a couple arcs now. And we have had a few more birds over the last couple arcs than earlier, yet none of them destroyed Emer’s garden.”

Oram nodded, thinking. ”She said it’s gotten bad the last tentrial or so. Anything new happen around then? Maybe a little before?” He looked at the woman hopefully.

She responded quickly in the negative, but then paused to think. ”Sev’ryn widow down the street -Nal’lal Qoayu, she used to be married to that poor plumber- had some odd big crates shipped in fifteen trials or so ago.” She shot Oram a warning look. ”Be nice to her. She’s a kind soul who has been through a lot. But she does keep quite a few critters. If she’s added anything weird to her collection lately, there’s a chance that’s your culprit.”

The blacksmith’s wife looked down and frowned. ”What happened to your hand?” she asked, sounding concerned.

Oram grinned, trying to be reassuring. ”Got stung by a bee," he replied. "Nothing serious; I'm not really allergic to those. Emer put some witch hazel oil on it.”

Mrs. Dyrgen grunted, a gruff vocalization not unlike those of her burly husband. ”There’s plenty I could say about Emer, but she knows her remedies. You could do a lot worse. Take care, Oram, and good luck with your inquiries. I’m here if you need anything else.”

[Oram Mednix]

The zinnias of the fodder

Oram left the blacksmith’s house with a lead and a bit of encouragement. Ideally, the hunter would canvas every house in the neighborhood and do a thorough search, but that seemed silly for something so petty. Surely he had better things to do? Perhaps he could offer to trap whatever it was that was destroying Emer’s flowers, but to do that, he would need to have some idea what sort of trap to make, and thus, what kind of critter he was trying to catch.

Armed with a name and a nearby address, Oram went to talk to Ms. Nal’al Qoayu. The late plumber’s house was nice and well-appointed, though it was quite obvious that whoever kept it had neither the tidiness, nor the industry, nor the affinity for gardening that Emer did. It took a while for someone to answer the door after Oram knocked -indeed, he had been on the verge of trying again when he heard the tell-tale scrabbling of bolts and chains being adjusted.

The upper half-door opened to reveal a woman who looked to be roughly the same age as both Emer and Dyrgen’s wife. If Oram hadn’t known better, he might have wondered if the neighborhood were somehow age-restricted. The woman had long, loose, frizzy hair, as undisciplined and sprawling as Emer’s bun had been regimented and compact. She wore a homespun cassock, and Oram thought for a trill that she might be a servant.

Clearing his throat, he greeted: ”Good trial, I am Oram Mednix. I’m the brother of Osric, who works in Dyrgen’s blacksmith shop…”

The woman eyed him placidly as he explained his errand. ”You're here for Thora, yes?" she asked in a gentle, barely-inflected voice.

Oram frowned, puzzled. "I don't know who Thora is," he responded.

There was an unreadable glint in the woman's eyes. "The blacksmith's wife," she explained.

"Oh!" he exclaimed, enlightened at last. "I just always called her 'Ms. Dyrgen'. She never gave me her first name."

The sev'ryn tutted. "So formal," she muttered. "Well, if you are here to help her, then I will help you. I like Thora. She's always been nice to me."

The woman made to open the lower half-door and gesture for Oram to enter.

Still not quite certain, he asked: ”You are Nal’al Qoayu, yes?”

The woman gave him a baffled look, albeit one completely unclouded by irritation or impatience. ”Who else would I be? Please do come in, young man. Oram, you said? Yes, I think that was it. Come in, Oram. And don't you dare call me 'Ms. Qoayu'. Makes me feel like some middle-aged widow.”

Without even looking to see if her guest would follow, Nal’al turned from the wide-open door and shuffled deeper into the house.

[Oram Mednix]

Don’t be a buzzkill!

Nal’al’s house was well-decorated -her late husband had had a successful trade, and appropriately for a plumber, he had filled his home with all sorts of decorative lead items: sconces, figurines, chandeliers, even an ornate hat tree worked to resemble an actual tree. There were plenty of other furnishings and fittings, too, that weren’t made from lead, and these were generally though not in good repair. Judging from the various scratch and chew marks, the widow had one or more chew- and scratch-happy animals in the house, the most likely culprit being cats, of which Oram spotted at least two as his hostess led him to a cozy if somewhat scratched up sitting room and asked if he wanted tea.

Not wanting to offend, he accepted. While waiting for the tea to steep (there was already hot water in the samovar sitting on the low table between them) Oram broached the reason for his visit, while the Sev’ryn listened with polite but somewhat vague attention. Once the hunter had finished explaining about Emer and her flowers, as well as his recent conversation with Mrs. Dyrgen, Nal’al sighed.

”And you think my little babies are responsible, rather than birds, for destroying Emer’s zinnias?” she asked sadly.

Oram shrugged. ”I’ve looked at her garden thoroughly,” he explained cautiously, ”and I’m sure it’s not birds. Nor is it likely a large animal like a deer. Her fence is too high and intact for that, and there are no tracks or scat. I think the most likely culprit is bugs of some sort, a beetle or a locust, but Emer insists it isn’t any bug she knows about. What’s more, it seems so far limited to her garden, and only in the last ten trials or so.”

Nal’al smiled sadly, as one of the cats nestled her, seemingly intent on preventing its mistress from paying more attention to her teacup than to itself. Oram glanced down at his own teacup and saw his tea was just about ready. No cat troubled him as he raised his cup to try it, although one watched him intently from the other side of the room.

”Not limited to her garden, I’m afraid,” Nal’al said at last. She cast a rueful glance around the room. "Nor mine. There are a lot of quality-made pieces here, but now I'm afraid they're the sort of things you'd give to a broke student. Maybe I will." She seemed for a moment to forget her guest, but then at last remembered, looking at him and smiling apologetically. "I’ll show you, but you’ll have to promise me you won’t let my babies come to harm.”

The sev’ryn widow remained cryptic about her “babies”; Oram assumed she meant the cats. He assured her that he didn’t want anything bad to happen to mortal or beast on account of a few flowers. That seemed to relieve his hostess.

”In that case,” she said, ”once we’re finished with our tea, I can show you my own garden. It’s in every bit as bad a shape as Emer’s, and as you’ll see, I know exactly why.”

She did not elaborate, and Oram, rather than press her, tried his tea as she had suggested. It had a floral smell that the hunter liked, and a slightly sweet taste, as if someone had added honey but not quite enough. ”It’s chrysanthemum tea,” Nal’al explained. ”I grow as much of it in Ymiden as I can. It doesn’t last nearly as long as I would like. But then what does?”

Oram had nothing to say to that; he nodded non-committally and kept his cup and saucer close to his face as he drank from them. Nal’al gave no sign of expecting an answer from him, nor of being put out that he didn’t offer one. She hummed absently and contentedly as she scratched the importunate cat’s ears. After enough trills had dragged past that Oram could no longer pretend he was still getting to know his tea, he lowered the cup and remarked, trying to sound conversational: ”Mrs. Dyrgen -Thora, you said?- mentioned that you collect animals. Do you mind if I ask what sort?”

Nal’al continued for a while to scritch and hum as the cat next to her closed its eyes contentedly. At last she gave that sad sigh and smile once more. ”You’re one of those strictly-business types, aren’t you?” she asked. The tone in her voice bore more mild disappointment than disapproval. She hesitated a breath longer and then put down her tea cup, gesturing for Oram to do the same. ”Drink up, and let’s go then. I guess I should show you.”

Oram took one more sip of his tea, then set it down on the low table in front of him. The tea was still hot so he did not gulp it down. ”Yes, plese, I would like that,” he said, rising slowly. As he did, the cat that had been watching him drink disappeared through the nearby doorway.

[Oram Mednix]

I knew it! It was the hummingbird all along.

Nal’al’s garden was luxuriant, if not quite as tidily-arranged or well-kept as Emer’s. The Sev’ryn, too, had marigolds planted along the outer edge, just far enough in from the fence to catch enough light. Apart from that, she had flower beds filled with shredded remnants of red flower pedals. Oram examined them. ”Zinnias?” he asked.

”Mums,” corrected Nal’al. ”I don’t care for zinnias, even though I have lots of seeds for them.” She approached the ruined flower beds and sadly touched one of the shredded stalks.

Oram recalled something she had said earlier. ”You don’t just grow mums in Ymiden, then?” he asked. The widow responded with a vague smile.

”You’re clever, and you listen,” she intoned softly. ”These are a different variety. They bloom later. They look pretty right up to the first frost, a bit like zinnias. I don’t like their taste as much as the summer ones, though.” She gestured at the floral ruin at the base of the stripped green stalks. ”But *they* do.”

Just then, Oram heard a buzzing, like that of bees, and a couple small insects emerged from some sort of box or hive the hunter had not previously noted. They flew about in a small swarm and then, with a suddenness that startled him, they darted towards and descended upon Nal’al, landing in her hair and on her shoulders.

Oram started to raise his hands to offer to help, but stopped when the Nal’al beamed and began talking to the little creatures as if they were pets. ”Yes, we like the mums, don’t we?” she crooned. ”Mummy’s mums are nummy, hmmmm? Make my babies want to misbehave and eat them?”

Laughing softly, she reached up with one hand to scratch one of the bees very gently. That was odd indeed, and perhaps dangerous, but then Oram noticed that the bees weren’t normal bees. They resembled small cats with wings, in behavior as well as in appearance. The one Nal’al extend her finger to turned over on its back and suddenly grasped her fingertip with tiny claws. The widow lifted her finger and extended it towards Oram to show him the little creature, still clinging fiercely to the tip with tiny clawed feet, alternately nibbling on the nail and rubbing its head contentedly on the fleshy pads.

”These are what you got a couple tentrials back?” he asked. Would this errand really be that easy? he wondered. As if to confirm his thought, as well as his question, the sev’ryn nodded. ”I’m trying to train them, but it isn’t easy. Almost nobody around here has much advice on how to raise or train kittenbees. Most of my neighbors who have pets at all tend to keep more…traditional animals.”

Almost as if on cue, a pair of black, triangular ears appeared at the doorway, and a trill later the cat that had been watching Oram inside the house came into view and meowed at Nal’al.

”Kitty doesn’t like all the attention I give the kittenbees,” the widow explained gently, ”but it won’t bother them, will it?”

Oram looked at her with genuine curiosity; she was still playing with the kittenbee on her fingertip. Another one had joined, perching on the back of the woman’s hand waiting to ambush the first bee. ”Are there creatures that are dangerous to these?” he asked.

Nal’al nodded sadly. ”Hummingbirds are the worst. They'll eat them just like they do regular bees. I think I’ve lost one to them already. I really need to train them to avoid the feeders.”

Oram thought for a moment, then said: ”What should I tell Emer? And Mrs. Dyrgen? About the bees?” he pressed.

Nal’al looked up, seeming to remember her visitor for the first time in a while, and gently shook the kittenbees loose from her hand and shoulders. Her mind seemed to amble back in the general direction of the matter at hand and she sighed. ”I suppose I’ll need to move them indoors soon enough anyway, on account of the weather. Hopefully during Zi’da and Cylus I can teach these little brats some manners. House is going to be an even sorrier mess than it is now.”

Her eyes suddenly focused as if she had latched onto a new thought. ”Zinnias!” she said abruptly. Seeing that Oram was puzzled, she explained. ”Zinnia seeds. I have spare ones, more than I care to plant. Could you give them to Emer? As a peace offering? I don’t like talking to that woman. Everything around her is so tense and uncharitable. But that doesn’t mean I want to see her garden destroyed.” She fixed Oram a pleading look, perhaps fearing he would balk at the imposition.

On the contrary, the traveler was relieved to have such a satisfactory possibility land so effortlessly in his hands, even if it did mean that this nice lady would spend the next two and a half months beset by stir crazy kittenbees. It was her idea, though. ”I’d be happy to,” he answered, smiling. Hopefully the explanation, plus the seeds, would make up for Emer's disappointment at Mrs. Dyrgen's not being the culprit, after all. The biqaj appeared to have really been looking forward to that apology...

[Doran]

Oram:

Knowledge:
[Animal Training] Kitten bees need to be trained and can become destructive if bored.
[Appraisal] Even quality furniture can look shabby if it has enough condition issues.
[Gardening] Different varieties of chrysanthemums grow in different seasons.
[Science (Zoology)] Hummingbirds predate on bees, both kitten and otherwise.
[Smithing] Blacksmiths make ornamental as well as utilitarian items.
[Smithing] Plumbers work mainly in lead.

Loot: -
Lost: -
Wealth: -
Injuries: -
Renown: 10, for solving the case.
Magic XP: -
Skill Review: Appropriate to level.
Points: 10

- - -

Comments: This was a great sequel!

When I had finished reading the last thread, I was just as convinced as Emer that birds were responsible. What Emer said about finches and such made a lot of sense to me.

I'm glad that you didn't make things as simple!

I also appreciate that you regularly reuse NPCs. I think I've already met Mrs. Dyrgen (and the Dyrgens in general) more than once. And what more, you've given each NPC a distinct voice.

Emer is very different from Mrs. Dyrgen and Nal'al, for example!

I'm glad that you didn't reveal what kind of critters Nal'al had right away, but kept your readers guessing (Although I had a suspicion due to the title of this thread!).

Nal'al has quite an interesting relationship with her "babies". I have to admit, I smirked a little when she talked to those insects as if they were pets. Maybe they are pets to her though?

They are cute!

I'm glad that Nal'al was so helpful and that she made a peace offering. Hopefully, she'll be able to teach her "babies" some manners over the course of the cold seasons!

Enjoy your rewards!