A lot of people want to be in Octovern, but the smallest of the plants isn’t one of those people! His sisters keep dropping him into towns away from the worst crush of humanity – this time it’s a stinky alleyway, full to bursting with garbage that somebody really should have burned weeks ago – but the fact that nobody sees him magically appear out of nowhere doesn’t change the fact that he doesn’t want to keep appearing out of nowhere. Thankfully his clothes, while strange (and suspiciously clean) don’t attract too much attention, and he’s small enough that nobody thinks twice about the little blond kid wandering around.
He can hear his sisters singing their sleepy songs way out at the edge of town, but when he gets there, there’s too many fences and guards and people with guns to even think about sneaking through. No matter how loudly he shouts from the other side of the fence, none of his sisters respond – he’s too far away, he figures, finally giving up. They can’t hear him. They can’t help him.
He’s got to get home on his own then.
A shop advertising July-style noodles catches his eye (and makes his stomach growl, but he doesn’t have any money), so he ducks inside, asking how to get to July, spinning a more or less believable story about missing the caravan his family was on. There’s a sand steamer, they’d said, if you can pay. If not, your best bet is to try and hitch a ride with another caravan, but there aren’t many heading that way. There’s nothing in July, after all. Wouldn’t he rather stay here, in Octovern? He thanks them, but he can’t stay. He needs to find his family.
So the shop owner takes pity of him and sends him on his way with a refilled canteen, a well-wrapped bowl of noodles to eat later, and directions to the main road out of town. If there’s a caravan, they said, it’ll be there… but don’t hold your breath.
He’s not really sure what a caravan looks like when it’s not caravanning, but he figures he can just ask everybody with a vehicle outside the city gates if they’re heading for July, and see what happens. Maybe he’ll get lucky?
no subject
He can hear his sisters singing their sleepy songs way out at the edge of town, but when he gets there, there’s too many fences and guards and people with guns to even think about sneaking through. No matter how loudly he shouts from the other side of the fence, none of his sisters respond – he’s too far away, he figures, finally giving up. They can’t hear him. They can’t help him.
He’s got to get home on his own then.
A shop advertising July-style noodles catches his eye (and makes his stomach growl, but he doesn’t have any money), so he ducks inside, asking how to get to July, spinning a more or less believable story about missing the caravan his family was on. There’s a sand steamer, they’d said, if you can pay. If not, your best bet is to try and hitch a ride with another caravan, but there aren’t many heading that way. There’s nothing in July, after all. Wouldn’t he rather stay here, in Octovern? He thanks them, but he can’t stay. He needs to find his family.
So the shop owner takes pity of him and sends him on his way with a refilled canteen, a well-wrapped bowl of noodles to eat later, and directions to the main road out of town. If there’s a caravan, they said, it’ll be there… but don’t hold your breath.
He’s not really sure what a caravan looks like when it’s not caravanning, but he figures he can just ask everybody with a vehicle outside the city gates if they’re heading for July, and see what happens. Maybe he’ll get lucky?