Jewel looks around at her friends and just grins. "I think Tarjun and I will be breaking that rule immediately, by going home to our own beds. But isn't that an interesting twist on following the rules while breaking them?" Still smiling she turns to go, "Still, I would like to read the scrolls. Depending on how long chores take tomorrow we'll see about coming back. Thanks Mrs. Johnson!"
"To be more precise, this applies only to my kids, as I'm no recognized authority for your sleeping schedule." Gertrud tells in best legalistic language.
As Jewel and Tarjun leave she calls over her shoulder, "Good luck Clara!" and giggles breaking into a run.
"Moooooommmm, now you're just getting silly. Just because I think SOME rules are good is no reason to invent really stupid rules. You're being very unfair. If I did something like that, you'd say I was being unmattture. Well, you're the one acting like the baby now!"
"No, I'm not." Gertrud objects, just like a kid would, but in a mature tone.
After a dramatic pause she adds "It's the same every evening. I have to tell you to get ready for bed. And I have to say it multiple times, as you start playing again, or nod off half way through the preparations. Now I simply put the process as it should be in a simple rule and put the responsibility to do it that way on you."
"By the way, we both agree that some rules are good. Up until now we just disagree in who gets to judge which ones are good and which ones are bad."
She turns to Clara "Get ready for bed. It's time."
Clara pouts, but gets up and leaves to their room to do as told.
Once they are away from the Johnson's house Jewel slows to a regular walk. She doesn't want to get home significantly before Tarjun just because he can't comfortably run. "Dad said before dark. Looks like we'll make that easily!"
Ah, my previous post got lost.
All get to bed and sleep deeply after a long day of exciting adventures. But the early bird and his worm catch up with all and hard work is waiting this day. The collected harvest has to be threshed. That means hours of beating up wheat and throwing it into the air until only the grain is left.
And to Clara and Tobar's surprise they have to help too.
"Wow! This is hard work!"
Clara moans. "Farm work? Why do we have to help there?" It's her arch enemy. Bodily work. "How far does this not following the rules go?" she inquires, but the look on the face of her mom shows that she won't get out of this one.
The first two hours of work she manages, but then her arms and legs and everything starts to work and as the work is over she is for all practal purposes dead. Flat on the ground, her eyes are rolled up, her tongue is hanging out and she doesn't move any. At least that is the point she tries to convey. "Our parents don't love us anymore. They try to kill us."
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Tarjun gets to work too, but barely an hour in it is clear that something is wrong. His arms quickly start hurting, he slows down, and he accidentally leaves more and more grains in his wheat. When it becomes clear that he's not bluffing, he is allowed a short pause.
After sitting down for a while, he comes back at it, seemingly feeling better, which does not prevent his hands from trembling with exhaustion.
"Tell me about it," he answers Clara, before faceplanting in the grass, closing his eyes and trying to forget about his sore limbs.
As this is a big event with both families taking part in the work tables and benches are brought outside to have lunch together. Will, Shelly and Randolf set up the outside food court.
Gertrud comes out from her house for a short chat with those three and then comes over to the kids. "I got lunch ready in a few minutes. Do you want to come, or shall I leave you here to die in peace."
"It's a hearty stew and today it got some extra meat in it for all those har working."
Tobar starts work with a will, convinced that HE can manage anything that mom can throw at him.
But he finds the work more and more tiring and quickly starts to flag.
By lunchtime, he can barely move and staggers to the lunch
"Wow, that is hard work. Yeah, I think I prefer the Gobbos. At least then you can hit back!"
Brina watches the children working with amusement in her eyes. Sometimes she plays with them, getting between their feet as she bats at leaves.
Sometimes she naps.
It is always SO much fun to watch somebody work when you have nothing to do yourself
With the hard work and dedication to the task Jewel is only feeling tired when lunch time is mentioned. She giggles when Clara makes her obviously exaggerated statement and replies back to Mrs. Johnson, "We can all use some lunch! Might just need a bit more time to stagger upright to the table though...."
She grains and goes around helping anyone to their feet that will accept aid.
Clara tries to keep up her dying swan performance, but once it is clear that Jewel is not willing to drag her all the way to the table, she gets on her own feet and staggers to the place herself.
There she sits at the table with her head almost in the bowl to minimize the needed movement with the spoon.
"Enjoy your meal. You have really earned it." Gertrud cheers everyone on.
Jewel grins slightly as she slowly eats, enjoying the meal immensely. Normally she would be as exhausted as any of the others, or more so. She stretches, knowing that she will have sore muscles later.
Watching Clara Jewel starts to chuckle. "Oh come on Clara! If you are really that tired you should just go to bed and forget about any play time. Eat, drink and restore your energy. I want to go out in the woods and look around at the shrine. That spirit asked us to take over as guardians. I think we can figure out lots of fun things to do while exploring the area around there!"
"I don't know about Clara, but I think I'm just going to spend the afternoon playing with Brina.
Brina, lets play hunt the string"
"What spirit asked what?" Shelly inquires, as Jewel brings up the topic.
Realizing that she hadn't looked around to see who might hear her Jewel grins up at her mother. "Oh. I've been reading in our book about Erastil, and was thinking about the person buried over by the shrine. If I understand right he was a guardian, but he's gone now. So, I was thinking that maybe somebody just needs to keep a watch around the place and maybe learn more about him. I know that sounds strange from a kid, but I feel almost like a spirit has called to me. But it also wouldn't hurt to make it fun and have Tarjun, Tobar and Clara along." She smiles again, then picks up her mug to drink. "But we did work hard and probably do need to drink more since we were all sweating, before we go out to play?"
"That dragon was easier to beat than the wheat." Clara moans over her bowl of stew.
After an hour or so, all rise from the table and return to work. But the kids get the rest of the day off as most of them are no big help anymore.
The grown ups start putting the threshed grain into sacks to store it in the barm
Once everyone has finished eating, and they get told that they are done with work for the day, Jewel tries to get everyone moving out to play in the woods. "Come on fellow dragon slayers! But maybe it was only a wyvern. I mean, it was a big flying lizard but it didn't burn anything in the woods. Dragons burn things don't they?"
Once they get to the woods Jewel is more interested in the shrine than playing. What was actually there that needed protecting? Or were they mainly guarding the woods around? "I wish the ghost had been more clear. What are we the guardians of anyway? The ghost said the shrine and the woods around, and we gotta take it serious so we don't anger the former guardians.... Maybe just keep the weeds and vines from damaging the shrine, and keeping gobbers and other dangerous things away from the woods?"
The ruins in the wood, where the kids go to play most of the time is just an old house built of roughly hewn grey stone with a yard in fron of it, where two of three sides have a wall of the same stones around with a height of about seven feet. What makes it really interesting is the 15 feet high tower with corkscrew stairs inside, leading to the top which allows for a nice view through the battlements. In winter when the leaves are gone, one can watch far over the wood. Now it's just a look into the tree tops. But it spreads an aura of a bewitched castle. The roof of wood and straw, that covered the house has crumbled, and got cleared out long ago by the animals living in the wood. Leaving the house empty except a pile of stones, that have crumbled down now and then.
What the function of the building was is unclear, as all signs telling that are long gone. Might have been a watch tower, the shelter of some hermit, or a shrine to some deity.
"This shrine thingy needs a roof." Clara points out the obvious. "Or everything you put in will get wet."
"What do you put into a shrine?"
"With Desna no roof would be ok, if she is about looking at the stars anyway. Or wouldn't she? What does Estaril say about roofs? No need to do work if he doesn't want one. she babbles out her thoughts.
Jewel looks around inside the ruined structure, then up at the open sky through the lack of a roof. She sends Chirp flying up to a nearby tree branch. "Building a roof can happen some day when our parents didn't come up with a torture of work for our morning. Or if we ever need this place to be dry. The ghost said that since we touched the septer we were the new guardians. He didn't say anything about rebuilding the place."
She moves across to the tower and starts carefully up the stairs. "Now we gotta fix some of these worn-out steps sometime. They're old and worn and someone could slip and fall. But the view up here can be nice."
"I'm WAY too tired to try putting a roof up. And I'm pretty sure any roof we put up would fall down. There was a builder in town a year or so back putting up a shed and it was WAY more difficult than it looked"
With that, Tobar goes back to petting Brina. Which is pleasant AND restful
"What's a shrine for?" Clara inquires. "You read Estaril's book. What does it say?"
A temple to Old Deadeye is almost always a simple wooden building, longhouse, or even town hall that serves a rural community as a gathering place, with religion being only one of its many uses. Sparsely decorated, such structures often contain highly functional furnishings, as the faithful prefer not to waste their holy area with rows of awkward, heavy pews and statues when sturdy tables and stools would make the area well suited for mending tools and clothes, food preparation, and other helpful crafts. In some cases, temples of Erastil have no seating, leaving the congregation to stand.
In such temples, sitting during the faith’s short services while not taboo, is looked down on for all but the elderly or infirm—and even they bring their own chairs or mats. A shrine to Erastil is usually little more than an antler- or bow-mark carved on a tree or rock.
"I hope it's 'or stuff'. It would be totally boring to only have that house for praying." Clara muses.
Jewel considers Tarjun's words and Clara's comment after against her understanding so far from the book of Erastil. "Not so much the praying. Erastil doesn't really want his worshipers wasting time with silly stuff like some of the other gods. So a church to Erastil would be more of a meeting house where people could come and help each other out with problems in the community. It might have a place for fixing stuff like plows or clothing, or tables where they could set stuff if they needed to discuss things. This place might have been like that years ago, and a place where people could take shelter from the weather."
She turns slowly on the battlements to scan the area. "You know, we could set up some targets around here and practice with bows. We could look for old rags of clothing and stuff them, maybe making gobber heads or something. Pretend we're defending the shrine from an attack? That way it's fun AND practical...."
"This idea is great!" Clara proclaims, totally ignorant of the hazard that would cause if they start shooting around with no way to see who might approach the shrine under the cover of the trees.
"Shelter is cool too, but then we need a roof." she adds. "Do you think ghostie would mind, if we'd take his clothes for that?"
"Well, we worship Desna AND Erastil, right? So, no roof. We can see the sky. Good for Desna, good for Erastil."
"And its not as if we could build a roof anyway. Not one that would stay up"
"Yeah, lets do some target shooting. But we should put the targets downwind. That way we'll hit them better!!!"
"Tower for Desna, house with roof for Erastil. We can start watching the starts, you can start building a roof." Clara tells with a grin.
"I'll go visit the ghost." She leaves to walk aoround the shrine to visit the crypt.
"We're all too tired to start building anything anyway! But I'll mark where we want targets. Tarjun and Tobar, stay up here to watch and I'll go outside and move around. You yell when I'm in a good spot for a target and I'll cut a spot on the nearest tree to remind us. We can make some fake gobbers targets later at home, maybe when it's raining or something " She grins as she runs down the stairs yelling out the last statement....
Clara kicks the door of the crypt, as it denies her entrance to the ghostie. "Stupid, dumb, goofy door!" she swears.
While Jewel looks around for a place where to put up targets she steps into a hole near a tree in especially dark shadows. As she catches herself at the tree and draws out her foot an angry badger appears.
The badger bites into Jewel's boot, like he is trying to kill it.
Jewel slowly pulls her foot back calling on her Feral Speech hex, "Please Mr. Badger. I need my shoes without bite marks in them! Why are you attacking?"