HAND PICKED HARVEST #2

The Holly-hosta hadn’t lasted as long as Pepper would have liked. Once the driver had gotten the broken spokes put back together and mended just enough to get them back on the road, the wagon wobbled to and fro in the harsh winds as the grey skies over the Hidden Garden grew greyer and more belligerent. It almost got to the point where the whole wagon was toppled over despite the best efforts of the driver to not let that happen again. Or a third time. Or a fourth.

The wind was strong, even as they got farther from the Wind Valley, which was adjacent to the Hidden Garden. Or so that was how the story went. The driver was trying their best, but the carriage beasts were having a hard time driving through the snow, and the wobbling of the wheels and the crunching of the ice was getting to be too much.

“We are going to have to stop!” the driver said after a long enough howl of wind had finally died down. “We do not have a choice anymore. We have to stop or we will not make it in to where we are trying to go. Not in one piece.”

Pepper  shifted in her seat as the wagon came to a full stop and the driver opened the door to the wagon, shoving the carriage beasts into the wagon body and climbing in afterwards. He shrank down into a Mini and soothed the carriage beasts as they struggled to get comfortable. As soon as they did, however, the wagon went quiet and Pepper made room for the carriage beasts as best as she could.

“How long do you think we will have to stay out here?” she asked, not really caring about the answer. She was used to this wild weather to begin with, and this was just another stop in her increasingly long trip to Corriedale. She thought that Piero would think it was funny how bad the trip was going, and she tucked the thought into her back pocket. The metaphorical one in her mind before turning back to the more pressing matter.

“Not sure,” the driver said, voice squeakier than before. “Never seen a snow storm this bad in all my days. Seems about right for some kind of divine punishment if you ask me.”

Pepper wasn’t really asking about all that. She had already seen the madness of the sea god, and this was not much worse than that. In fact, in the absence of smokey monsters and the sea of shells that had become a wall of contempt during the summer, this was the more preferable environment to be in.

“I do not know how I am going to feed these carriage beasts,” the driver said. “But I was hoping you had picked some while we were stopped last?”

Pepper had, in fact, picked plenty of Scillamint when they had stopped before. Not so much for the carriage beasts, but because her new pet, Salt, had guided her to a huge field of it, where she had spent the majority of their last stop picking it and dropping it into her horribly ugly traveling pack.

It was something that she had kept to herself for the most part just in case it would be important later on and lo and behold, it  became important later on. It was almost like it was preordained, but Pepper was very hesitant to think of it as a god interference and more like a coincidence because she was not going to tackle the dreams of the mad sea god quite so soon after escaping it.

She wordlessly adjusted her bag, scooping Salt out of the main pocket and depositing him onto the little sill that made up the interior of the wagon. The window was frosted over and Salt made quick work of the frosted window, drawing unintelligible pictures with his stick arms. He squeaked a lot too, or laughed, and continued to scratch on the frosted window while the carriage beasts snorted and shifted in place in an effort to get warm.

“What are you doing?” the driver asked.

“Something,” Pepper replied. “I am going to feed the carriage beasts. I do not know if they will like it, though. They do not seem the type of creature to like the minty flavor. But if they want to live, then they will get over it. I will be fine either way.”

“That is a wretched thing to say, you know,” the driver said.

“I do not care what you think,” Pepper replied, fishing Scillamint out of her bag and picking it apart.

She made sure to preserve as much of the edible parts as she could as she picked through the pile and the smell of mint filled the wagon to a degree that was almost entirely unbearable for everything within, except for Salt, who enjoyed the smell and taste of mint to an almost impossible degree. All the parts that were not edible for the carriage beasts went to Salt, who inhaled it and seemed to be bolstered by the minty effects of the frond like plant.

“Salt is much better company than you,” Pepper said as she picked through more and more of her supply. “You are rude and do not do your job when you think nobody is looking. And that is probably why you will die out here and I will live.”

“Don’t say things like that.”

Pepper huffed. “I said I do not care what you think. You will be mad if I help you. You will be mad if I don’t. You will think you are better than me either way and that annoys me. I am not a bad fox if I do not help someone who is rude to me. That is what I hear other foxes say.”

Pepper held the Scillamint out to the carriage beasts, who did dig in without issue, chuffing in rejection at the taste of the mint, but fully understanding that food was food. This was why Pepper liked the beasts more than the foxes. The beasts understood how to live. They understood the content of a character.

“And what will you do if I leave you out here, you wretched thing?”

Pepper stared at the driver before taking a few nibbles of the Scillamint herself. “I will walk the rest of the way.”