myth for vanilla
The wheezing red knight brought Ivy to halls of blue streaked marble where the queen sat on a throne of silver. Everything about the land was warm and humid. Sun shone gently between bouts of rain.
“Our soil is dry as bones. Despite the rain.” The queen explained to him. “If you come from a town of agriculture, teach us how to heal the soil. It is so dry during the summer that in the rainy season everything washes away. Nothing works when we try and make plants grow.”
The young man began with the lessons Rebecca taught him so he began by knitting seeds into the soil. Many weeks went by to no avail. He remembered what his mother said about water, though, that it should flow beneath and above the ground.
So Ivy tried water, but he did not know how to create water, so he asked the red knight what he might do. “I have traveled far and wide,” the knight replied. I have traveled for my king.”
“And what of your queen?”
“She is the unspoken one, more beautiful than the sunset. I take orders and I am right hand to the king.” The knight announced as if that answered the question. “I will lead you to the water at dawn. And indeed. There was water, a river a morning’s journey away. So Ivy got to work rerouting the river to lead it back to the fields of the red queen.
The task took the season and then the rains came and washed the fields until they were all but mud. Still, very little grew and when it grew the flowers that bloomed would wilt and die.
Ivy had no more ideas. He worked the soil and brought the water but nothing seemed to change. So, he retuned to the shack he was staying at on the edge of town. “Indeed, I am worth nothing at all.” He said to himself, and wept.
“You are worth very much. Take it from a weed.” A voice said in response. He looked, in fact, very much like grass. “You don’t have everything you need. The man continued. “Your heart is somewhere else.”
“I must make this soil grow new plant to feed these people of the city.”
The man continued as if he did not hear. “I know your heart is broken, it will break many times yet. But there is a little something I use to bring what I love closer.” He produced a pod so black it seemed to carry all the light in the world. “Warm this, and that which you desire will be able to locate you. But only if their heart is true, they will find their way to you, eventually.”
Ivy dared then, to look at the moon, a place he believed that for a moment, he might have been and did not know how he could possibly return to.
“I may be in love with the moon.” He admitted. “But how does that help me complete my tasks?”
“Your tasks may need your heart.” The weed responded. Even though everything about him was straight lines, he smiled tightly, Ivy saw the way his soft eyes seemed to hold more than just himself. All grass people hold their ancestors in them.