Regimes rose and fell, like the tides. When they receded, Kaala returned to her once-flooded home, found it covered in coral and wilted dulse, crawling with hermit crabs…and looters. The latter had already run off with anything of monetary value by the time she arrived, but they had left the things most valuable to her – rusted tools that might still be salvaged, smooth pebbles that reminded her of forgotten places, little vials and bottles that were impossible to find amidst the mess, if one didn’t know where to look. Eye of newt and toe of frog, and whatnot. For once, Archimedes had to admit, the chaos of Kaala’s organizational scheme had done her some favors.
Still, the things she’d been able to save had been few enough to fill a single knapsack. Then began the tedious and time-consuming work of clearing out the mess.
Archimedes was sensible; he insisted that they should just move, maybe start over in Oliford where the people of Shaman would not have to travel so far to conscript her services. Kaala, on the other hand, was immovable. For someone made of air, she was awfully rooted to this half-wild, out-of-the-way place. The hummingbird scolded her as she worked: “Why do you have to be so stubborn and pigheaded?” he said. “Why do you always insist on the most nonsensical, difficult way?” His fairy would silence him by throwing a particularly moldy clump of seaweed in his direction, or brandishing a crumbling rake – “This is home, you thimble-buzzard!” – and then getting back to business. She did not ask for help; she never asked for help. If Archimedes hadn’t reminded her to eat, she probably wouldn’t have.
After several weeks of this – of purging, and scrubbing, and rebuilding, and repairing – Kaala finally relented to a break. She threw a pack over her shoulder and strode from the hermitage, which the hummingbird correctly interpreted as the signal that they were going to town.
It had been some time since they’d been to the Oliford-formerly-known-as-Olive-Grove; Kaala expected that much would be changed. What she did not expect to find was a little hut, not terribly unlike her own, but made grander by an elaborate garden so heady with flowers that Archie practically swooned off her shoulder into the bushes. Kaala paused as they approached it, running a finger over the waxy petal of a bromeliad. A little sign indicated that an herbalist lived within. “Competition?” Archie squeaked anxiously, but that only caused her to shrug, unbalancing his perch again. He took to the air with a buzz of wings and a scolding chirp.
Kaala’s footsteps made no sound, because they were not steps, per se, but the front door creaked when she opened it. Her gaze darted around the room, completely bypassing the proprietor in their search of the shelves and cabinets. “Err…” Archimedes began, but his fairy was unreachable. There was so much here! There were plants she’d never even heard of! But no kelp bladders, she noticed. Pity. She moved further into the room, then stopped when she finally looked up at the man behind the counter. There were several beats of silence.
“Huh!” she mused, tilting her head. “You look a whole lot like my brother, Osiris.”
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