Ambrosia

by Aaron Lee Yeager

  Storgen crossed the rest of the tracks and walked south, towards the garbage dump at the edge of the city. The methane emissions really created a beautiful shade of green this time of day, and he wanted to take advantage of it to finish his current project.

  He found his easel in its usual spot behind a pile of discarded furniture. As he set it up, he looked out over the dump and the harbor beyond, clockwork warships patrolling the bay, their cannons swiveling about vigilantly.

  “If you squint your eyes it’s really quite lovely,” he remarked as he got his paints and canvas out. “Like the rolling dunes of a desert, but instead of grains of sand, it’s made of evidence. Evidence of lives lived, dreams pursued, love found, milestones reached. The thoughts and feelings of the entire island here to speak to us. The living soul of the capital.”

  The kitten looked at the piles of trash, then crinkled its nose disapprovingly.

  “Don’t worry, after a while your nose will die and then you won’t even notice the smell.”

  As he began to paint, a trash sump beneath Storgen began to stir. The kitten scampered behind his legs for protection, but Storgen paid it no mind.

  The garbage bulged and a young forest nymph burst free, shaking her leafy green hair to dislodge a few bolts and screws. Her goggles made her eyes look adorably goofy. “Oh, you won’t believe what I found!” Philiastra gushed, holding something close to her heart.

  “Hey Phili, find any good trash today?”

  She lifted her goggles and set them on her head, revealing her beautiful green eyes. Singing to herself, she scampered free of the sump, bits of wire clinging to her overalls. “Not trash, dummy, treasure. Look, look, I found an auto-brush.”

  She held up the burred and mashed device, like a gnarled stick with a thistle on the end of it.

  “Can’t imagine why anyone would throw that away,” Storgen remarked.

  “I know, right? It just needs a little love. You humans are so stupidly wasteful. Hey, speaking of which, have you fed yourself yet today?”

  Storgen dipped his brush and eased the paint onto the canvas. “Well, I was going to eat some chocolates off the cleavage of voluptuous women, but that didn’t work out like I’d hoped.”

  Philiastra puffed her cheeks in irritation.

  Storgen couldn’t help but chuckle. “I’m kidding. Yes, I ate a little.”

  She slugged him in the arm, then regretted it instantly. It was like punching a rock.

  “How many times do I have to tell you, you need to keep your strength up?” she scolded, rubbing her hand. “Here, have a sandwich.”

  She dug around in her pocket and pulled out something wrapped in oily brown paper.

  “Ewww,” he recoiled.

  “Pffft, I didn’t find it in the dump, you big dummy. I brought it with me. It’s from my dad’s café.”

  “It better not be egg salad again.”

  “Oh, like you have such a refined palette. You’d eat a moldy sandwich off the ground if you found one.”

  “Phili, I am shocked and offended that that is your opinion of me.”

  The kitten mewed accusatorily from behind his legs.

  Storgen glanced down. “Shhh, quiet you.”

  Philiastra’s green eyes went as wide as saucers. “Oh my gosh, is that a kitten?!”

  “Yeah, she followed me home.”

  Philiastra reached down and picked up the tiny animal. It hissed and squirmed, flailing out with claws and teeth.

  “She’s so cuuuuuute!”

  One swipe landed on the bridge of Philiastra’s nose, giving her a little cut.

  “I think she likes you,” Storgen quipped.

  Philiastra pulled the berzerking animal in close for a hug, squishing it against her chest.

  “I love her. What’s her name?”

  “I didn’t ask.”

  “How about Nicole?”

  “You can’t name a cat Nicole. Nikki on the other hand, now, that is a fine name.”

  Philiastra stuck out her cute little green tongue. “Yuck, not Nikki, it has to be Nicole.”

  “What’s wrong with Nikki?”

  “Nikki is the mean girl that pulls your pigtails and puts hot peppers in your bra. Nicole, on the other hand is a refined lady who spends her time in the library and the opera.”

  “Where in the world are you getting this?”

  Philiastra set the kitten down and pulled out her chalk kit. “You’re a boy, you wouldn’t understand.”

  “Oh yes, ‘cause having a uterus just unlocks the mysteries of the cosmos.”

  He paused his painting and thought for a moment. “Do forest nymphs even have a uterus?”

  She blushed bright green and smacked his leg. “What is wrong with you? Don’t ask such embarrassing things.”

  “What? I’m just asking.”

  She shook her head and began drawing an alchemic circle. “I swear, dealing with you, it feels like I have a retarded older brother.”

  “Aw, you’re so sweet, and you’re like the grease monkey little sister I never had.”

  She looked up and wiped at the adorable little smudge of grease on her cheek. “I’m not a grease monkey.”

  Seeing her there sitting in the dust, her cute leafy pigtails flopping in the morning breeze, he couldn’t help but smile. “You totally are.”

  Scratching a few calculations onto her chalk tablet, she used a sextant to check the internal angles, carefully laying out a feathered triangle within a hexagon aligned to the cardinal points. “I’m not a grease money, I’m a treasure hunter.”

  She held her hand over the circle and energized it, the chalk lines coming to life with streams of blue energy like water. Placing the brush in the center, the device disassembled itself as it hung in the air, revealing the delicate inner crystalline mechanisms.

  “Ah, this was one of the magical gifts from the Goddess Shanros. I can see the markings here on the crystal core she created. It’s just an alpha level, though; it says here this is number fifty seven of a one thousand batch.”

  “Pledge drive gifts are always crap,” Storgen commented as he smeared the canvas with his thumb to get the effect he wanted.

  Philiastra looked at him harshly. “Nothing is crap.”

  “Crap is crap.”

  “Treasures can be misused, treasures can be discarded, but that is the fault of the human who misused and discarded, not the treasure itself.”

  “Yeah, well, humans can’t fix magical items, and the gods charge so much it’s usually cheaper to just get a new one, so there you go.”

  Her fingertips glowing with an internal light, she reached in and realigned the floating mechanisms, cleaning clogged flywheels, clearing dirtied magical circuits, changing the alignment of the crystal shards. Her eyes glowed with focus and enthusiasm. “Don’t worry, little guy. I’m here to save you.”

  The alchemic circle dimmed and the brush pieces snapped back into place.

  “Leafy, let’s try it!” she squealed happily, snatching a spare canvas from his hiding spot.

  “Hey, that’s mine!” he protested.

  Tapping the brush three times, she held it out before the vista of the harbor before them. It clicked in affirmation, then unfolded a pair of spectral wings before zipping out of her hand. Blurring across Storgen’s palette, it mixed together all the different shades it would need for the final painting. It paused patiently when its cup of white ran out, but as soon as Storgen squirted out a fresh supply from his pouch it continued, looking very much like a hummingbird as it applied paint to its canvas. Within a few moments the painting was complete and Philiastra stepped back, carefully comparing the canvas with the nearly identical vista before them.

  Her shoulders slumped.

  “What’s wrong?” he asked.

  “It’s crap,” she grumbled. “It’s picking up way too much green, the lines are all jagged, the foreshortening is way off, and it poked a hole straight through the canvas where the lighthouse should be.”

/>   Storgen stepped away from his own canvas to take a look. The painting barely resembled the harbor at all. It was as if they were looking through warped stained glass. The crests of the wave swells flushed with purple and red, the hulls of the sailing ships bent at impossible angles, as if they were clay models that a child had tugged and warped to his heart’s content.

  “What in the world did they do to this poor thing?” She asked as she examined the glowing tool. “I’ve never seen one this broken before.”

  “It’s not broken, it’s wonderful,” he exclaimed, setting down his easel. “Just look at how menacing the waves look, and how twisted the vessels are.”

  He took the brush and held it lovingly. The moment he touched it, the glow disappeared and it became inert. “This painting is full of emotion.”

  “Emotion?” she asked, furrowing her brow. “It’s just a brush.”

  “Yes, I know that, you kumquat. I’m talking about technique. Here, I’ll show you what I mean.”

  Storgen set down his paints and rummaged through his bag, finally unrolling a canvas with a beautifully warped and distorted painting on it.

  “What did you do?” she asked, regarding the thing with concern.

  “I did what you suggested,” he beamed. “I painted a simple bowl of fruit.”

  She crinkled her nose at it. “The edges of the peach are blurred into the fruit around it, and the colors you used for it are too warm...”

  “Because I love peaches.”

  “…While the lines on the lime are sharp and the shading is way too dark for the light source.”

  “Because I hate limes.”

  “…And why do you have hands reflecting off the metal of the bowl, but no hands where the reflection would come from?”

  “Because we cannot always see the hands of the Fates in our bounty but they are always there,” he explained. “Don’t you get it? An auto brush would just paint the bowl of fruit exactly as if you had been standing there when it was painted.”

  “Yeah, I know, that’s what a painting is supposed to be. Painting isn’t something you feel, it’s just an algorithm, cold hard math.”

  “But I think it could be more. I want to convey how I feel about what I am painting; I want the viewer to see it through my eyes.”

  She chewed thoughtfully on her lip for a second. “Storge, why would anyone care about how you feel about peaches?”

  “By the Fates,” he sighed, slapping his hands against his thighs. “You’re my friend, you’re supposed to care.”

  “I do…a little…but the average Jace on the street wouldn’t care.”

  “Well, I’m not making it for the average Jace.”

  “You know what you need?” she suggested. “You need a muse. We should get you a muse.”

  “Can’t afford a muse,” he huffed, returning to his easel.

  “My father does business with a really good agency, we can get you paired up to one that works by the hour, or maybe even on commission.”

  “I’ll never understand why you are always so worried about what some stranger might think of my paintings,” he sighed as he mixed some fresh paints.

  “I’m just thinking that maybe if you painted something a little less twiggy you might be able to sell it. No one paints by hand anymore. A painting made by hand just might fetch a good price as a weird novelty if you found someone eccentric enough.”

  As soon as she said the word ‘novelty’ she instantly regretted it. The mood between them grew icy cold.

  “I…I’m sorry Storge, I didn’t mean…”

  “It’s okay,” he interrupted, rubbing his shoulder. “I know you are just trying to look out for me.”

  “I worry about you,” she admitted. “The streets of Ápinso can be dangerous. Why don’t you come and stay at my place? We can kick out that stinky boarder of ours and you can stink up the basement in his place.”

  Storgen tightened up. The thought of trying to sleep in a cramped little room made him feel sick. His vision blurred a little, and he had to shake his head to clear his thoughts.

  Philiastra didn’t really expect an answer. That invitation had been declined dozens of times already. Its offering and declination had become something of a routine for them.

  “So, are you going to show it to me?” she asked, trying to change the subject.

  He swiped the brush one final time then looked his painting over. “Okay, but this one is really special to me, so I want you to praise it before you criticize it.”

  “I’ll see what I can do.”

  His painting centered on a white marble mesa rising up out of the clear waters of the bay. Sitting on top of it, partially carved from the stone and partially built up with large marble blocks was a breathtaking temple, its blue banners waving high in the evening breeze. Standing on the balcony, a young woman with lavender hair looked out into the bay.

  “The technique is very good for a human.” she praised honestly. “The white stone holds the orange and red of sunset without losing its pure tones, and the reflections of the temple in the waters beneath it are flawless.”

  She paused, playing with the tip of her leafy pigtail. “You want me to say it, don’t you?”

  “Go ahead, I know you’re dying to.”

  “Storge, there is no temple in the harbor.”

  “Exactly,” he said proudly. “Auto brushes only capture what is there. I wanted to paint something that isn’t there.”

  “But what use is that?”

  “Well, so I could have something that belonged only to me, something that is uniquely mine.”

  She tried very hard to understand, “I’m afraid I don’t follow.”

  “Here, I’ll show you what I mean. Empty your pockets for me.”

  She just stood silent for a moment looking at him.

  “What’s wrong?” he asked.

  “Are you trying to rob me?”

  “Stop it,” he teased. “Fine, I’ll go first.” He produced a small misshapen pendant. “I carved this idol of Riina myself out of soapstone. “It’s the only one like it in the whole world.”

  “I should hope so, it’s lopsided.”

  “See, that’s the alchemist in you talking. Try not to think of it in terms of correct and incorrect.” He produced a small flute. “Now, this flute is precious because I made it myself out of a pine sapling, there’s not another one like it anywhere.”

  “So, shoddy workmanship makes it worth more? No wonder your paintings won’t sell.”

  “Hush, you. Now, let me see what is in your pockets.”

  She reluctantly handed him a fistful of items.

  “Now, this Talisman of Jenala,” he explained, holding it up against the fading light, “it was stamped out from a mold. It’s identical to thousands of others here in the city. And this luck charm of Altivas, indistinguishable from any other. These fishing lures, stamped from a press, this comb and hair clasp, impossible to tell from any others.”

  He cupped his hands and held the items out before them. “Now, remember, these are your most intimate objects that you carry around with you, and yet none of them are actually connected to you. None of them tell us anything about you. And if you are not here, then where are you? It’s as if you yourself may just as well have been…

  “…stamped from a press,” she finished.

  She looked again at the items in his hands, and looked up at him with new eyes. “I think I understand. These are your treasures.”

  He smiled back at her. “Exactly.”

  Having him so close made her feel a little self-conscious, but she didn’t back away.

  “Then you should hold them close,” she suggested, closing his fingers around his treasures. His hands felt so warm against her skin. Had he always been so tall?

  In the distance, the morning bells chimed lethargically through the city.

  It snapped Philiastra out of her thoughts. “Is it ten already? Twigs, I gotta get to work.

  She released his hand
s and began haphazardly packing up her things. “I promised mom I’d run the counter while she goes in to pay tithes.”

  “Say hi to your mom and dad for me.”

  “Oh, I better not. They don’t know I still hang out with you, and I don’t want to get in trouble for consorting with lowlifes.”

  Storgen held up his hand-made brush in salute. “You always make me feel so good about myself, Phili.”

  Philiastra chuckled, but then paused. It had never bothered her before that her parents didn’t like him, but suddenly the thought was somehow…uncomfortable to her.

  Shaking it off, she threw her satchel over her shoulder and ran off.

  Chapter Two

  Sirend was dearest to Phila, and mostly understands her purposes. Even before the foundations of the world, he received his first lessons under her tutelage. He is Lord of Waters, the King of the Sea, and he rules in fear. His gaze is as deep as the ocean depths, which only he has traveled to. He delights in the cunning and the greedy. While all sea creatures revere him, only sharks, strong of fin, and sharp of tooth, have his love in return. Slavery is also his delight. Gambling was his gift to the world. His brother is Fovos, and his sister is Desmas. Since the Great Divorce, he has dwelt alone, awaiting the day when he will avenge himself upon his ex-wife, Reinala.

  - Get to Know Your Pantheon: A Handy Guide to Avoiding Damnation. Published in Erotan 389 H.B. to present

  As Philiastra ran, glowing tattoos of magical circuits appeared around her ankles where none had been before, and she catapulted herself over the fence, rolling to her feet when she hit the ground. A mother and child recoiled in fright to see her.

  “Sorry, didn’t mean to scare you,” she huffed as she took off along the aqueduct. “I love your dress, by the way.”

  “Mommy, why is that girl green?” the child asked.

  “Don’t get too close, sweetie,” the mother said, corralling her away. “It might have a disease.”