Worship through work

Dawn. Debron kisses the horizon, light dappling through the trees like gentle fingers peeling back the pink dusk and bringing the pale light of the suns to the world. Morticia greets her mate with outstretched arms, one sun whispering sweet nothings to the other in the magic of first light.
  Vines slowly close their flowers, retiring the glow they impart on the world in their efforts for night-time pollination. Nocturnal animals burrow and roost, nest and retire, their heavy work while the waking world sleeps left behind them as shifts change and the next part of the world begins its long journey through the day.
  Across the skyline the shadow of a 6 armed goddess looks down on her people as they wake for the waking. Soon to be at work for the working. Membranes unfurl as the simple folk begin to pull themselves from nests and blankets, dew drying off of the morning buds, as overalls and work dresses are hauled on, the tribe of the Starberry fields getting their feet into the soft soil around their crops as they set up themselves to work.
  Vines full of heavy vegetables have grown the gaps between the bushes holding those trade-rich gems, let to fertilise and ferment the ground around the bushes and now the people of the fields have to clear the dry dead leaves and bring mulch from the heap to bring cool darkness to the overhot soils this dry period.
  The suns will soon beat down overhead and so much hard yakka must be done before sweat joins heatstroke upon the backs of the workers here. Shears and clippers, diggers and pullers, pluckers and grabbers, tools brought and arranged so that the work may be done. Still others work to guide and grow the gem laden plants, clumps of local grasses encouraged to grow between vine and shrub, their small flowers bringing the daytime pollinators that the glowing vines cannot during the night.
  The air is abuzz with their hard work too, the smell of ripe fruit encouraging their senses as the hidden goddess promotes those at work onwards and further. When a worker lags, they hear her name, Elythera, and their body finds a second wind – their sweat and tears a tribute to her with every haggard breath.
  When they fall, it is her who calls to their cohort, bringing water on the wind but only enough to keep going, not to waste it for false joy. She is the giver of adrenaline and the thief of tiredness. And as guardian is forced to pitch in, to get the job done, she is the one who caresses their minds with stories of a task well done.
  Cerise feels the sting of her scar as she rakes the leaves from the vines with delicate fury, one of dozens set to the task, but body covered in circuit tattoos lest she be needed to protect the crops from raiders, thieves or animals. Mainly these days she is given tasks that her rippling arm muscles can sort out, still it would be glorious to just rake with the intensity of Morticia unbound.
  Another rush of adrenaline pulses through her like a mother’s touch down her spine, as she watches one of a nearby crew collapsing only to be brought aloft by another. That cannot be her, she won’t let it. She runs a hand through buzz-cut hair that’s beginning to grow ‘long’ as she digs blunt nails into her scalp to focus herself with pain.
  A droplet of sweat starts to form at the base of her neck, running down the line between fabric and skin on her spine as she pauses to grab a weed, pulling it up with a sick satisfaction of one who wants control rather than the adaptability of finding out and relocating it.
  Dirt coats her fingers and nails, roots dangling in the air like some obscene offering to a god of wild-nature long forgotten. She tosses the plant into the pile that is to be mulched, though this pile forming will produce very sad mulch if they use it this way.
  Cerise digs her toes into the soil, feeling softness that will harden as it dries if the new mulch is not added soon, and thoroughly. The gems silently thank her her work, and if there was a goddess she would feel power from the praise of those that have linked production and self reliance so firmly together inside her worship that Elythera considers making an appearance soon.
  She hears the call of her name as another come by with wildflower seeds, seeking to impart temporary plants that sprout their intensity and then look at the world and die to produce soil rich with life.
  Cerise sees often the ‘owner’ of the fields, an aloof man who wears too much black for the weather here, and who is almost always flanked by people she suspects are there for her health. She can feel how little work he does, almost certainly taking people to fulfil his every whim and firing whoever expressed emotions in his presence. She’d like to see him sweat a little in a moment of uncharitable thought.
  Still, this is easier than her combat –mage training and easier than keeping up with Twinform when they are working as a pack. She bites back a bitter thought and returns to the tug tug tug of dragging the rake through her patch, seeing the expanse of task she shares before her.
  A water bearer comes by and she takes the deepest slurping sip she is allowed, the water tanks likely to drain if anyone takes more than their allotted. She watches those of the house – of the easy tasks and holds back a scream, throwing her head back with silent mimicry, as her voice strains against the effort of halting her emotions.
  Elythera hear the plee of those who work while others rest the rest of the neverworked. May their heels blister from first steps, may they feel the burn of unused muscles and unstrained hearts. Guide your workers back to bed full of satisfaction and make their dreams empty and coated in joyous exhaustion.
  We catch Cerise another day, sent to gather the hammers, large wooden things with light but broad heads, the force being the effort the person puts in rather than force multiplication. She is here to squash the remaining root vegetables, enough plucked to feed the force, enough removed to dry for seeds for next season and the rest left to her and a few others to smash so that their rotting forms can ooze their nutrients into the soil where the gems should steal their flame. Soon the heavy thud will join the insect sounds in the air, a discordant chorus as the cycle sends a mindless tune into Cerise’s mind. Her back aches, her muscles burn and she has fallen behind several times, so many that she would be sent minders to see if she needed to stop or be assisted.
  The combat mage was not built for endurance, all muscle and potential, to be used immediately upon a problem then let to recuperate, but the lands of wine demand a slow patience, force applied over time until a satisfactory product is achieved. Cerise feels herself straining against the limits of her body each day, only to collapse to bed each night. This too is a worship to Elythera, and soon the mage wakes up less sore in the morning, and can work that little bit harder, push that little bit longer as the twin suns pours their heat into the chestnut skin of the woman, it bronzing over the age she is stationed at the vineyard.
  Water carriers become her family out here, younger brothers and sisters, that she learns the sight of and sometimes, briefly remembers their names – her work leaving her far enough away from the others that she doesn’t have the chance to find the community she had back at the academy with them. But she recognises their silhouettes in the suns, and she shares the back breaking labour of making the vineyard whole.
  Dusk brings rest, dusk brings good food and good song, and dusk sees Cerise staring into the middle distance wishing for the tools to clean up her look, and people to share her time and heart with. Instead she will retreat to a sand bath, scrub herself clean and get ready for the next day, watching the glowing vines that will attract the pollinators to continue the work all night long.