Chapter 19: Luck & Ashes

Chapter 19: Luck & Ashes I followed you as you walked to the edge of the platform and placed the cannister down onto the wood then pressed down a button at the very top. Thing, spindly legs suddenly detached from the body of the cannister and swung down to hug the ground, providing more stability. "Lucky is resource, just like everything else. You’re born with some, you grow some, and you use some. It can also be harvested." You twisted the top half of the cannister and a number of lights around the edge lit up. "There’s an inscription on it." "Yes. It’s designed to only siphon off a little luck from non-human, non-sentient entities in the immediate area." "I see..." I said. "But if you take the luck of the fish, say, then won’t that mean that they’ll all get caught and eaten and then there will be no more fish and then it’ll ruin the, uh, ecological cycle?" You smiled. "Well spotted. But what this canister does is take equally from everything in the vinicity. For most creatures who here, they’ll live their entire lives here as will those above and below them in the food chain. If I take five percent from both the fish and the bird-" "Then their relative luck will be unchanged!" I concluded. "Correct," you said. "What about the birds though? Don’t they migrate or something?" "They do, that’s why I try to only harvest luck a few times each season and from different places. That way, I won’t overly affect once particular species." I fell silent. "Seems a bit... exploitive, don’t you think?" Bran shrugged. "It is what it is. But it’s better than taking the luck from humans." "Why?" "Well, first you have the usual arguments about ethics, but I tend to ignore those." "So why not?" "Remember how I said I chose the wetlands because a lot of the species here live their whole lives here? Well, think about if I took luck from, say, one estate in Dragon Ridge. When those people go out and live their lives, go to work etcetera, all those people living their will have less luck than their colleagues and so forth." "Ohh..." I didn’t speak as I watched you finish setting up the cannister. Your tone and way of speaking to me was the same as usual and it confused me. Out in the distance I could see the hazy silhouettes of the city’s skyscrapers and the mountain ranges beyond that. "...Bran," I murmured quietly. "Mm?" You’d sat down on the ground, so I did too. "I’m sorry." You looked at me, face blank. "For what?" "For... for last night." Your face still looked blank. "What happened last night?" Had I... just dreamed it all...? I wondered, then your expression changed. "Oh, about the sword," you said, looking away. "It’s fine." I somehow felt that it wasn’t, but I wasn’t sure how to make it right. I figured apologising again would probably just make you annoyed. But in the end, it was you who broke the silence. "It’s dangerous, that sword," you said quietly. "You should try to stay away from it." "Why do you keep it then?" I couldn’t help asking. "Sorry, I don’t mean to tell you what to do, I’m just worried..." To my surprise you just chuckled and squeezed my shoulder. "Thank you," you said. Then you sighed and got up. "We should go check if Amethyst’s left us any lunch." -- After polishing off the rest of the sandwiches and making a round of the wetlands to fill up the other cannister, the three headed back to civilisation. It was jarring to say the least. When they reached their home train station, Amethyst suddenly said she had friends to visit and left, leaving just Bran and Misha to trek back to check the Wishing Box. To be completely frank, Misha seriously doubted whether anyone would genuinely stick a slip of paper with a wish into the box. He thought it more likely that someone would mistake the whole thing for a rubbish bin, but as it happened, he was wrong. Unlocking and popping out the bottom panel of the box revealed a neat pile of ashes on top of the Memory Impression Spell. "What...?" Misha started. "Bag." Misha held out the plastic bag Bran had instructed him to get ready and watched, rather confusedly, as Bran poured the dust, paper and everything else into the bag. Then he slotted the base back in the box and locked it. "Pretty good for the first day," he said. Misha stared at him, holding the bag of ashes. "Bran..." "It’ll be easier if I just show you. We’ll grab some groceries then head home, alright?" Misha was still unsure about the bag but he liked the sound of ’home’ so he nodded and followed after Bran. "It’s quite common for people to burn offerings or prayers to send them up to heaven or to God, if that’s your thing," said Bran as the pair settled down around the coffee table with a tray in the centre holding the ashes. "The idea is like, fire can transmit things up to a higher..." "Dimension?" offered Misha. "Maybe? A higher plane? I’m not really too sure what to call it." "I think I get it. It’s like sending a letter." "Right. But of course, it’s pretty hard for us to read the wish of someone who’s burnt it," Bran said as he picked up the dusted off Memory Impression Spell, "which is where this comes in handy." The inscription of the spell looked more or less the same but the colour of the paper had darkened significantly making it look older and more like some cryptic treasure map than a scrap of paper from the day before. "Is it... ’full’?" Misha asked, thumbing the paper. "More or less. I’ll have to put in two sheets next time," said Bran. He pulled out another sheet of paper and a book from his toolbox and set them on the table. The paper already had marks inscribed on it. "Put it on there," he said so Misha put the Memory Impression Spell on it. The spell rippled once then lay completely flat upon the paper like it was magnetised. Next Bran handed Misha the book. Its cover was blank. "Flip through that," he said. Misha opened the book to a random page. It was empty. He flipped a few pages to one side and saw that they were all empty too. "What..." he began to ask then stopped. The ashes on the tray had gathered up in a cloud and now hovered over the Memory Impression Spell. Misha turned another page. The ashes billowed into impossible shapes. "Flip to the front," instructed Bran. Misha did and suddenly the cloud of ashes started to look like something. "That’s..." mumbled Misha. It was the disembodied face of an old woman. She looked tired but there was a cunning glint to her eyes. "That’s Mrs. Fong," said Bran. "She runs a noodle shop in the market I believe." Misha nodded. "I recognise her! She has the store with the big red umbrella outside." "Alright, now flip the pages." Mesmerized by the unexpected dust hologram, Misha carefully ran his thumb across the pages of the book, flipping them slowly. As he did, the dust, and thus the woman’s face, began to move, one frame for each page. "It’s like a stop-motion animation!" Misha exclaimed as he reached the end. Bran couldn’t help smiling at his companion’s joyful glee. He placed a piece of quartz stone onto the centre of the Memory Impression Spell, then got out his notebook and pen. "Now it’ll have sound." Misha turned the book back to its cover and flipped through it again. Bran was right. There was sound this time! They had to try a few times, but after a minute or two of experimenting, Misha found the right speed of page flipping to get the visuals and sound looking and sounding good - not too stretched out or sped up. The woman spoke in Chinese, so Misha had no idea what she was saying so after the fifth repetition, Misha paused and looked over to see what Bran had been writing in his notebook. "Good... business?" he managed to make out. "Yep," replied Bran. "Looks like a trendy new noodle shop has opened up a few blocks down and is taking her business." "Oh, I think I know which place. It has a green and white sign with some dumplings on the side." "Do you know where it is?" Bran asked. "Sure," said Misha. "Do you want to go there?" "Later," said Bran. "First I want to get through the rest of these." He handed Misha another blank book then rotated the Memory Impression Spell paper. "The rest of these..." Misha looked at the pile of ashes still heaped up on the tray. "Just how many is ’the rest’?" he asked warily. "Don’t know," replied Bran. "Guess we’ll just have to find out."