004 ❝ God's in his Heaven ❞

[notsocommon]

WHO: Helen Magnus
WHERE: woods, river, butcher's shop
WHEN: 10 June - 12 June
OPEN TO: All
WARNINGS: TBA
STATUS: Open

---

i. ❝ the year's at the spring ❞

Helen found that paper was a precious and limited commodity around the village and the bits and scraps she had leftover from her gifts over the winter were rapidly dwindling. She had written on every inch of paper as best she could, cramped writing fitting every square of space, and she was reminded for not the first time of Carentan and how things had to be made to last and last again well beyond their original expiration date. In this, she felt her age for one of the first times in her long life. She felt as her friend Tolkien had once described thin, like butter scraped over too much bread and facing her mortality head on wasn't a position she thought she'd ever find herself in.

She didn't particularly face it head on now if she could help it. This morning she'd found herself in the woods hunting for herbs but, honestly, they were few and far between. The sun was up nearly all the time now and while it flirted with the horizon, it never sank beneath it at night. The best they got was a few hours of near-twilight but no true night fell over the land and hadn't for the past several days. To add insult to injury, it was stifling hot and miserably dry. The grasses had either been eaten down to the earth by the grazing animals or withered and dried up.

Her basket woefully empty aside from some indigo for dyeing, she made her way back to the village, brow furrowed a bit with worry. She made a note in her already-cramped notebook: Sun - constant. Arid. Vegetation scorched.

ii. ❝ the hillside's dew-pearled ❞

Later in the day (for a given definition of day, anyway), Helen made her way down to the river to make observations there. It was dangerously low, the banks exposed to a worrisome degree. Much of their food came from the river by way of fish and if they didn't have that resource and the plants were scorching under the bright sun, what were they going to eat? Rations would need to be put into place regardless but this was escalating to a degree that had Helen wondering if they ought not call a meeting to discuss it. It was something she would certainly be discussing with Mark and Ravi when she got home to see if they ought to bring it to the village at large; her roommates were always a good sounding board for such things.

The bright sun glinted against something bronze and shiny against the dried mud of the riverbed and she picked it up, uncertain of what it could possibly be. It appeared to be some sort of arrowhead but she knew the people here who fletched and made arrows typically used flint for them, not bronze. This was something that didn't seem to fit with the activities that the residents normally engaged in and she slid the arrowhead in her pocket, intending to ask about it once she'd gotten back to the village. Perhaps the others might have a better idea as to what it could possibly be.

iii. ❝ all's right with the world ❞

In spite of the strange happenings of late, some things never changed and one of those things was the need for soap. A village like theirs with about five dozen people, give or take, went through a good bit of soap both for personal bathing and for laundry. It took a lot of Helen's time each week to make soap, cut it, leave it to dry and to distribute that which was ready to be used. Each batch of soap had to be cured for at least three weeks to a month before it could be used but given the bright, beating sun of the past month or so she'd had luck with curing soap for much less time.

"The only good thing to come out of this bloody heat is that I can turn over the soap much faster," Helen muttered, stepping outside the butcher's to get away from the hot lye and fat mixture bubbling over the fire and get some sort of relief. It wasn't coming to her here, given it was nearly as hot outdoors as it was inside, but at least she could fan herself and get a chance to get a few deep breaths without inhaling the scent of soap-in-process.

She slid off her t-shirt, standing in just her bra for the moment, and used the soft cotton to mop off her brow.

Comments

iii.

[thegreatexperiment]

Ever since her encounter with Mark, Sam had been loitering around the butcher shop. Not because she needed soap--although she was a fan. But rather, she was hoping to run into his mysterious friend, Helen. As far as she was concerned, anyone scientifically-minded enough to know how to make soap had to be someone worth meeting. Fuck, did Sam miss the luxury of the Ordo Dracul. She'd been spoiled by the opportunity to constantly be surrounded by other scientists. Now she felt like she was in a fucking science desert.

Less tragic than a food desert, but at the moment, no less annoying.

After several weeks of misses, her daily visit hit paydirt. She hoped. At least she was reasonably sure the woman she saw wasn't Mark.

Surprisingly timid for a girl with bright blue hair, she peered in through the doorway. Yeah. That definitely wasn't Mark. Mark didn't have boobs.

Politely, she cleared her throat.

Re: iii.

[notsocommon]

It took Helen a moment to realize she had company and once she did, she swiftly tugged her shirt back down and straightened her hair a bit so she didn't look quite so disheveled. In this unbearable heat, no one looked their best but she wanted to try and look more put together than the mad scientist she'd come to be over the last several months.

"Sorry, I didn't hear you at first," she said, flashing a quick smile. "I just had to step outside to get away from the heat of the lye for a moment. The combination of the fire and the chemical reaction is unbearable in summer."

[thegreatexperiment]

"And if you can't stand the heat, there's probably something wrong in the chem lab," Sam said. "That's what my favorite teacher used to say. Not sure if that was a general expression, or just for me." She would occasionally get a little over-eager in her extra credit work.

She'd been a downright menace.

"Didn't mean to sneak up on you," she added, giving a slightly apologetic dip of her head. "I'm looking for someone named Helen?"

[notsocommon]

"You've found me," Helen said, flashing her a quick smile. "I would shake your hand but I've been handling lye and if you've experience in chemistry, you know that ends badly for all parties involved."

Chemical burns in a place with limited medicinals was always a fear of Helen's and she tended to be overly cautious, if she could.

"I find myself at a disadvantage, though. What's your name?"

[thegreatexperiment]

Sam liked her immediately. Of course, she'd always been partial to ladies in the sciences. Probably a reaction to all the dude-bros she'd met on campus. And there too was Grace's influence. There was no woman more badass or boss.

She rippled her fingers in a small wave. "Hi. I'm Sam. Kinda a n00b, but I heard about you from a guy named Mark. He said you were the one making the soap, so I figured that meant you were the resident chemist."

Not for the first time, Sam found herself wishing she'd studied a more practical science. Chemistry, physics, even botany had marketable skills to offer, both after the Rain of Fire and in a place like this. There was little call for a geneticist in an emergency. Still, there was transfer to be found.

If only she could find it.

iii. ❝ all's right with the world ❞

[chosenbytheocean]

Moana didn't use soap all that often. She knew that there was some in the inn and she'd used it when she was helping clean things but, like everything else that wasn't hers, she tried not to use it and she tried to use it sparingly if there was no other option available to her.

Thanks to making her own dress she doesn't need to wash it like cotton. It isn't as porous as cotton and doesn't hold liquid or smells and Moana prefers to bath without soap, letting the water rinse her each day.

Even so, Moana was naturally curious. She didn't know where everything came from or what everyone was doing. She hadn't really seen Helen around either, so when she spotted the woman outside the butchers shop she felt the need to stop and investigate.

Moana's hair was pulled into a bun on the top of her head as she stepped forward, her dark eyes looking down at the bars of soap curiously. "What are you doing?"

Re: iii. ❝ all's right with the world ❞

[notsocommon]

"Making soap," Helen said, stirring the pot of lye and animal fat in order to render it down. This was the horrible, messy part of the business and once it was done, she could actually get to the bit where she added the aromatics and made soap into the sweet-smelling surfactant that everyone recognized.

"This batch is for use on the body," she explained. "Sometimes I make cakes of laundry soap or the kind you use on your hair for shampoo but not today. We go through more of this kind than anything else."

iii. ❝ all's right with the world ❞

[chosenbytheocean]

Moana looked a little closer, her dark eyes taking in the parts of the process that she could see. Her nose wrinkled when the smell of the lye and animal fat hit her nose. That did not smell like soap.

"How does that turn into soap?" Possibly a stupid question but she didn't care. She wanted to know and the only want to know was to learn and the only way to learn was to ask.

"I didn't know that. I've seen it at the inn but I don't really use soap." Given the heat Moana might start thinking about it but it hadn't been a problem just yet. "Can I help you make it?" Mostly because she wanted to learn how.

Re: iii. ❝ all's right with the world

[notsocommon]

"You can certainly help. I always need more hands," Helen said, giving her a bit of a smile. She motioned her close, invited her to peer into the pot that she was rendering the lye and fat in currently.

"What happens here is a chemical reaction. The lye comes from burning wood," she explained. "And when it reacts with the fat, it creates a substance that we call a surfactant. That means it makes bubbles. Once it gets to a certain point and all the lye is neutralized, we can start adding things that make it smell nice. You can tell by how it looks when I stir it when it's ready. It'll look smooth. My mother always told me it looked rather like a pudding, actually, though comparing this to food is always a bad idea. You should never touch it. It will burn you until it cools."

iii. ❝ all's right with the world

[chosenbytheocean]

Moana stepped closer, her bare feet moving silently across the ground. She didn't want to mess anything up and so she kept her hands at her sides. Her eyes were large and bright and it was obvious that she was eager to learn.

"so sufactant is bubbles." That was easy to remember. "And don't touch." Keeping her arms at her sides had been a good idea then. "So we can make it smell like pine or flowers... what if we tried to make one smell like the ocean." Though they didn't have salt water and the more Moana thought about it the more it wouldn't have worked.

There was one question that Moana had that had nothing to do with soap. "Okay. I think I get it but what's pudding?"

ii

[thecatinahat]

Cougar's been starting to worry.

Each day, the heat is worse than before. The fish don't seem to be in the river and the plants cannot keep going. Even with his limited knowledge, he knows that much. The only solace he has is that the rabbits still breed and the chickens still lay their eggs, no matter how hot it gets. They will not starve soon, but he doesn't know what will happen in the winter if they don't figure it out.

At the river, he sees a familiar face and tips his hat upwards, slightly, to approach and see if Helen has any ideas. When he's close enough, though, he sees her pocketing something, making him give her a curious tip of his head, gesturing to the pocket he'd seen her hand slide into.

Re: ii

[notsocommon]

Helen pulled it out to show it to him, the bright bronze glinting in the ever-present sunlight that seemed to be beating them all into submission. The sun could be both an ally and an enemy and Helen was hard-pressed to determine which it was at the moment.

"It looks like an arrowhead. Is it one of yours, Cougar? I thought everyone here used flint."

[thecatinahat]

It had been something glinting that caught his eye, meaning that he hadn't made it up. Coming closer, he gives the arrowhead a curious look, shaking his head when he doesn't recognize it at all. "Not mine," he says, because even the box of them that he uses from don't have bronze. He wouldn't even know where to start thinking that he'd get that kind of material.

"Where did it come from?" he asks, more curious about that, now, than anything else. "Bronze," he murmurs, confused by that.

[notsocommon]

"I found it in the riverbed," Helen said, pointing to the cracked ground where the water had receded and the mud was rapidly drying up. There was still a bit of moisture left there but only just; they wouldn't sustain this much longer without losing all of their crops and potentially some of their animal food sources.

"It must have been in the bottom of the riverbed and when the water dried up, it was revealed. I could see it could possibly have been buried in the mud."

[thecatinahat]

Cougar gives it a glance, trying to figure out where it would have come from. His are all from the box, the big one, but they don't look like this. He wonders who would have left them here, especially since they seem much nicer. "What else?" he asks, because he finds it strange that only some arrowheads would show up in the river.

That can't be it. There has to be something more. More weapons? Maybe more evidence? More something.

[ad_dicendum]

He may not have had the same skills of survival in the wilderness as some of the other people here, but Gracchus knew enough to know this heat was a problem. It was nothing like what he'd experienced in Junonia, but the fact that the sun changed its path in the sky and now never seemed to sink properly beneath the horizon was alarming. He was no farmer, but he was a landowner, before he came to this place, and a patron of farmers, and he knew a little of what unexpected weather could do to farms. And this before they'd had a chance to build more stockpiles of food after the long winter.

He'd heard people talking about the river, the water, with some concern, so he'd come to see for himself what had happened. He didn't come here often, but it was often enough to know the flow had been substantially shrunk since the last time he'd been here, and he murmured a dismayed word of Latin as he stared at the dried banks.

It was only then that he noticed Helen, and nodded his head to her.

"Ave, Helen," he said, greeting her in his own language before switching to English, as was becoming his custom for the sake of practice if nothing else.

"Although I think none of us are very well now, no?"

[notsocommon]

"Ave," Helen gave back, giving Gracchus a tight smile in return. It seemed that he, too, was taking a look at the depressing state of the river and she had no idea what to do about this current state of affairs. If they lost the river, they would lose much more than a source for fish. They would lose a source for water, irrigation for crops and a whole host of other issues would crop up.

"I am worried about this river," she said, pressing her lips together. "If it doesn't rain soon, I'm not certain what we'll do for water."

[ad_dicendum]

There are ways to deal with a lack of water, but the only ones that Gracchus knows rely on being able to bring water from somewhere else, and they lack the materials and the secondary water sources to be able to do that. There is the spring to the south of the village, but while it would be enough to perhaps supply some drinking water, their crops are in need of water too if the village is to build up any supplies of food.

"We have no other water but the fons," he says, before correcting himself, remembering the word in English, "spring? The water in the village comes from here?"

The plumbing system here is more advanced than he's used to, but it, too, must have a source, and with no other obvious source of water anybody has found, it must be the river, but he'll defer to Helen's knowledge since she has been here longer.

[notsocommon]

"Yes, the water in the village seems to come from the spring and the river," Helen said, frowning even deeper. If the water truly ran dry and there was no rain forthcoming to refill it, they would truly be in dire straits. It would not be possible for them to go without water for more than a few days; food was something they could do without much longer but water? Water was vital.

"We should probably think about rationing it, don't you think? Just in case the supplies get lower than they are now?"

[ad_dicendum]

It was a question that needed some serious thought. He'd had some experience of rationing, or something like it, in the understand he'd gained as the concept had come up on occasion in this place. He'd been quartermaster to the Roman army in Sicily, and that had involved managing not only food and other supplies, but also clothing and the necessities for a particularly long and hard winter.

Gracchus' eyes narrowed in thought.

"It will be hard, because water comes straight to the houses. We cannot restrict how much they can take from a fountain, like in Rome."

His tone, though, suggested that he agreed with Helen's suggestion. "Do you think they would follow a rationing?"

i. ❝ the year's at the spring ❞

[repressings]

"You still have paper?" The words are out of Credence's mouth before he realizes it, and from how his eyes don't widen or how he doesn't assume he's going to be reprimanded, it hasn't yet dawned on him that he's said this out loud.

He's trying not to peek, honestly, he isn't--but he does lean a little forward, slightly raised on tip-toes despite being taller than her. Her writing is tiny, and he's envious, and it's probably much neater than his. He's wearing clothes that are a little too small for him--he'd borrowed Kira's--but he's covered, head to toe.

Re: i. ❝ the year's at the spring ❞

[notsocommon]

"Only the tiniest scrap and I've been hoarding it," Helen said. She had no intention of hiding it from Credence, at all, and while she guarded her paper preciously she normally had no issues with sharing resources. They needed to find a way to make their own paper here in the village to make it a renewable resource.

"It seems to go more quickly than I would like," she said, rueful of that. "And there is no guarantee that our strange benefactors will give us any more. They seem to be fickle at best."

[repressings]

He knows of Helen. The soap person. He's vaguely aware of how she and Mark--another person he really needs to get to know--are friends. He just doesn't know her well, and paper really is a precious thing. He still has his journal from Stella, having only used a few pages of it, always waiting for the right moment.

"I don't like them very much, to be honest." It's a quiet confession, one he's sure the whole village shares, and after a moment, he lets curiousity get the better of him. "What were you writing?"

[notsocommon]

"Observations about the weather, actually. Normally it would be a very mundane thing," Helen said, shrugging a bit, "But it's actually salient information at the moment. I don't think we can survive much more of this heat. It's starting to make the plants wilt and scorch."

She took a look at the man before her, a proper one, and realized he seemed familiar to her. He had been the one who'd manifested as the smoke several weeks back, the one she'd argued for protecting. She was glad to see him out and about again. Still, that wasn't something to mention in such casual conversation.

"My name is Helen. I don't believe we've met yet, have we?"

[repressings]

"Is it because the sun is backwards?" Credence asks, and he feels a little foolish doing so, but the woman hasn't given him a reason to back away. Not yet. He manages a half-shrug, sheepish, and his gaze hits the floor.

"No, ma'am, but I know about you. Thank you for the soap, I'm Credence."