Day 7
A breeze whispered out of the carrot patch, leaving the green scent of vegetation and taking hope with it.
Tiller closed his eyes with the shovel raised over his head. He couldn’t watch himself do this. The expression of pathetic fear was too real, too human, on the tiny furry face.
It felt like murder.
Tiller paused, cocking his head to the sky, “No, it doesn’t.”
It sure as did feel like murder. If the pipkin could understand him then it was, what, at least as intelligent as a child?
Tiller’s face dropped, “Don’t… don’t say it like that. It’s eating more than a tenth of everything I grow… It has to… I have to do this.”
Tiller raised the shovel again, justifying his actions like a Nazi concentration camp guard…
His arms flopped to his side and he said, “Jesus Christ! Don’t do that! This is different.”
This was different. Absolutely. This wasn’t murder. It was okay to kill a clearly sapient being because it wasn’t human. Sure it could understand him, sure it was probably as smart as a human toddler, if not more so. But it was totally okay to bash its skull in with a shovel because, you know, it was different to him… Tiller was totally justified and one hundred percent nothing like a Nazi. Better?
He dropped the shovel and looked down at the pipkin. Its expression was now one of distinct confusion. Worse, there was now some glimmer of hope peeking through the utter dread.
Tiller sank to the earth in front of the pipkin and put his face in his hands. “Fuck… fuck! FUCK!”
He looked back at the sky, as though he didn’t already-
“I know! I know! You’re not in the fucking sky, you’ve said that already. What the hell am I doing here? If I let it go then it’s going to eat a portion of everything I grow.”
Maeve and Pod eat too. Should you bash their heads in with a shovel?
“That’s different. This is their place, I’m the intruder.”
Pretty sure the pipkin was here before you were…
“They contribute!”
Even as he finished the word a light seemed to switch on behind his eyes…
He turned to the pipkin. “You… you can make things grow faster? You do it all the time, when you’re being chased. You make plants grow around you to hide you… Do you think…”
Tiller looked at the pipkin, possibilities streaming through his mind. “Could you do that for my plants? Can you make them grow faster?”
The pipkin nodded slowly, the huge mirrors of its eyes no less wide or terrified.
Tiller said, “You can? Really?”
Again, a frightened nod.
“Listen, I’ve got your number now. I caught you today and I can do it again. You won’t be able to get away from me again. So… I have an idea. What if I let you out, and you don’t run away? I’m telling you, there’s no point, this was easy, I can just catch you again tomorrow. So, if I let you out, will you not run away?”
The pipkin nodded more rapidly, more fervently.
“Cool…”
The earth sigil glowed and the earth melted from the pipkin and it immediately dashed away, churning earth and making for the line of vegetation.
The sigil glowed again and a moment later the pipkin was entombed once more.
Tiller said, “See? Running away isn’t doing you any good. I don’t think you’re picking up what I’m laying down. If you can make my plants grow then I won’t have to kill you.”
Tiller seemed to have traded Nazism for… the invention of slavery?
He cocked his head to the side, “Hey! I’ll pay it! It doesn’t eat that much. A potato a day or something like that. If it can make the plants grow faster than that then everybody wins.”
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The pipkin watched the strange man talking with the sky with as much confusion as fear.
“So, can we try again? Do you get me now?”
The pipkin nodded its head quite vigorously, though Tiller was not much more confident it wouldn’t immediately flee. Still, he used his power to release it. This time, the pipkin stood, nervous and tense, but standing still.
“Okay, come on over here.”
Tiller walked towards his field and the pipkin, after staring longingly for a moment at the refuge of the tall grass, followed tentatively behind him.
Tiller pointed to a potato plant. “There, do your thing.”
The pipkin looked at him nervously and, with clear uncertainty, walked closer to its would-be killer. Tiller watched as it turned. It was then that he noticed the pipkin had a little band of its own, formed of clay like Maeve and Pod’s. There were sigils there too. As it turned and stuck its little root-like tail into the ground by the potato plant, one of the tiny sigils glowed. Instantly, with a shudder, the potato plant surged in size.
“Holy shit! It worked! It worked!”
The pipkin seemed to smile faintly, as anyone would when they had pleased the captor and potential murderer.
Tiller peered closer, leaning down. The pipkin backed up a step but didn’t flee. The sigil that had glowed on its band had a dark segment now.
“Oh… it’s like my earth sigil, needs to reset… what did that cost you? A third? You can do that three times a day?”
The pipkin nodded nervously.
Tiller rubbed his chin, looking from the bigger potato plants to the other ones. “That’s a big difference. It must be at least a day’s growth. Maybe more… You know, this could work…”
The pipkin looked back, clearly eager for this to work, this being an alternative to cold-blooded murder.
Tiller cast an irritated look at the sky, but seemed to swallow something he had been about to say.
“Hey, listen, stay here. I’ll be right back.”
He hurried to the leprechaun burrow where he found Maeve just starting to light her cook fire. “Maeve, have you got any leftovers from yesterday?”
“Leftovers, love?”
“Any old potato cakes?”
“I do, love, but they’re cold and a day old. Just wait a few ticks and I’ll have fresh-”
“Just one, please, I need it quickly.”
As she turned to rummage in something just inside the entrance to her burrow, she said, “Don’t know why you can’t just wait… won’t be minutes before I have nice hot-”
She turned, bearing a cold potato cake. “…crispy, fresh…”
Tiller snatched the cake and dashed back to the field. He hoped against hope the pipkin hadn’t fled in his absence.
When he arrived at the field he found the pipkin, jaws stretched around a potato stalk. It froze when it heard him.
“Hey! You’re going to eat that.”
Jaws still around the stalk, but not clamped down, the pipkin shook its head.
“Yes you are! You’re literally about to eat it.”
Slowly, the pipkin drew its head back and turned to face him, head hanging low, worry marring its adorable features.
“Come here, I’ve got something better.”
The pipkin did approach, but with a wariness that remembered this man had been its supposed executioner only minutes before.
“It’s okay, that’s all behind us now. In fact, I’m sorry about that. You just don’t know how desperate I am… here, try this and tell me it’s not better.”
The pipkin stopped short of Tiller, unwilling to come within arm’s reach.
“That’s okay,” he placed the potato cake on the ground and backed up a few steps.
The pipkin’s nose twitched suddenly and the big eyes narrowed. It looked from the cake to Tiller and took a few steps forward. Its nose twitched again and excitement seized it. The pipkin dove on the cake, its placidity giving way to savagery.
Tiller’s face went from one of peaceful expectation to mild revulsion. “Holy shit… those teeth are pretty sharp for a plant eater…”
A moment later the pipkin was licking crumbs from the ground.
“Like that, did you?”
The pipkin nodded its head with enthusiasm, almost seeming to forget that this was its mortal enemy.
“Want more?”
Again, a vigorous head nodding.
“Go boost two more of those potato plants then.”
The pipkin understood everything. It bounced over the row of potato plants and in a couple of minutes had produced two more accelerated stalks.
Tiller watched, his eyes wide with interest, a slow smile spreading across his face. “You know what… this might be the start of a beautiful friendship…”
And so the next days passed. Tiller befriended (enslaved? employed?) the pipkin on his seventh day in Scape. When he counted, he found that the pipkin, or some other pests in combination, had destroyed fourteen plants in total. There was a clear preference for potatoes as he had lost the most of those. Of the eighty plants he had started with, he was left with twelve potato plants, eighteen corn, eighteen onions and eighteen carrots.
He thought about how to employ the pipkin. If it could add a day’s growth to three plants each cycle, then it wouldn’t help much with the carrots or onions. The trip to Medley sounded like it would consume a day or two so he didn’t want to make the journey with produce unless he had a load worth taking. The potato plants caught his eye. With twelve plants remaining and the pipkin able to add a day’s growth to three at a time, it meant he could shake a day’s growth off all the potatoes every four days, bringing them closer to harvesting as a batch.
The carrots and onions would supposedly be harvest-ready in just three or four more days. But even with the pipkin accelerating them, the potatoes would take sixteen days to come to harvest, which meant he would be sitting around with full crops of onions and carrots that were doing nothing for him. The project the shopkeeper had set out for him was vast in scale. The only way to achieve it, if it could be achieved, would be to keep reinvesting, he needed to turn those harvested crops into gold, and then that gold into more seeds, which he could turn into more gold.
He was only partly convinced of his maths. He needed a pen and paper. There were a lot of numbers to figure out. He was also confused about what would happen to his crops while he was in Medley. If it was a one-day trip then he could water them before he left. But a two-day trip? Would they die without watering?
Grumbling to himself, he dragged himself to his feet and went to seek pen and paper from Maeve. He didn’t notice, but in his wake the pipkin lifted its head and watched him go.
The ears twitched.
The saucer-like eyes gleamed, tracking his movement.
It hesitated.
Then it twitched.
Then it trotted behind him (keeping a reasonably safe distance) as he walked.
