Category: Lefeng

Left alone after a tsunami destroys eir village, Lefeng would have walked into the mountains and not looked back. But a child lost on the trails redirected eir course and another survivor plants the seed of an idea – a new family. Lefeng’s commitment to those ey comes to love will take em to the hated city and a new way of life. But in a slowly dying city, Lefeng’s determination can only carry them so far.

Planting Life in a Dying City is a low fantasy, multi-generational found family story. Each season will be told from the PoV of a different character. No explicit sex, minimal violence, lots of trauma. Agender, disabled, elder, and autistic characters.

Season Content Notes: Natural disaster/death, ableism

Pronunciation Guide

A shaft of sunlight lanced through the forest gloom highlighting another empty snare. Lefeng shook eir head as ey pulled up the small game snare and examined the grass rope for damage. Somehow no one had seen that break in the canopy over the summer. They were lucky the snare hadn’t been sun-touched.

A small ground shake rattled the trees as ey coiled and stash the snare-rope it in eir pack. Lefeng had pulled a dozen others earlier that day and found a pair of lemurs that had been caught by two of the traps. Ey had been surprised by them. Penpy ran the trapline two days ago but had forgotten to pull the snares. Lefeng was just as glad. It gave em a chance to get into the foothills on eir own one last time before the bright months ended.

Ey moved to the next snare, pausing on the way to pull leaves from a low growing mint plant. Munching on the leaves refreshed eir spirit and moistened eir mouth. The air was dry in the foothills, above the influence of the ocean. But ey only had a few more snares to pull and then ey could head home.

Tomorrow, the adults and near-adults like Lefeng would start packing for their winter travels. They’d follow the old ways, camping for a short time to gather food and supplies, then traveling on when the area they were in started to become depleted. Each year they traveled a slightly different path, giving the land time to recover. This year, Paiespaiokh would come with them, spending a full journey season with the family. If all went well, Lefeng and Paiespaiokh would join the marriage group together next spring. Spouses who married the group at the same time weren’t always close, but ey and Lefeng had been pair-bonded since childhood, and Lefeng couldn’t wait to bring em fully into eir family and life.

The ground shook again, making a stone under eir foot move. Ey fell to the ground. “Stagnant water!” ey cursed. That was the third shake today. The first one had been strong enough to bring down some of the young saplings. Earth shakes were a part of life. As the priest liked to remind them, even the earth is alive in its own way. But three in one day was unusual.

Ey stood and cursed again. Eir right ankle hurt when ey put weight on it. Checking the ankle showed that it was only swelling a bit. And it had held when ey put weight on it. Ey hobbled up to a straight sapling and used eir handaxe to cut the sapling down and strip the branches from it. With this rough-made walking stick, ey continued down the trail carefully.

Lefeng had no intention of staying in the village this walking-season. And a bad injury would keep em in the home compound this winter with elders, the young children, and some of the grandparents. Two of Lefeng’s siblings were courting other families in the village. They would be staying with their prospective-spouses most of the winter.

Lefeng couldn’t understand why they would want to marry-out to village families. Who could want to live a rooted life? If they had married out to another farwalker family, like Tsukstaifupy last summer, that Lefeng could understand.

But no matter what eir siblings did, Lefeng would be walking-on with the other near-adults and the rest of the family next week. Plus, ey was hoping to get some time with Paiespaiokh outside of the crowded confines of the compound. So no more falls!

A short time later, ey had finished pulling the snares and was headed home. The sun was setting—ey’s injury was making em late. But there was still light to see by.

A half-mark from the village ey reached the lookout clearing. The hilltop had been cleared of trees to give a view of the sea. The fisher families used it in storm season to watch for storms gathering on the horizon. Most years only saw one or two of the great storms, but that was more than enough. Lefeng was a bit surprised they weren’t already posting watch. The bright days were all but passed and the great storms sometimes came early in the year.

There were no storms today, but the sea looked strange. More like a mud puddle a child had jumped in, swirling around and full of debris.

Lefeng licked eir lips and looked harder. Ey had the best far sight in eir family, and while ey had never seen the sea like that, some of that debris looked familiar. Like the scraps of wood and sail that washed up on shore sometimes after a wreck.

Paiespaiokh had gone out with eir family boat that morning. Ey told Lefeng ey wanted to feel the sea under em one more time before spending more than half the year in the mountains.

Caution forgotten, Lefeng pelted down the trail, skidding and sliding in damp leaves and muddy loam. A short time later, ey burst from the trees at the village edge and stumbled to a halt.

Everything was mud. Mud and dead fish and ragged stumps of wood where walls and homes had been that morning. Here and there, a lump sprawled in the mud — lumps covered with fabric and often trailing banners of waterlogged hair.

Lefeng stared, trying to take in what ey was seeing. It was like the entire village had been washed away. Step by step ey crept out into the mud. It sucked at eir boots and clung to eir legs.

The first body ey came to was the elder, Chainchyu. Ey’s face was unrecognizable, but somehow ey was still wearing the silly bracelet of nuts and dried berries ey had worn for nearly twenty years. Lefeng sank into the mud next to em and gently touched the bracelet. Lefeng had given it to em, a childish gift from a youngling to eir favorite grandparent. Chainchyu had promised never to take it off.

Now, Lefeng removed it for em. “Journey long, Baba. Until I join you at the meeting-fire.”

Tears pouring down eir face, Lefeng forced emself to stand. Somewhere, there had to be someone still alive. There had to.

There wasn’t.

When dark fell, Lefeng, retreated into the shelter of the trees and made a small camp. Ey forced emself to eat, having learned well the lessons of the trail. Never go hungry when there is food, you don’t know when you will find more. Sleep couldn’t be forced.

With dawn, ey returned to the remains of the village.

Most were gone, leaving no sign they had ever existed.

Where eir family’s compound had once stood were a few stumps from the fence and the support beams of the house. Scattered throughout the village were a few–a very few–things ey recognized as once belonging to eir family. Ey gathered everything ey could, both from eir family and others, that might be useful.

The next day, ey spent gathering the double handful of bodies together on a pile with as much wood as ey was able to move. It had been over a year since ey had started a fire without coal or spark to work with. And the wet wood didn’t want to burn. But the effort of getting the fire started kept em from thinking about what ey was doing.

About what ey would do next.

Others from the village might have survived, but no one had been off on a long journey. Only the far-walking families regularly went further than a half days travel from the village, and they had all been here, preparing for the winter journeying. Even the fishing boats returned each day except for their yearly trips up the coast to the big city. Anyone who hadn’t been in the village when… whatever it was had happened should have returned by now.

Which meant Lefeng was completely alone.

Finally, the fire started. Ey sat upwind and watched it burn. Saying and singing the prayers for burying the dead. But there was no way ey, alone, could bury them all before scavengers became too bold for em to chase away.

The fire burned long into the night and ey watched.

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Episode 2: The Child
A VERY Different Kind of Family