Epirixanthes

Lainey paid little attention to the slugs and mud tangling with her feathers on each step through the straw mulch path, nearly deep enough to come to her hocks if her hooves sank straight to the ground. Her teetering dash through the garden had two goals: revel in how fast she could go the bigger she grew, and find Mama to proudly tell her she'd finished feeding and watering all the chimebirds. 

There Mama was, sitting on her chair in the shade cast by the stilthouse from which she watched over everything that happened in her domain. Unexpectedly, it wasn't an auntie or uncle or even a more transient part of the household beside her. Lainey had never seen the haggard faunid before, and they slowed to a tentative creep towards the house. They were used to new faunids appearing in the household frequently, but they were still hesitant to approach them. It was scary to meet someone they didn't know the intentions of. Some of the types that came to Mama for protection couldn't be spoken to carelessly. The line between strained symbiosis (resented for its necessity by someone that can't stand to have to play by someone else's rules) and its breakdown could sometimes only be learned by unwittingly crossing it. Lainey dreaded those lessons.

The stranger saw Lainey before Mama, and her stare pinned him in place. She smiled at him. It didn't seem like an aggressive challenge sort of smile, but it made him self-conscious. He really wished he was back in the chimebird house when Mama followed her gaze, and she didn't look happy to see him.

"Now, this is unexpected. Who's this?" he could barely hear the stranger ask Mama.

"None of your concern, that's who," Mama said firmly, her brusque tone carrying much more easily.

The visitor looked back to Mama, relieving Lainey of the heavy weight of her stare. "I'm not trying to pry. I'm just excited to meet what sort of special little fawn a woman like yourself would raise! I don't often find our kind choosing to have anything to do with raising the next generation. How paradoxical it is, the species’ extinction sheltering its hope under one roof. Absolutely beautiful.”

“Then, End-of-Days, it sounds like you should be well satisfied, with all that -“ two words imbued with a ruthless dismissiveness “- to write about from this trip. Knowing the babe’s got nothing to do with your theories.”

The visitor - End-of-Days? - giggled and looked to the ground in appeasement. “Very flattering, but I can’t claim any theories yet. But you’re right of course, my hypotheses have nothing to do with it. I admit, I simply like your family. You’ve built something special with so many interesting people, and research down here gives me such a nice excuse for a social call.” End-of-Days looked back to Lainey with a softer gaze. “Nothing about their identity would grace any public works. I would never.”

“Doesn’t help me much, when you’ll tell your little cult’s leaders all about every moment you spent here.”

“If you want to call them that.” A twitch of annoyance interrupted her friendly expression. “But I think you assume our organization works like your family - I’ll take it as a compliment, because I know you’re very proud of your family, and clearly you have reason to be. But I can choose what I share, and what stays between us.”

“Isn’t that nice.” Mama’s tone seemed to fall on deaf ears, with no change in the placid expression between them. She didn’t like this faun, yet the visitor didn’t act like she was in danger. It fascinated Lainey. He wondered if he would see her blood nourish the earth, as Mama always said when business or discipline came to a sharp point, or if there was something other than Mama protecting her even in Mama’s house. She said strange things, and didn’t seem to be here for any of the normal Necmir business in trade or brokering power. Maybe her mind was too touched by corruption to recognize reality, but he couldn’t imagine why Mama would entertain this conversation without any trade or reliable truth to get out of it.

“What’s your name?” The visitor called gently. Lainey didn’t know what they were supposed to say, with Mama glaring like that. They waited for her to tell them.

“Are the birds all fed, baby?” Mama asked instead.

Lainey smiled. “Uh huh, yes. And the water’s all fresh!” she exclaimed proudly.

“And is the coop clean?”

“I thought I just had to feed them today.” Lainey couldn’t keep a trace of whining out of their voice. They had done what they were told, and they expected praise for it. Fair transactions were law under Mama’s roof.

“Don’t whine at me. The chimebirds give you their lives for you to give them a safe and comfortable life. Go clean it out, and when you’re done tell Lee I want him to teach you some today.”

Lainey wanted to point out that he didn’t eat the chimebirds, but he knew it didn’t matter. It was all part of the network of exchange that supported everyone in the household. “Yes, Mama.” He walked back as slowly as he could get away with, straining to hear what they were talking about, but Mama didn’t allow anything more to be said in his earshot.

Once the coop was clean and Lainey was dirty from head to hoof, she climbed its low roof to see over the taller grasses and beds of fruiting vines climbing shrubs. She could see five fauns in the gardens, and it didn’t take long to spot Lee among them. She took a big jump off the short roof onto the soft bed of finished compost, and it didn’t hurt when her hands and stifles hit the ground in an imperfect landing. A short run through the gardens carried her to him.

“You need something?”

“Mama told me to tell you that she wants you to teach me something today.”

“Mmm.” He didn’t seem happy about having to be her teacher today, but at least he wasn’t upset, either. “Help me put these away, then we’ll head into the wood.”

“Right now?” Lainey had hoped to catch at least a look at whatever the visitor was doing with Mama, if she was still here.

“Well, yeah, I think we’d better,” stated Lee, a little mocking or incredulous like it was obvious - because it really was obvious, Lainey knew. Directions were given with an expectation they’d be followed as soon as possible.

“Yeah,” she agreed quietly. Lee returned tools while Lainey carried the woven basket of insects Lee had pulled from crops to offer to the birds, then throw the rejected remains into a pot of hot compost.

On the edge of forest where a lazy outlet stream from the swamp and a wire fence marked the property edge, Lee pointed out plants for Lainey to name the uses of, and introduced some Lainey didn’t know. The day was getting hotter, and they wished it was still the wet season, when the stream was fat enough that they could have been wallowing like an alligator up to their neck in muddy, peaty water during this conversation.

Lee froze up and shushed him, and it took Lainey several long moments to see the long, bright blue thorns that didn’t belong in the forest. The visitor didn’t move silently by any means, now that Lainey knew she was there, but he didn’t know how out of all the activity of the forest, Lee picked out hers. Without the sharp warning of her cyan thorns, he thought, she could stand in the swamp and become a particularly shaggy lichen-covered dead tree, with the brackets climbing her trunk.

“Howdy, there!” she called while walking closer. “I was just leaving, but while passing by I couldn’t help but notice your botanical interests. I’m a plant nerd, too. Would you allow me to butt in?”

“Uhh,” Lee hedged, looking around uncertainly. Trying to see if Mama was watching. “See, Mama Jo asked me to teach Lainey… I wouldn’t want to trouble you.”

“I can’t imagine Jolene would mind Lainey getting some bonus education, don’t you think? I’ve studied up and down the continent’s West claw. … Although… I am, perhaps, biased by my selfish biological drives,” she added, words trickling out slow with a wry modesty. “It gives such a sense of fulfillment, passing knowledge to the next generation. I will never have fawns of my own, but I suspect there’s some similar psychology in how I nurtured ideas from inception to maturity. Death will, of course, wipe it all clean and this renewal is good - but it is in my foolish, faunish nature to wish for what I have nurtured to last just a bit longer. Sorry, I’m thinking out loud, delaying you with my rambling. I hope you’ll let me make it up to you. Two heads should make light work, don’t you think?”

“Well… okay, yeah… uh, thank you. What’s your name?”

“Ekpyrosis.” She bent a thicket of green stems aside with a sweep of her hoof to expose a few knobbly, pale-tan tines reaching out of the ground. “And what’s the name of this?”

“I don’t know…” Lainey answered.

“It’s cancerantler,” Lee told them. “Fine for eating, if you like chewing on all dry stem with no decent leaf. It’s got no medicine when eaten, but it’s powerful used else-wise for duality or to help transfer power or energy. See, it seems like a plant, but it acts like a mushroom, taking energy from others instead of growing in the sun.”

“Thank you. That’s fascinating to learn. We know it as Epirixanthes in the institutions of formal study - always using an old dialect to give formal names, including my own. My silly attachment to silly tradition. You are so right to say it acts like a mushroom, this plant that only knew herself once she turned her back to the sun. A normal plant does business with certain types of mushroom. Energy drawn from the sun traded for strength drawn from the soil. It’s a transactional relationship - the fairest sort of relationship.” A twitch of her ear and irony in her tone suggested another joke Lainey wasn’t in on. “You understand the principle of fair trades very well, I imagine.”

The more Ekpyrosis talked, the more Lee appeared to regret taking her offer to make the lesson go more “quickly”. The more she talked, the more sure Lainey felt that she wasn’t the type to get violent, neither feral nor relying on force to get what she wants. Somehow, this did not make him feel any more comfortable. He didn’t understand if what she said was what she meant, or she was making fun of him, or setting a trap with words that would spring if he said the wrong thing. Lainey stayed silent but gave Ekpyrosis a trepidatious nod, barely more than a quiver, when it became obvious she was waiting for a confirmation.

“But does the plant think it’s fair, for the mushroom to set the terms of the relationship, reach into its roots and take all the energy it wants and give back what it deems fair? Is it fair that the plant has nowhere else to go, no other option than to keep giving and taking what it gets, no matter how demanding the fungus becomes?” Another expectant pause.

“… I don’t know.”

“I certainly wouldn’t know any better than you. Less, I’d dare say. Only the plants could know, but my guess is that for some, that relationship with their mushrooms we like to romanticize as mutualistic symbiosis is more parasitic, or at least commensal. Which is why I find it so fascinating - and I know that now I am the fool spinning a romantic narrative - when a plant turns the tables, goes on strike by permanently throwing away its green leaves. It seems to rebel with such spite that it doesn’t care it hurts itself, forsaking its most basic nature, the wondrous and almost sacred relationship with Herne’s sunlight. Self-mutilation, cutting away the organs that sustain her for how they restrain her to a life of being well-behaved and exploitable as Herne intended. And then that network of transactions, it uses that very system to take all the energy it wants. Of course, ultimately the energy must come from from other plants, the well-behaved ones, but with no visible contact between the roots of Epirixanthes and its “hosts”, we can infer they use the fungal network to do it. I can’t find it in me to condemn such an audacious, clever plant, the underdog taking its dues after countless years of evolutionary history on the other side of things - it’s impressive, admirable in a way - but…” Ekpyrosis stared at them with the same intensity as her first look at them. Lainey now felt that she was studying them with the same scrutiny as her plants. “That doesn’t mean it isn’t a heavy burden, to be another plant in its fungal network. Everything being about what you can give Epirixanthes in exchange for growing where you grow.”

“End-of-days!” Lainey’s stomach jumped at Mama’s furious, booming voice. “Excuse me, what in Herne’s grace and Fenris’s fury do you think you’re doing?”

“I was just on my way out, Jolene, but I overheard these two.” While Ekpyrosis explained herself, Mama swiftly reached the group. She bent down to Lainey with arms extended, and they reached up to embrace her neck. A tender hand on their back and an arm under their seat scooped them up and pressed them tight to Mama’s chest protectively. Lainey craned their neck to see what was happening before her. “You know I can never resist a conversation about natural history. Sorry if -“

“Lee,” Mama stepped in close enough that he stepped back - just a few steps more than needed to yield space deferentially, before he got a hold of his flight instincts, “didn’t I tell you to give Lainey a lesson?”

“- I’ve overstayed my welcome,” Ekpyrosis finished, more calmly than her situation called for.

“Yes, Mama.” Lee bowed his head in submission, but only the haste of his responses betrayed any fear.

“And instead, you’re standing there useless, letting this kind stranger teach it instead.”

“I’m sorry, Mama.”

“I told you,” Mama switched back to berating Ekpyrosis, “I told you you weren’t to talk to her. I welcomed you past the threshold of my home, of our sanctum. I think I made it clear what little I expect in return, and you smile and agree to my face, and go running like a pack of cacklers all over my hospitality as soon as you think my back is turned. You think I’m stupid? You think I don’t know everything that happens in my household? You know what I am, you should know I feel the thorn of your ill intentions pricking me, that damned thorn snagged in the energies of the sanctum I’ve created. That goes for you, too, Lee, but your disrespect surprises me. It tears at my heart to have to teach one of my own about respect.”

“I didn’t mean it like that - I wasn’t thinking - she caught me off guard.”

“Don’t blame the lapines when an unfenced garden gets ate, boy. There are always fauns you can’t trust, and you sure can’t let them run over us doing whatever they please. I’ve given you everything, I protect you as one of mine. If you won’t do what I ask of you and protect your siblings, then you haven’t earned that. You can finish cutting ties and leave, or you can come back to me and we’ll renew our obligations to each other.”

“I can’t leave, Mama, there’s nowhere else I can go. Please. Please, let me show I can earn my place here.”

“Lee, there is always a place for you here if you want it - you have a reliable soul, and I know that if ours is the right path for you, you’ll stay committed to it.” Mama’s tone turned tender, then hardened back to a command. “Now, show me you want it. Give our visitor a hand finding her way out of here. Meet me when you’re done for a talk in private. Bring me a good, sturdy stick or bring me some proof she’ll think twice about coming back uninvited - your choice.”

Ekpyrosis, strangely, had watched with ears relaxed in a satisfied expression - satisfaction as a naturalist making a good identification, Lainey couldn’t shake the impression. Ekpyrosis caught Lainey’s eye contact and the satisfied - or maybe amused - expression only grew. “Epirixanthes,” she stated, only to Lainey, and turned away with a leap into the undergrowth, bounding away with Lee on her heels.