VIII: Imagine What Questions

With their legs finding the strength to walk, the young Datura carried their feet across the desert, step by step, back towards their creche.

When their creche peaked over the dune, the young Datura found a strange mix of relief and regret bubbling inside of their guts. They had wandered the whole of the Datura lands, met many of their kind, different in stature and labors. Despite hearing the many of their voices, they were no closer, no more sure of the answer to the riddle of Sun and Moon than they had been when they left. They had walked out into the world, alone, seeking an answer, and had found many answers. This was unexpected.

Even more curious was the fact that so many answers existed in the first place. These were all adults, those who knew, who could be trusted. Some elder, some simply older, the young Datura had not been prepared for such a breadth of responses, all tugging in different directions.

Perhaps this is the point of the riddle? The young one pondered, nose pointed towards the dirt. Was I meant to choose one? Find which makes sense to me? Maybe, but if I was to find a single answer and I choose wrong…

The wind turned, and the young Datura sensed they were not alone. Their eyes darted towards the creche. There, standing several dozen meters out from the doorway of their old home, stood the Elder Nurstree, Ironwood. Their old, wrinkled face was pointed directly at the young one, though if Ironwood’s clouded eyes had caught sight of anything in the distance, their posture did not know it.

Immediately, the young one felt a childish, cloying need - a deep instinctual desire to run, to cry, to cling to the hem of the Nursetree and demand satisfaction. Their legs were tired, and they yearned for the sweet comfort of being carried to their bed after a long day’s play. How nice it would be to return to the simpleness of summer, the warm breeze on a tired face, to return again to the soft sands and warm meals. But with each step, even as both Elder and Creche grew in size, they both remained small in the child’s mind. This Elder, a stone in the stream of their mind that must be navigated as a leaf does the current, was now… a Datura. Just a Datura. An Elder, certainly. A Nursetree. A role, a labor. One of many.

The creche, once the world, now an encampment, and not a large one. It was towards the center of the lands that the Datura could hold, and it was held with stress, with determination, with love, and care. Stories come in from the world and filter to the young, who will one day…

A small dune collapsed under the young one’s feet, and it was enough to stir the elder Datura’s stance. At first, the tip of Elder Ironwood’s nose hunted, pecking feverishly in the air before pausing, a new expression crawling over the crags of skin on their face. Joy? A smile, stifled. Mocking? Their back stiffened. Pride?

“Young one.” The voice spoke, and the Young Datura froze. “I see you think your work to be complete.”

The young Datura felt the sting of youth, of scolding, wash against their face, only to be met with an internal rejection, some fire that screamed out, demanding that Elder Ironwood be corrected. Elder Ironwood could be caring, harsh, warm, and cold all at once. But for the first time, the young Datura knew that Elder Ironwood was wrong.

“No, Elder Ironwood.” The young one looked into the elder’s clouded eyes. “The work is never complete.”

The elder sharply inhaled, their jaw briefly clacking. They seemed to be holding on to their breath, keeping it trapped inside. Or maybe the air was just a buffer, keeping something else down instead?

“So then, little one.” With a shake, the proud voice and stance of Elder Ironwood returned. “Tell me now, as you will tell the gathered council tomorrow morning. Tell me, where do Sun and Moon go when they are not in the sky?”

Suddenly knowing the answer, the little one spoke.

“I don’t know, Elder Ironwood.”

“...Oh?” A hint of cheekiness could be found in the rasps of the Elder’s voice. “Perhaps you could walk in the other direction tomorrow, then?”

“No, I don’t think that would be wise, Elder Ironwood.” The young one reached into their satchel, retrieving a stone-clay lotus, the pit of a peach, the far-sands of the border-dunes. “I have walked a great deal of the Daturalands today, and I have found no two of us who have the same answer. Even this morning, you all sent me out because...you do not have the answer either.”

Neither spoke for a moment before the young one continued.

“I believe...we need more answers.” They returned their trinkets to their satchel. In the distance, young Datura played and screamed in the wild winds of the sand. “If this many of us can offer this many answers, then imagine what answers we might find tomorrow.” They looked the elder in their eyes. “Imagine what questions.”

A single, salt-soaked tear carved a clean path down the dusty face of Elder Ironwood.

“Yes, little one.” They walked forward to embrace the young child. “I thought much the same when I was your height.”

The young one took all the time they needed in the embrace of their Nursetree. They wondered, only briefly, what comfort it must bring to the Nursetree, before gorging themselves on the comfort it offered them now.

After a time, the young one pulled away. “Please tell Moo… Please tell Torti that I much enjoyed the berry they provided and that it was a great comfort to my daily labors.”

The Elder’s smirk was undeniable. “You can tell them yourself, child. Though you may not wish to lie to the leader of the Datura.”

Confused, the young one looked at their Nursetree in confusion. Their hands raced through the satchel of their bags, eager to once again prove their worth to the Nursetree by showing the lack of berry.

Frustratingly, their hands found that very berry, right where it was dropped this morning. Their hands scooped the berry out of the satchel, with it coming several papery husks, seedpods missing their seeds. Though it took a moment, they recognized these pods as coming from the tree growing out of the side of the creche, the one that the Nursetree would read under, from which many utensils have been carved from, from some shade could be gathered - but not too much. Proud, giving, with life growing out of it from all directions, seedpods breaking away and off to fly in the wind, to find a new home far away. Or, sometimes, closer.

How had they lived off of the seeds for a day? How had their belly been so full? Did they know the name of this tree? Did they know that this was their name, too?

I ask these questions of you, children, because you do not know. But by now, the young Datura knew full well, as did the Elder Ironwood. Ask them today, and they will tell you that they always knew, because they did. But here, they always-knew for the first time.

And as they sat there, always-knowing together, The Rootwarden interpreter Calathea called out to the Elder.

“Nursetree Ironwood?”

Two heads, one young and one old, would turn.