Mahan, Fire Fork Countries, Qali
Satura, the first day of Enerin, 1149

Donghae lay indolently on the porch hammock, his belly full and satisfied from the just-concluded New Year lunch. The early afternoon light spilled to where he lay swaying with the breeze, enjoying the sun this first day of spring. The front yard led out to a road shared with another farmstead, a line of trees bordering the property line, though this early in spring sported nothing more than bare branches. On either side of the house stretched a view of the pasture and farmland belonging to their family, bordered on one side by the floodplains of the river that irrigated the Mahan farms while the other side was bordered with rolling hills where the village center was nestled in. It is a deeply satisfying idyllic view, at least to Donghae, never mind the black and white view of the fields as the winter thaw gave way to dark patches of soggy ground. A few months of viewing everything in winter white gets tiresome for a while, so he is relieved at getting a peek on the signs of life returning with spring.

Mum and Taeyeon would be puttering in the kitchen still, washing and putting away the dishes while Dad would be helping them. Donghae doesn't know where his older brother Donghwa would be, but he suspects the farmer-heir of the family is already out to check the state of the farm up the property's borderlands, in preparation for the planting season. Donghwa had been fidgeting as early as dawn to start the check on the inevitable spring thaw, as he did every year, if only there wasn't the villagers' mandatory visit to the temple of their land-gods, the Yutabuhen, to celebrate and wish for another fruitful year, before each of the families headed home for the traditional New Year lunch.

Sora presently came out to the porch, smiling as she espied her middle child taking a nap after enjoying the family lunch. She snuck up to him and ran her fingers through his brown-blond fringe, eliciting a whiny, "Mum!" from her son. Well, child would have been a misnomer, as Donghae at 18 years old is already an adult for two years. This son of hers just held the distinction of looking too young for his age, not without the help of her and Leeteuk's genes, and maybe also because her son has a refreshingly positive outlook in life.

"Sorry, baby," she just chuckled as she continued ruffling his hair. "Thought you were already asleep." She thinks he deserves the rest, working through winter to repair their farm machines in preparation for spring, and why she didn't insist that he accompany Donghwa around the farm. Her and Donghwa could have started the work tomorrow, but her eldest had spent the winter relatively burrowed in the house when he's used to working the land under the sun. Maybe just a consequence of them being workers to the land litanies.

The door opened and 12 year old Taeyeon came running out, dressed in her second best dress after already wearing her best dress for that morning's temple visit. 

"I'm off to Yuri's, Mum!" Donghae's younger sister said as she pecked Sora's plump cheeks. They had met Kwon Yuri's family that morning and Taeyeon had been invited over to an afternoon party with other kids from school.

"Alright," Sora just said as she fussed over Taeyeon's hair ribbons before releasing her youngest. "Be back before sundown, and be careful on the road." She added sternly.

"I will, Mum," Taeyeon obediently replied even as she was already on tippy toes, raring to go. This would be her last weekend off before school resumed for her next week. "Bye, Hae!" she belatedly greeted her brother as she started down the path out their farm, her sturdy boots keeping her from slipping on the slush brought by the thaw.

Their hamlet of Mahan is a sizable area with outlying farms, one of which was theirs. A few roads led in an out of the farmstead, and though they are relatively near the village center, Yuri's family farmstead was on the other side of Mahan. Taeyeon would be lucky to hitch a ride if a traveling cart passed by, but their main mode of transportation would be walking.

Sora stayed long enough to watch Taeyeon's dwindling back, before she stared off in the direction where Donghwa would be. Donghae had always marveled at his mother's uncanny sense of where her children could be, sight unseen, though Donghae thinks all Mums had this ability. He only refrained from asking what went through her mind as her face slightly frowned continuing to look out the farm, before she briefly smiled at him and went back inside the house.

It was a long time before Donghae would fall into that afternoon nap. He had gazed out in the same direction as his Mum's, his mind turning over the amount of work he'd had to do on their farm machines, not just this past winter. Mum and Donghwa hadn't discussed it with him, but Donghae is aware that the land had been harder to work on this past year. His work as a mechanic have sent him all over Mahan working on the same problems as the farmers in their family had encountered - plowing vehicles consistently breaking down, watercarts overworked being sent out often to burning farms, threshers needing modifications to effectively separate the diseased grain from the salvageable produce. It didn't escape Donghae's notice that this year's harvest was lesser than the last, and it was already lesser the year before that. Mum and Donghwa put in more backbreaking work for even lesser yield, and it only magnified the disquiet Donghae felt since he was ten and he found out his aptitude was in the mechanics, and not in agriculture same as Mum's and Donghwa. So no matter how much he wanted to apprentice at the farm and help out, he was left no choice but to apprentice under the tool workers.

It was only in retrospect that he appreciated his work as a mechanic - he's had more success working with machines than even managing to grow those prickly spindles that didn't need much water. Even Sora had despaired at his lack of a green thumb never mind being born to a family of agriculturists, though his aptitude at the mechanics have afforded them regular maintenance around the farmstead.

Which still did not solve the root of all their problems: the blight. Donghae was too young to recall when it had all started, though the blight year they kept calling it ushered in his father's need to work abroad and spend it on another backbreaking work as a miner. It had bewildered Donghae at a young age to be saying goodbye to Dad, then only occasionally seeing him whenever Leeteuk could manage to leave the work and come home on holidays, though it was few and far between throughout the years. So Donghae resolved to put his head down and do well in the trade that chose him, to someday relieve Mum and Dad from working too hard for too little.

But this wasn't something confined within Mahan; the Fire Forks Countries were fortunate to have held off the calamity a few years compared to other lands of the world. But the blight had started to creep up the pastoral lands of the Fire Fork Countries, and was now affecting the farmsteads of Mahan. Donghae may not have the talent to work the farm, but it didn't mean the blight wasn't his concern. Their dwindling stores and reduced produce have made it difficult to set aside usable grain and foodstuff to feed them when the blight will eventually overrun the land, without knowing if and when the land can recover.

He tried not to feel despondent this first day of the New Year. Traditional wishes of a blessed year ahead should be made with a sincere heart, Donghae believes, and thinking about the problem on this auspicious day seemed to invite disaster. So he sought to empty his head and believed with all his heart that whatever difficulty lay ahead, it would be overcome.

Even as he laid back on the hammock, his hazel eyes unconsciously sought the northern direction, where the known world ended in the Far Reach. Unbidden, the images from Great Granma Cordana's diary entries leaped into Donghae's mind, and he was suddenly seized by an otherworldly idea.

Perhaps there is a way to save their world, after all.

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