Chosen by the Sky

Chapter 3 - Harvest Ritual

"Did you hear that storm last night? It came out of nowhere!"

"Yeah, it was wild. If I didn't know better, I'd have thought the whole darkness army was teleporting in."

"Have you seen the reservoirs around the citadel? They're nearly full!"

I ducked my head down further, tugging up my hood. All the steves were talking about the storm last night, the one I caused on accident. I had been hoping for a slight drizzle, but the pouring rain had lasted throughout the night, sufficiently flooding the streets and battering ceaselessly at my window. The sound should have been calming, but instead it was anxiety-inducing. All through the night, I expected some Colorless Guard to come barging in, demanding what I had done.

Nobody had.

And yet... I was certain someone had seen me. That someone was still watching me. The feeling wouldn't go away. Any second now, I expected some steve to point a finger at me, singling me out as the cause of the storm.

I knew that was silly. It was just my paranoia creeping in again. But I couldn't help the anxious thoughts from clouding my mind, looming over everything else.

Hopefully the steves would stop talking about it soon.

I tried to distract myself with a more cheerful thought: the new program was starting soon!

I had signed myself up as quickly as possible.  Maybe if the steves saw that I was working to help them out, they would trust me more.  Just because I was a non-steve didn't mean I wasn't a hard worker.

I waved up to the guards at the top of the gate, signalling that I wanted to leave.  The new fields were right at the outskirts of the wall, where we could expand outwards if we wanted to while remaining safely in sight of the kingdom.

The gates creaked open, and I caught my first glimpse of the other volunteers.  Most of the steves were yellow or green, but I spotted some other colors mixed in as well.  A few Blue and Indigo Steves were crowded together, looking nervously at the sky and around at the other steves.  I guess I wasn't the only one who wanted some extra trust.

I waved as I approached, plastering my signature smile on.  Most of the steves waved back cheerfully.  I felt some of my tension start to ebb.  They seemed nice enough.

"Hey Sabre!"  One of the Green Steves called.  His arms were loaded with carrots and potatoes to plant, and the jeans he wore were a faded brown at the hems, dirt-stained from years of gardening.  A few orange tulips were woven into his hair, and I wondered if he grew those himself.

"Ready to start?"  A younger Yellow Steve chirped.  I clapped my hands together, a little nervous to be around so many people.

"Let's go feed some steves!"

The Green Steves quickly took charge of the operation, handing out seeds and hoes for everyone.  It wasn't long before I was tilling the mud, turning up the sodden grass and planting wheat seeds in its place.

"It's a good thing we got that storm last night!"  The Green Steve from before told his friend.  "It makes it much easier to plant everything, and our seeds will get the moisture they need without having to manually water them.  The Sky People must be watching out for us!"  Some of the nearby steves shot skeptical glances at one another, but said nothing.  I eyed the Green Steve in interest, although nobody could tell with my blindfold on.  I hadn't heard about the Sky People in a long time.

I didn't know many of the details, but from what Rainbow Steve had explained to me, they were basically the steves' equivalent of Thor or Zeus.  Whenever they had unusually good weather, the steves would thank the 'Sky People' for blessing them.  Whenever the weather was bad, it was because they were ticked off.