Sean stumped around the streets of the capital city, as he had been doing for days. He ignored the strange looks that all and sundry were casting his way; as he had been doing for days. He muttered to himself in Farmer, Farmer which improved each day. Finally he arrived at his destination.
He pushed into the building, through the door marked ‘Information bought and sold’, and went up to the desk, where an Ellyll looked up from a book he was reading. “I have a question,” Sean said, and pushed a coin across the desk.
The Ellyll stared at him for a moment, and then responded, “And so do I,” and pushed the coin back. “Why is a Visserknaap dressed as a Farmer, and speaking Farmer to me? Surely your disguise fools no one, and you know I must speak Visser?”
“I want to become a Farmer, and I want you to take me to someone who knows how to do it.”
The Ellyll nodded, and began a series of questions. When he had reasonably extracted the entire story, and Sean’s motivation, he thought for a moment and called out something in Dafodiaith, the Elven language. At this a Fashgen27 came from the door behind the desk. The Ellyll spoke several words to him, and then turned back to Sean. “This, my Son, Sionr, will take you to one who, among us, is an expert in the transformation you wish to make. If it would be permitted, he will stay with you. He will, of course, pay you for the information he will gain.”
“He’s welcome to come, right enough, but as for the payment… as long as he is willing to share information with me that should be trade enough.”
The Ellyll bowed, and Sionr led Sean out. They passed through street after street, until Sean suddenly got suspicious. “Say, where are we going?”
“To the Castle; it is where the expert is.”
“But we can’t just go to the Castle!”
“Ah, well perhaps you can’t. But Ellyll, we have our own network and our own ways. Each Ellyll is always ready to work at his job, to exchange the information he has for money or other information. It is what we do.”
Sure enough, the Fashgen came up to a side gate, handed in a note, and soon afterwards the guard waved them in. “You know where to go?”
“I know well enough,” Sionr responded with a grin. He led Sean up several stairs, down a long corridor, stopped, and knocked on a door.
“Tristan!” Sean exclaimed, as the door opened.
“Sean!” Tristan responded with evident surprise. The boys hugged unabashedly. Visserknaap don’t hide their emotions, and Tristan knew Knaapen rules.
“What are you doing here?” Tristan said, motioning the two boys into his room.
“When did you get in?” Sean asked, temporizing.
“Seth and I got in yesterday from Koenig. Are you ready for the trip?”
Tristan responded “Close to. We’re getting ready. We’re needing to muck up the quarters.
Lots of our passengers need separate accommodations.”
“Well, they probably don’t want you crawling in their hammock with them,” Tristan teased. “What else do you all need to do?”
“Well, for the rest of them, everything is going on ok. But for me, I asked my Captain for some time off and I…” he trailed off. He had sort of wanted to get this done before he met up with Seth and them.
The Fashgen came to his rescue, “He would like to transform into a Farmer. He comes to you as the expert on the subject.”
Tristan looked at Sean, analyzing, and finally comprehending. Had he never been a Visserknaap, he might not have understood; but now he did; the group identity. Sean wanted to be part of the group, and the rest of the group could transform, and the rest of the group was now in the guise of Farmers − much of the rest of the group anyway. He calculated and came to a decision.
“I see. I wondered what on earth you were doing in that get-up. How have you been going about it?”
“I’ve been trying hard to do all that we had you do. I got myself some Farmer clothes,” he waved at his clothes, “and I have been walking around here in this Farmer city, well, there’s a lot of Farmers here anyway. I have been eating Farmer food, although of course it is mainly Sjefen that do the cooking.
And I have been talking Farmer the whole time, and tiring that is, too.”
Tristan grinned and then thought over Sean’s description, comparing it to his own experience. “Where have you been sleeping?” he asked, suddenly.
“Back on Schip, of course.”
“Aha,” Tristan said, “there is your problem. I tell you then, we will have you transformed by tomorrow.” He turned to Sionr, “Thank you. You can go now.”
But Sionr turned to Sean, imploringly, and Sean said, “He can stay. I told him he could stay with me and learn.”
Tristan looked at Sean, askance, “Do you understand what you were asked? When he said, ‘stay with you’, he meant, and learn about you, to stay with you as long as you were doing interesting things. That could be months, or years. That is what I am doing with Seth.”
Sean shrugged his shoulders, “No, didn’t know that. But he is welcome to. He seems a neat enough kid.”
Tristan stood amazed at the casual nature of the Visserknaap culture, remembered the emotions he had had once, and was tempted to transform to Knaap again. But he had another task.
“Well, ok. But he will have to follow my instructions very strictly today and tonight. First thing, no speaking anything but Farmer. And we need to go get him Farmer clothes. I hope you both have some money, this is going to be expensive.”
“I’m a Visserknaap,” Sean responded with a shrug.
Sionr added, “My Father authorized me to use whatever funds I needed for this purpose.”
“Well, good then. You two can pay my bills. I am the expert, after all.
Let’s go.”
--
“You want what, Deary?” The Farmerwife looked at Tristan over the pile of clothing on her table, almost shouting over the noise of the market.
“Farmer clothes for you?”
“Yes ma’am, Farmlad clothes for we two.”
“Very well, then. Come over here and take those clothes off so I can measure you.”
Tristan had known this would be asked of them, and so was stripped in seconds. Sionr took noticeably longer, and refused to look at Tristan as he pulled his shirt off over his head. “Look at me,” Tristan said, loudly and in Farmer. “What, do you think you are some shy Fashgen? Look at me. I am looking right at you.”
“I…” Sionr said, still facing away.
“Are you going to do this, or not?” Tristan said, turning him around forcefully. “Should I send you back to your Father? Who is the Expert here?
Surely your Father must have taught the rules for modesty for Farmers.”
Sionr lifted his eyes to Tristan and, while the Farmerwife bustled around Tristan with her tape and ignored this bizarre exchange, quickly finished removing his own clothing and then endured his measuring with only the minimum of blushing and looking-away-nervously.
“I can’t do much for the tails, Dears,” the Farmerwife said. “Let me look at you,” she said to Sean, examining the flap that his Mother had sewed onto the back of his pants. “Well, I can do that. I won’t bother for the underwear.
You did want underwear too?”
“Of course,” said Tristan.
“Well, I am not going to bother with a flap for those. Just a hole should do. What do you have?” she asked Sean.
“Well, I…” said Sean, as the Wife pulled his pants down a bit.
“Shame on you!” the Wife said, swatting him. “Is that how your Mother taught you to dress?”
So Sean too got underwear, which he donned without batting an eye, pulling on the rest of his clothes over them. “Hadn’t thought I needed those,” he said, somewhat abashed. “Being underneath everything else and all.”
Tristan and Sionr’s underwear were ready next, and then, after quite some work with scissors and needle, their pants. “What shirts would you like, Dearies? No real size on them − unless they are too small, of course.”
Their shirts picked out, Tristan took the group to an inn. “Go into the common room,” he said to the others, and get a table. I have a couple of things to talk to the Owner about.”
They saw him in an animated discussion with the owner, and some money changing hands, then he came over to their table. “Ok, we should be set for the night. Tonight we all change to Farmer.”
“All of us?” queried Sean, while Sionr looked − surprised.
“Yep. I want to feel what it is like to be a Farmer. Sionr came to learn, well, he’s going to learn. And besides, can you imagine how it will be when we see Seth tomorrow?” and he grinned, in a most un-Elflike way.
They had been sitting for just a few minutes, when a grinning Farmlass brought them a large serving of food: standard, solid, Farmer fare. And then she sat down at the table with them. “Well, my life. Let’s see. I get up at five of the clock and have a quick wash up; longer on Seventh day, most days just a quick wash with a bucket − competing for the bucket with my Brother and Sisters.”
“Then, when I’ve washed, I come down here and set up the tables. I usually have to move some people who have slept down here in the common room so I can set them up. It is cheaper, you know, to sleep in the common room instead of having a room with a bed.”
“My Brother usually gets the fire going, but if Da has him doing something else, then I do that too. Then I start getting food out. The people I have just woken up are usually hungry, and I help my Sisters to bring food out.”
“But I don’t stay long. When I see people come down from upstairs, I go up to their room and straighten it up: getting the fire going, making the bed, and sweeping the floor. In the summer I open the windows but don’t have to do the fire.”
“That usually takes me all morning, if we are full, and even when we are not, if there are people coming and going; that is more work.”
“If I can, I get some lunch, but I often can’t. Oh, and if there are persons of quality that come, with a woman, then I act as Lady’s Maid if they don’t have one.”
“I like that. It is easier work, for one thing; and I like the work − getting to help with all of the nice clothes, and waiting at table for her. It can be long work, though, sometimes they don’t even dismiss me all night and I sleep on the floor with one of my Brothers.”
“But I sometimes get to eat really well when I am a Ladies Maid. Some of the quality, not all of them, will let their servants eat after they have finished; eat the food that they didn’t finish, you understand, which is usually expensive food, and lots of it.”
She stayed, and talked with them, teasing them, as only a Farmlass can do. She told them of her life, her family, her work, her friends − everything she could think of.
Several times while she spoke Sionr tried to ask questions. But each time Tristan interrupted, and rephrased the question. It took a while for Sionr to catch on, but Sean got it right away. Sionr’s questions were cool, logical, and… distant. Tristan’s questions were blunt, emotional; even crude. Sean and Tristan handled all the questions for a while, until suddenly Sionr broke in, “So, did you get a good spanking for that?”
The lass blushed, and answered naturally enough, “Sure did, couldn’t sit down for a week.”
And Sionr took over the questions: each of them to the point; each of them direct; and each of them emotional. Sean watched him with amazement for awhile, and then jumped back in, competing. All too soon the lass (who was really quite cute) said, “I have to go now. It’s been fun,” and left the table.
She hadn’t been gone two minutes, when a young lad came in, sat down, and began stuffing himself. Several decent bites into the process, he looked up, and said, “Well, go ahead, ask me whatever you want.”
Tristan looked ready to begin, but Sionr beat him to it, “What’s your name?”
“Matthew,” the lad responded around the food.
“And how do you feel about Visserknaapen?” Sionr asked with a grin.
The lad glanced at Sean, but he was being paid to answer questions, however silly, so he quipped, “They’re all wet.”
Many of his answers after that were also silly, but the three of them managed to gain a good understanding of a Farmlad’s life, in this case a Son of an Innkeeper.
Person followed person at their table, and the morning ended, and the afternoon came and went. Soon the room began filling up. Everyone was curious about the strange group, and finding all comers welcome, many of them came over for a while. At times there were several people all arguing over some point of Farmer culture or tradition.
Eventually the evening came to a close, and people began drifting out.
Matthew came back and took them upstairs. “Here are your rooms,” he said.
“Rooms?” Sean asked, once Matthew was gone. “What do we need rooms for? We aren’t going to sleep alone, are we?”
“Yes. That’s been the problem up to now. You have gone back to the Schip each night, and slept in a bundle with all of your buddies. How do you expect to change like that? You must walk, talk, eat, and sleep Farmer. Now go into the room, and describe the entire room, in Farmer. Keep doing it until your eyes drag, and you get dizzy. Then go to sleep. After a very painful night you should wake up a Farmer.”
When Sean left, Tristan turned to Sionr. “If you are going to succeed at this, you are going to need to not analyze things. I tell you that this can be done, but it can only be done if you treat yourself as a Farmer. You cannot go and hide away in your head and think. Walk around the room, describe everything, and feel everything. Imagine yourself going to wake up in a Farmer house, with a Farmer Mother, and a Farmer Father, Farmer siblings, and you are going to wake up at 05:30 to milk the cows and then work till you drop off exhausted at 20:00.”
“You can do this thing, if you want to. But you have to want to.”
“Oh, I want to all right,” Sionr replied, going off into his room.
And he must have. Morning found three Farmlads down at the breakfast table. Now it was their turn to tease Grace and Matthew; who gaped in amazement from the doorway and had to be coaxed over to the table.
Sean was thrilled. Tristan and Sionr were thrilled. Sean saw the grins on their faces. When their food was served and Matthew and Grace had gone back into the kitchen, he leaned over and asked, “Is it very different for you?”
Tristan began, “It is less different for me. Visserknaap and Farmer share several attributes that are very different from Fashgen. You might almost call Farmer an intermediate state. So having already changed into Visserknaap from Fashgen once, well, the biggest differences weren’t new.”
Sionr then responded “For me it’s like an entire new world. I began to make the transformation yesterday afternoon, when I switched my questioning.
I greatly appreciated being an Ellyll; I can see how we have a perspective on the world that is very different from many of the other races. And we do not lack joy − There is a deep contentment in learning and those sensations which we do feel and which we do participate in are strengthened by their very uniqueness, their isolation.”
“But, Farmers, and I presume from your statement, Visseren, also are able to rejoice in their sensations, rejoicing as a fish rejoices in swimming. Not the unique, separate and distinct sensations of the Ellyll, but an overwhelming flood.”
74 Vonsbooks.com Sean shook his head, “Well, it isn’t like that at all for me. The big difference for me is the way I look at people. Now, as a Farmer I feel like I am who I am and I do what I do and what others do is mostly their business, as long as they get their job done well, and on time.”
“But as a Visser?”
“As a Visserknaap,” Tristan continued for him, “who you are depends on who you are to everyone around you. Who they know, who they like, what they do, is as much a part of you as anything you do yourself.” Sean nodded.
They spent the rest of the morning planning how to surprise Seth.
Eventually they hit on an idea.
Thank you for reading Von’s Substack. I would love it if you commented! I love hearing from readers, especially critical comments. I would love to start more letter exchanges, so if there’s a subject you’re interested in, get writing and tag me!
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Thanks again, God Bless, Soli Deo gloria,
Von
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Island People
Island People is a young adult fantasy book centring on a young prince. The book starts with his kidnapping and follows his adventures as he not only escapes from his kidnapper but gains critical allies and friends.
The entire book is scheduled on Substack, and there are several sequels. This is a book I wrote years ago, so it is in a bit of a rough form. Critiques and comments are more than welcome, they are requested.