#debukefarmhold

"That's.... maybe a little bit of corn, huh?" Amity is up a tree. Of course she's up a tree. But it's a good place to watch Beltaine preparations.

"Of course it is," Meredith DeBuke says. The troll girl is atypical, scrawnier than most of her kin, thick glasses, and always with a book. Some say she reminds them of some earl fellow. She seems twitchy for a troll. She's been a friend to Amity for... wait...does Amity KNOW her? Huh. oh well, that's Meredith Janice DeBuke or MJ, "You work with what you have."

She's looking UP the tree as she talks to Amity.

"Everything is cooooorrrrnnnnnn."

"Some of it is wheat, Barley, and soybeans, though not so much in the soybeans, others make so much more of it. Oh," She adds, "We have a smaller collection of cabages, carrots, tomatoes and potatoes. Tubers can be a staple. and .. oh, you mean for the decorations and not what we grow." She looks out "Ok. My family over does the corn."

Boy howdy do they over do the corn! Husks, ears, individual kernels and more are used. If it is found on a cornstalk, it is put to decorating.

This might be the first time the city girl has seen Blue Corn for that matter.

She points. "Is that Troll Corn?"

"Oh! No, it's actually from Native American tribes... been around for ages. I think the Hopi tribe had it first, but later others did as far east as the Cherokee. Now it does take to some cantrip use for bunks very well," Meredith looks nervous, "Which is nice, because one never knows..." She quiets down at that. M.J. has been one of Amity's best friends for ... err.. okay not a best friend, but maybe a friend? For ...days? you know, this troll girl started following Amity about an hour ago tops and they hadn't really met until then. It's odd, Amity never had to work so little to get a troll's friendship, if friendship this is. Amity is pretty sure they're both too young for stalkers.

"Never knows what?" She tilts her head to the side - birdlike, who knew?

Pooka have a knack for getting folks to talk, and in Amity's defense, M.J. entered HER Turf first so to speak so like her so like her dad has said 'Friend Around, Find out'. THe pooka boon confidante kicks in and MJ says ..." One never knows when one might need an edge in purification to hold off their inevitable DOOM." / What a weird farm. Trolls who act like pooka by shape shifting, now they got one that talks a bit like a sluagh, only, of course, louder.

Realizing she said that, MJ looks up "Oh sorry I shouldn't have bothered you with that... forget I uhm.. you know."

Head tilts the other way. "Forget what? If i was bothered, I could fly away." She flaps her little wings.

"The guilt is killing me," She mutters, "I should NOT use people like this..." the troll is fidgeting, but it is clear some part of her WANTS to confess to some... terrible act. She takes a breath and gushes, "I'm sorry, Amity. I'm using you to avoid a Dark Fate! I'm sorry, it's not fair, but you have chosen one energy all bout you and that might save me if I can matter more than I do." / Amity does not have Gwydion's boon... which is, she learned, the ability to tell when someone is lying, and not, as she may have thought, the ability to ride a horse while still having a stick up your ass, but MJ's weird words SEEM to be honest, perhaps confusing, but honest.

"Oh, okay." Amiable. "I'm a pretty useful bird. Save you from what fate, 'zactly? Being eaten by corn?"

"Oh, wow, that would be ironic. NO, you see... I have..." There's a dramatic pause, by troll standards "Dark Fate. One day, I'm going to die, and die horribly, far too young. Like, never even make it to grump hood... which is to be fair ,pretty far away but not compared to most. Apparently, if the prophecy about me is to be true. I won't matter, I won't be a very consequential. But one day, I die horribly, and some hero, some chosen one, will hear the news, and think fondly of how close we were... even if until then no one ever mentioned me. I will exist ONLY so some chosen one can retroactively lament my loss and explore their guilt that they couldn't save ME, and I will , at beast, become their motivation to take a bad guy down. It's worst fate a troll can imagine. I won't die heroicly protecting anyone, I'll die like a wimp and a lame motivation. I'm like John Wyck's first dog, I'm like Batman's mom, this my fate, to be off panel in the great sequential art of Da'an until I am needed to motivate the hero's call by having a demise."

"Or you could.... not do that?"

"You can't fight fate, but sometimes you can finagle it. See... my thought is, if I hang around one who has chosen one material, then Da'an will have to notice me... as a side character in the great tapestry. The more I actually make myself matter, the longer time I have before the inevitable doom... by hanging by folks like yourself... and let's face it, reinacting Hercules' task at the Aegean stables was a good sign you had tricker hero all over you, I gain import. If this were the comic books, I might even get a spin off on my own... probably just a mini - series, but hey, it would buy me another year." The troll swallows "I'm not supposed to talk this much. Trolls are supposed to be all.. stoic." She takes a deep breath, as if using the air she took in to straighten her back, "I'm sorry if I tried to act as if we'd known each other for years. It's one thing to try to con Da'an a bit, it's another to take advantage of some nice girl whose family hit hard times."

MJ has braced herself for... well, hard to say what, but she's looking like she's in front of a firing squad, ready for the pooka to shoot the bullet of rejection into MJ"s unworthy guile using frame.

Which is interesting but... oh look, a maypole is going up.

"...Why can't you just be a main character, though?"

"Not my fate, not my D'an. See, others here are either firmly reliable supporting types... or hero material. I'm neither. And I'm NOT gonna go villain. I was raised better than that."

"MJ is a snappy nickname, and, like, Mary Jane went from being a supporting character to having her own title. Have you considered dying your hair an interesting color?"

"I read that. I can never really forgive that creep editor in chief ffor breaking Peter and her up." Her eyes darken Quesada!

Then she snaps back, "But that's what I mean by spin off... it buys time."

"You're my peter parker, minus the deal with the devil and forced hackneyed divorce." MJ says.

"Or..." the troll girl says "if not you, maybe some one else. I just don't want to fade away and not matter except as a foot note in someone else's story? is.. is that selfish?"

"Sure, it's sooooo selfish to not wanna die."

She plucks off a leaf and drops it on the troll. (Well, attempts - it drifts off to the side) "How can you know your da'an for sure? Oedipus thought he knew HIS da'an."

"Oracles are pooka, y'know."

"You're right, it is, I should be proud to make some hero's chiocie easier... and..." A pause "Oh.. uhm.. how'd I know? We have a Mountain, the most powerful Seer at any lodge ever. Emmit DeBuke. I... I read his files when he wasn't looking. Oh no wonder he didn't want to tell me of my dark fate."

She picks up the leaf and looks it over thoughtful, her mine plagued with how, like this leaf, she shall be blocked and fall in a sign of danger to others.

"How do you know you read it right though, and not all twisted up in riddles?"

Hrumph, and she forgets her dread long enough to be a bit offended, "I am the best reader in my age group. EVERY one says so. 'Get your head out of the book there are chores' they tell me, 'Your room is covered in comic books, put them up' and so on. I read better than some wilders. Mind you, the average IS lowered by the two morons in the family but I won't name them as it's not polite."

"But why you gotta just agree with it?"

"But I'm not... that' why I'm trying to extend my time by finding a chosen one to matter to."

"My teacher said I talked excessively but I'll have you know I talked exactly as much as I wanted."

"So - you should become a chosen one."

"You wanna matter, go do cool stuff."

"External forces are seldom concerned with our personal happiness," SHe sighs , then she says "It's not my Da'an. When the greatest Soothsayer in the world... or Iowa which for me might as well be the same thing, writes that you are doomed, you are DOOMED. Two D's with two O's between them; Doomed.," MJ says "Anyway, is it okay if I become your friend to increase my chances of cosmic relevancy so I can delay my eventually sudden but inevitable demise?"

"No."

"Oh" the girl's face starts to fall, "I'll just move on and.."

"You could become my friend to be my friend." Her voice is strained with effort.

"Oh!" Then further realizaiton "You're a pooka so no could mean yes and here I am asking for straight answers. .. oh I should be more sensitive to folks who are Veritasicly challenged. It would be like someone expecting me to crawl through a tight space. my apologies," And she give a weak smile under her thick lenses, "I would to try to JUST be a friend as well. You seem nice... actually I think you're pretty much a menace after you and your brother reinacted a Herculean labor, but it was so amazing I don't care and think you're cool anyway." She says with earnestness. "It's nice to meet you."

"Horrid." She hangs upside down from the branch by her knees and extends a hand.

MJ maybe a childling herself, but she's still tall so while Amity hangs upside down and reaches down, the troll stands on her toes and reaches up, and they shake, "We are now friends. As a troll friend I am obliged to warn you my kith shows tendencies to over protectiveness, also not holding up our part of the conversation though I can only say so far I've avoided that. I'm rather verbose for a Giant."

"Must be your part of the bell curve. Someone has to be there, right?"

"I bet there's even a garrulous sluagh somewhere!"

"Poor thing, I hope she's turned her condition into an asset."

Stage-whispered. "andtheydothtalkethlikeththisalleththetime"