ihnasarima

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“I–I need clover,” she says, snatching her skirts around her when she stands. “Daniel, stay with your father. I’ll be right back.” The little boy (and her heart hurts, he’s only eight, two years younger than when she lost her father) sniffles and slips his small hand into his father’s, large eyes wet with tears.

Their house isn’t large. The kitchen is right off of the bedroom, rough counters scattered with bloody bandages and healing tonics that don’t work. She’s not supposed to know what she does, had thought to never use her skills again, but this is her husband. Her son’s father. Needs must.

She gathers her ingredients and tools with shaking hands. Clover and rosemary, mugwort and daffodil, basil and mint. Mortar and pestle, the holy water the priest left them when Jeremiah first fell, the beads he gave them yesterday when Jeremiah started to have difficulty waking up. 

They tell her what she’s about to do is a sin. They being Jeremiah’s mother, the priest, the villagers. But she can feel her God in her heart when she reenters the room, lays her things on the floor. Daniel is still at his father’s side and Jeremiah’s eyes are closed again. God is in her heart and she knows this is right.

She wipes her tears with the back of her hand and sets to work. After a moment’s thought, she collects the moisture with the rosemary. It’ll make it all the more potent.

“D-daniel,” Jeremiah wheezes from the bed some time later. Cynthia pauses in the last stages, arms aching from grinding everything into a paste. She looks to the bed where Jeremiah weakly turns his hand over to better grab their son’s. “Daniel, I need–I need to tell you…”

“Dad?” Daniel says, voice high and scared. “What?”

“Take…care of your mother,” Jeremiah says. His eyes flutter. “Y-you’re the man of the house now You–you’ve got to take care of things. For me.”

It’s a good thing that she’s finished with the paste now, because whipping up a healing with incredulous fury in her heart wouldn’t be possible.

“I–I,” Daniel stutters and looks to her with his big eyes. There’s so much fear there and she knows (knows) the weight that is descending on his shoulders. Everything is not alright now and it won’t be for a long, long time. She knows from experience that that’s how grief works, you can’t just “take care of things”, not when you’re eight or ten or ever.

She is furious that her husband would dare try and put that on their son.

“I will take care of things, Jeremiah,” she says and rises from the ground like she is born from it (she is). The mortar is clutched to her breast, a desperate act manifested, but the fear is fading now. “As your wife, as his mother, I take care of things.”

Daniel, pushed to the side by her, holds onto the back of her skirt. She can feel him trembling as he peers around her at his father.

“Don’t listen mind your father, Daniel,” she tells her son, working the paste in her hands, imbuing it with heat and power. “He’s not in his right mind. Why don’t you go outside and see if there are any ripe tomatoes? Thank you.”

“’kay,” Daniel says and practically runs from the room.

“N-need a man of the house,” Jeremiah says, eyes bright with fever. “Cynthia…”

She slams the mortar on the bedside table. With her bare fingers, she drops a ball of the paste into his water. The rest, she gathers in her hands, eyes sparking. “You had better hope that’s the pain talking, Jeremiah, because if you think for one second that I am not capable of taking care of myself and my son without you, then you may find yourself no longer a man and no longer capable of residing in this house, much less presuming yourself to be the man of the house.”

She slaps the paste to Jeremiah’s bare chest with more force than is necessary, no longer minding the horrible, gurgling sound he makes. He’ll be fine, she’ll make sure of it.

He sensed, something, another old friend watching over his shoulder. Ten years ago, the last war, the Hero of The Black Gate had flirted with that old friend. Ten years of peace and farm labor, and now he couldn’t really claim to be in his prime at forty. Now that old friend was hovering a little closer. His bad knee ached a bit, and the old chest wound smarted a little more than usual on this dreary day.

He looked down at his son, too young, lanky and growing too fast, though he had his mother’s looks and a smaller build than his own at the same age. 

“Listen, son, this is likely to be my last war.”

“But father-”

“Ach, best to face the facts. I’m an old fighter past his prime. And I’m feelin’ the presence of friends long gone now I’ve got my old kit together. Now, yer the man of the house, so you know what that means.”

“Yes sir, I’ll take care of mother and the girls.”

“Wha-” He started in shock. “No! I Know I taught you better’n that! What in th-” He stopped as the boys expression burst into an inordinately pleased grin.

“Gotcha Pa!” He shouted happily, “You should’a seen your face!”

He laughed, “Hah! Well now, I wonder who put you up to that? Now, tell me what you’ll be doin’. Serious like.”

“Do exactly what Mum says, just like you.”

“Aye, good lad.” He ruffled the boy’s hair fondly. “Now, time to go.”

As he left his son watched with his mother and two sisters. Alongside him, his eldest marched. As tall as he was and muscular, with the red hair of his wife, sides freshly shaved and tattooed, hair braided like a proper young warrior. Fresh kit and a new zweihander, a match to his own, shone even in the grim weather.

“You think you’re ready for war?” He asked.

I choose to beliee every version of this story is true

and is just a different tale of when Loki turned into something ridiculous

Loki: WAAAAUUUGGGHHHHH

But! If you don’t like hugs or cuddles and are asexual or aromantic, that’s fine too! You’re also completely vaild!

Ready?  Humans are packbondy creatures.  I mean, there’s just no arguing it.  They packbond readily, and quickly, and unbelievably strongly.  Once a human has packbonded with a thing, they will do anything to help and protect that thing.  

There’s a downside to that, not often mentioned.  It uses up a lot of their time and energy to build those packbonds, maintain those packbonds, and most especially to do the work of helping and protecting those with whom they have packbonded.  It doesn’t leave them a lot of time and energy for helping other beings.  If you want a human to help you – if you want to reliably get their best effort – you have to packbond with them first. “Yeah? So?” So you’re probably going to be working with humans for most, if not all, of your career.  No matter how good or bad you are at your job, there will come a time when you need someone else in your workspace to help you with something, whether that’s manning the fry station for 2 minutes while you pee, sending over those numbers from marketing, or dropping everything to teach you how to do a thing that your boss told you to do or else you’d be fired.   Not to mention the big things.  They don’t give promotions to just their friends – at least not so much any more. Promotions go to the people who’ve completed big, visible, important projects.  It seems fair until you consider,,,, who gets the big, important, visible projects assigned to them in the first place?   Humans give boosts to the people they’ve packbonded with.  They mention packbondee’s accomplishments to the boss (or the boss’ boss).  They cover for the mistakes of people they’ve packbonded with.  

“That’s not right! It shouldn’t be a popularity contest! It should be about who does the best –”  Listen to me.  Listen.

You may be right.  You may be the most correct creature to have ever spoken since the beginning of galactic civilization.  It does not matter Humans packbond. It’s what they do. I can’t stop it. You can’t stop it.  No power in the ‘verse can stop it. This is how the human do. All you can do is work with it.  If you want a human to help you – if you want to reliably get their best effort – you have to packbond with them first. “Look, I’m introverted and scared of people and I have social anxiety so I really don’t know how to –” Hey, my pal, I feel you.  I, too, am introverted. And I have social anxiety. And I have PTSD that actually – and I recognize that this is bizarre – has ‘business networking’ as a trigger.   For you, I have good news: Humans will packbond with anything.   Like, you don’t really actually have to do anything. You kinda just have to… exist. In their presence. They kinda do the rest.   If you can talk with them, that speeds things up.  But it doesn’t have to be, like, good conversation. Like, it can totally go You: boy, sure is hot out! Human: Man oh man, can you believe it? You: Wow, yeah Human: Totally You: …. Human: ….

This conversation – as awkward and uncomfortable as it felt to you, has caused this human to packbond with you a little more. If you repeat it weekly, you will get good results. 

THE TAKEAWAYS

You need to packbond with the humans you come in contact with

Taking time to do that is not only justifiable, it is an important part of your job, and should be treated as such

That is to say that, as much as you hate it (and believe me, I understand), you have to take time away from actual work and dedicate it to packbonding with your fellow workers

Tips

Plan out your packbonding time. It’s easier if you can initiate than if a human springs packbonding-time on you all unexpected.  In an office job I like to use Friday afternoon, but adjust according to what makes sense to you and your situation.

Keep some packbonding-time questions handy.  My go-to list is:

(If it’s Monday or Tuesday) How was your weekend?

(If it’s Wednesday) How’s your week been so far?

(If it’s Thursday or Friday) Any big plans for the weekend?

How’s your day been?

You don’t have to care about the answers to these questions. All you have to do is remember that if the human is answering questions, they are not asking you any questions.  Therefore questions are your friend.  If you ask follow-up questions, you may be able to get through the entire packbonding time without having to do any of the talking

Learn to disengage from packbonding.  You can use basically the same sentence (or variants on it), but you’ll want to practice it so that you can make it sound natural.  I use “Awesome! Well, I gotta get going. Have a good one!”

small favor examples: can you pass me that tool item? may i try some of your snack? could you remind me of a fact? can you give me some advice?

i have a tendency to go nonverbal in workplaces. this is an absolute dealbreaker for most employers. in theory they’re not allowed to fire you for being autistic, but in practice, if you randomly lose the ability to words, they will find a way to get rid of you. i usually ended up being the one cast out because of that. but there’s a funny loophole i discovered: in workplaces where people bring lunches and eat at their workstations, i was not a pariah. 

i realized pretty quickly that it had to do with my tendency to bring lots of food and share it freely. i enjoy cooking and i like to feed people. so instead of just bringing a sandwich and an apple, i’d bring like, a huge box of vegetable maki, and offer them to everyone.

it turns out that the guy who gives you cucumber rolls is pack, even if he sometimes bluescreens while you’re talking.

As soon as my eyes pop open it’s time to Executive Dysfunct again. And worse, whose to say that meditating won’t just slide my ass into a solid block of disassociation? ADHD is not like having a cold and treating it with ginger and lemon instead of cold medicine.