The Understudy of an Alchemist

9. Doing a Bad thing to Do a Good Thing to Get Rid of a Bad Thing

If the whole wheat crisis wasn't enough of an eye opener to me of how our crops were quite literally dying, then it was the potato crops that were a stark white example of this fact.

When Varian had left with his father to New Corona several hours ago, my stupid self had hoped in that moment that salvaging the pitiful amount of wheat that I had gathered would have been enough to satisfy my father's immense need to punish me, yet of course I was proven to be completely wrong in this fact. The sheer moment that I began to head back over towards the house, I suddenly jolted backwards as someone grabbed the back of my dress and pulled me back. Eyes widening, I whirled back around to face my father who was tightly clutching the material in his hand, as he demanded, "Hey! Where do you think you're going young lady??" I winced at his use of 'young lady'. This wasn't a good sign, yet there was still the small hope quivering inside of me that maybe I was off the hood, as I cautiously suggested, "Um.......going home?" He shook his head furiously, and I grimaced at his expression. Nope, definitely not. "Oh no you don't!! Your punishment is far from over, and Varian being gone makes matters even better, that means no distractions!"

It was at this point that he released the collar of my dress, and instead he'd picked up a gardening hoe and hurled it over at me, and although I'd love to say I snatched out of the air like a majestic eagle, in reality I actually failed to catch it, and it landed in a miserable pile among with the dried-up dirt. Not deterred by this, my father clapped his hands loudly, still scowling as he did so. "Come on, chop chop! We're going to digging up what's left of the potatoes!!" Digging up the potatoes hmm? My reluctance to do the task was gradually beginning to vanish, slightly. That shouldn't be too much of a chore. It just involves sticking the hoe underground and then bringing it back up again.

Oh boy how wrong I was.

The thing is, although harvesting potatoes does indeed sound easy on paper, and it actually is relatively easy, but in all of those cases there was actually potatoes that came up, and the dirt wasn't dry and spoiled dirt. Yet after pulling that stupid, stupid hoe in and out of the rock-hard earth for nearly four hours which resulted with me sustaining enough blisters on my palms to make any workman jealous, the closest thing resembling a potato that I'd uncovered was a shrivelled up one that was more a kin to a depressing, withered prune than a former creamy white potato.

It's at this point that my father comes up behind me, three tiny misshapen potatoes in his hands. "How are you fairing?" I sigh irritably at this question, my anger at him for being stuck at here doing rewardless, back-breaking work, when I didn't even want to be here in the first place was clearly still prevalent. "You having just one is already an over achievement over me. Haven't found one since that shrivelled one." He shakes his head dismissively at this sentiment. "The harvest hasn't never been this bad before. I don't understand how this could have happened." He sighed heartily now, as I continued to stare up at him, blinking blearily with my tired eyes. "It's all the fault of that tyrannical Frederic. If he hosts one more fancy banquet for that brainless daughter of his, the city's going to go bankrupt. I'm certain of it. Gah, I miss the days of that old general......what was his name again??" He looked back over at me to see if I knew, but I just stared blankly at him. I didn't even remember any general. He saw my expression and waved me off.

"Ah, it was before your time. He was a retired general, that guy, controlled the kingdom's finances and stuff, but for some reason people hated it. I don't know, they thought he was taking away the people's freedom or some rubbish like that, and so he abandoned our kingdom and just went back to managing the others. Stupid. Those kings wouldn't know how to run a kingdom if it slapped them in the face."

I shrugged at this, not even really sure what I should say to that. He trailed off momentarily, before his attention suddenly moved back over towards me. "You know, it's nice to have someone doing the heavy lifting for me for once. I'm going to miss you when you're gone." My red raw, flickering eyes suddenly snapped to attention as I spin to face him proper, taken aback by this comment. "What do you mean when I'm gone? I'm not going anywhere."