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The golden Sun rises over the horizon, the faces of the sunflowers turned to face it as it coats the world in light. Curtains blow gently, open windows allowing in the crisp morning air. Scar lifts his kettle off of the wood stove and fills a hand-crafted mug with steaming hot water, a fingernail’s width away from the lip of the cup. As the steam swirls into the air, Scar sets the kettle back down and opens the second drawer below the counter, pulling out a small bag full of loose tea leaves and a spoon. He scoops one spoonful of loose tea leaves from the bag and empties that spoonful into the mug, swirling it around for just a moment. He pauses, standing over the mug, to take in its aroma. It’ll take a moment to steep, but he doesn’t mind; he’s got nothing but time.
Scar steps away from the counter, gripping his cane with his left hand. The floorboards creak under him as he steps over to the open window. White curtains flutter by his side, framing his view of his lovingly-cultivated sunflower fields. The walls he’d built to keep the other players out of his fields had since crumbled into rubble, and, while he’s never bothered to fix them, he can’t see himself fully removing them, either, even as sunflowers grow far past them and stretch towards the sky.
Everything other than the walls has been rebuilt in Trader Scar’s. It started with a couple simple renovations – replacing the doors, the window shutters, the wood stove – and then, before he knew it, he was tearing out floorboards and adding a room in the attic. When it was originally built, Trader Scar’s was built to be disposable, turned into a trap or discarded if he needed to scramble for a few more hearts, a little more time. Now, in this empty world, the only person ever walking through its doors is Scar. Even then, he can’t help but wonder about which spots in his comfortable little outpost would be the best for a minecart full of explosives.
After a few minutes, Scar turns back to his tea. The once-clear water has taken on a brown hue, so Scar steps back over to remove the tea leaves. He uses the same spoon from before to remove the leaves from the tea, and then drops them in the wicker trash can by the counter. He leaves the spoon on the counter, telling himself he’ll wash it in the evening, since he has to go down to the river soon to get more water later anyway. With the mug in one hand and his cane in the other, Scar makes his way out of the building, onto the porch.
As he pushes himself through the door, the vastness of the empty world he occupies makes itself known. Far in the distance, way off in the North, stands a crumbling statue, a reminder that the gaze that some greater beings once fixated on this world is slowly fading, and, one day, it’ll take him with it. The sunflowers still watch the Sun, nothing more important than the never-ending scrutiny of the Sun. They will never know if the Sun is kind; all they know is that it is ever-present, and it gives them warmth. The world starts to get warmer, sunlight spilling over the fields. Scar sits in one of two rocking chairs on the porch, taking a long drink of his hot tea. It’ll be time to harvest the sunflowers soon. Scar knows he’ll be working all day, when that time comes, but at least it’ll be something to do.
A gentle rustling comes from the side of his porch. Scar doesn’t bother to look, closing his eyes and leaning his head back against the rocking chair. He listens as someone pushes their way through the tall fields of sunflowers, from the side of the porch right up to the ramp at the front of Trader Scar’s. They hesitate for a moment, and then ascend the wooden ramp. They don’t sit down, simply standing on the porch.
“Liz?” Scar says without opening his eyes.
She gasps. “How did you know?”
Scar opens his eyes with a chuckle, looking up at her. “You always show up the same way, all timid. But I knew you weren’t Jimmy, because he would’ve sat down.”
Lizzie sighs, sitting down as Scar speaks. He can’t quite make out any of her features, only the colors that make up her blurry form. At least he gets colors this time; some players aren’t visible to him at all, and some are strange, black masses, fuzzy around the edges and constantly shifting. Then again, he doesn’t have much to go off of. Only a few have visited since last winter.
“You’re good,” Lizzie says, “Or maybe I’m just predictable. Hard to say, really.”
There’s a moment where Scar swears the world stops, and it’s just the two of them, in an otherwise empty world. He drinks his tea, and briefly feels guilty about not having made Lizzie any, but then remembers that she couldn’t drink it anyway. “Well, how long are you staying?” he asks, hearing the own sadness in his voice.
“I don’t know,” Lizzie responds, “That’s more of a Grian question anyway, isn’t it? He seems to know all of that.”
“You’re right,” Scar sighs. “I just hoped you might know. If you’re staying for a couple days I can get the attic all nice and comfortable for you?”
“You’d do that for me?”
“Of course! Why wouldn’t I?”
Lizzie laughs kindly, and Scar doesn’t say anything after that. It’s one of his least favorite things about being almost-alone for this long – he’s grown to enjoy the quiet, something he could never say about himself a year ago. Lizzie sits across from him on the porch, rocking back and forth in the acacia wood chair with the floral cushion she sits upon. Scar wonders if he’ll ever need more than two chairs; he hasn’t seen Impulse or Skizz yet, but he can’t imagine they’d be sent here alone. He drinks from his mug, bitter liquid warming the back of his throat.
—
“No, you can’t just put it in the water right away,” Grian huffs, incredulous, “You have to wait for the water to cool down a little.”
“Why?” Scar asks.
“Because it makes the tea bitter, and – just do what I say,” Grian grumbles.
Scar nods. The two of them wait for a moment while the water cools just a little. It’s impossible to feel the heat of the tea with the desert heat swirling around them, but Scar can at least watch the steam pour off of the hot liquid, into the dry air. Grian sits on the counter next to the mug, his eyes fixated on the view outside of the window, at the point where the desert becomes a forest, and then where the forest becomes a fortress.
“Do you think that…” Scar begins, but – he isn’t really sure what he wants to ask. Do you think they’ll be alright? Do you think they’re going to kill us? Do you think we’ll make it out alive?
“Martyn and I know each other,” Grian says, “We’ve known each other for quite some time, me and him. I think…”
Grian takes a breath. His gaze never moves from the Renchanting fortress, golden-brown eyes hidden behind his glasses and a sunburn across his freckled cheeks. “I think Martyn may very well be the only person who understands exactly what I am.”
Scar doesn’t know what to say. He hates the silence he can’t fill, but he doesn’t trust his own words, and he doesn’t even really understand what Grian is saying in the first place. To him, Martyn is only the Hand of the King, a pistol on the hip of a man who wants nothing more than to see him beheaded.
“You can put the tea in now,” Grian says, and Scar does.
—
Scar stands from his rocking chair, leaning on the banister of the porch. The pink and orange hues of sunrise have worn off, replaced with the cyan sky of day. He’ll have to water the sunflowers soon, if no rain comes in the next day or two. He could let them die, once they’re ready to be harvested; it’s not like anyone will buy them, or value them at all, other than him. But, then, shouldn’t it matter that he cared for them for as long as he could? Shouldn’t he want to harvest their seeds, make butter and cookies and bags of roasted seeds? Maybe he could spread the flowers across the remains of this world and see how many would take, if only to watch some kind of life flourish within the borders, if only to spite whoever keeps him here.
“How long until the sunflowers are ready to be harvested?” Lizzie asks, still in the chair.
“Oh, not long,” Scar says, cheerful as ever, “You can make all kinds of things with sunflower seeds, too. You can make cookies, and butter, and put ‘em in oatmeal and all kinds of stuff. And you can make jelly and lip balm and dye, all kinds of stuff.”
“Really?” Lizzie smiles – Scar isn’t looking at her, but he can hear it in her voice – “That’s so cool! Who taught you all of that?”
—
“You could plant some sunflowers,” Pearl says as she restocks the fireplace with more wood. It’s the first time Scar is seeing her without her cloak all season, clad in only a white t-shirt and black shorts. Scar sits between two windows, scratching the top of Pearl’s wolf’s – Tilly’s – head in only the light of the fire.
“In the enclosure?” Scar asks, “With the Jellies?”
“Yeah, why not?” Pearl grins, stepping away from the fire and sitting next to Scar on the floor, cushioned only by a couple blankets. “Sunflowers are useful for all kinds of things. I’m a bit of an expert on sunflowers. Maybe I could show you how to make some lip balm.”
Ordinarily, Scar might’ve laughed at the suggestion. He doesn’t need lip balm, it’s not like he’s kissing his soulmate very much. His lips aren’t particularly chapped, either – but, then, all of this is true about Pearl, too, isn’t it? So, he recognizes her suggestion for what it is: a way to kill time. He doesn’t need sunflower lip balm, but Pearl doesn’t need him, not really. Scar knows she’d be just fine without him there, of course she’d be. But Pearl is like him, in that neither of them can be entirely present in this world at all times without being stricken with a sharp, stabbing pain in their chest they know they’ll never be able to heal. In that sense, pastimes act as painkillers.
Pearl knows who Scar is – she’s maybe the only person who could define him and be certain about her definition. She’s offering a way to kill time, to wait for the inevitable.
“What else can you do with sunflowers?” he asks.
—
“Oh, y’know,” Scar replies flippantly, “A friend.” As he drinks once more from his mug, he can hear the gentle creaking of the rocking chair to his right. “You might know her, actually. She’s an expert.”
“...On sunflowers?” Lizzie raises an eyebrow.
“Yeah.”
Lizzie pauses for a moment, the dead air filled with the sounds of buzzing bees and chirping birds, and with the wind brushing against the delicate petals of the sunflowers below. “I think I might know her,” Lizzie says finally, “In a different life.”
“Me too,” Scar chuckles.
They’re both quiet for another long stretch of time. Scar wonders if Lizzie could take a jar of jelly or a few cookies back with her, to wherever she goes when she’s not here. Maybe Scar should know where she goes, where they all go when the game ends, but, no matter how hard he tries, the memory escapes him. He hopes that, wherever she goes, it feels a little bit like home. Anything can feel like home here, if you want it enough.
He knows Lizzie will leave soon. She never stays for long, no matter how hard either of them tries. Part of him feels like he should say something, ask her questions only she could answer, ask her about her biggest hopes and deepest fears, or ask her how she feels about the weather and what her favorite band is and what she’d name a cat if she adopted one today. But he never asks, because he knows it’ll hurt more when she leaves. Instead, he allows himself to sit in her presence, allows her to admire his vast fields of sunflowers in silence.
“I can’t stay for long,” Lizzie says.
“I know,” Scar sighs, “Thanks for comin’ around though. Trader Scar’s is always open to visitors.”
“Well then I’ll be sure to visit again soon. I love this place, honestly. Reminds me of home.”
“What do you mean?”
“I don’t know,” Lizzie shrugs, “It just seems like something people say about places they like. Especially places that have rocking chairs and curtains.”
“I guess you’re right, yeah. It reminds me of home.”