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Porphy’s cellar was an amazing underground hideout. Plenty of barrels for climbing, low light for sneaking, and if you pressed your ear to the mixing barrels, it sounded like a river sloshing deep underground. All these qualities and more made it the perfect spot for hide-and-seek, which meant Arkose spent a lot of time down there. During a particularly long game when Tephra was seeker, Arkose got to thinking.
Longfire Night was coming up soon and the village was starting to ask one another what they were planning for their gifts, which meant Arkose probably needed to start thinking of one, too. But the year before, no one paid theirs any mind. They knew it’d been good, but of course no one noticed because Mica had brought out their mini lander and flown it around the fire. It really wasn’t fair to Arkose, who had spent weeks searching for rocks with the perfect amount of glittery mineral to explode into glitter when thrown hard enough. (They wound up throwing most of them into the ghost matter pit afterward. They made pretty sparks, but nobody joined them to watch.) So they thought and thought and really pondered. What was something nobody would ignore?
It was a party, and what made every party fun?
Arkose grinned slowly, wide and mischievous, unaware that Tephra and Porphy would find them hiding behind the wine barrels in the next minute. Oh, they’d make this the funnest Longfire Night to remember, and finally be able to show off their amazing gift-giving skill.
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Now, Arkose is a young Hearthian. They don't understand all the ins and outs of winemaking, but they figured it can’t be too hard, right? It’s just aged sap.
So they took a tree tapper and a bucket from the cellar and went out to the forest with Spinel on their fishing trip, where they darted off and ended up breaking the tapper, but it wasn't really their fault since they had to bash the thing with a rock to get it in the tree. (The end piece was still out there under some bushes. They’d take it to their grave.) Now all they had to do was just filter the sap, mix it, and wait. Sounded easy enough. But then, as they started swirling contents of their pilfered bucket, they remembered how the grown-ups would sit around campfires talking about all the flavors in the wine— passionflower buds, pine needles, charred autumn nuts, zesty sorta stuff. So they scooped fresh pine needles from under the Big Tree and smuggled some extra nuts from dinner that night, which they tossed in a stove fire and took out when they were nice and crispy. It took them a couple tries with a poker to get ‘em out before they caught fire, but maybe a little char would add that "palette" to their wine that Porphy always mentioned.
After a couple days of spinning the bucket in the hatchlings cabin, they'd had enough. They’d wanted to do this, but they were also realizing they hated this. Spinning and spinning and spinning was making their arms hurt and they were sooooo bored it was giving them a headache. They’d tried whirling it with their hands, tying a shirt to the handle and twisting it tight, even tossed it in a small spare barrel and kicked it around, and it was just so brain-numbing. So when Tephra and Galena said they needed a fourth player for tag, they decided to just give up for now. They'd just wait for the sap to do its wine-thing and check on it later.
The next week went by interestingly, with games, adventure, and trouble to distract Arkose from the celebration creeping ever closer. Their age group was getting old enough to give gifts at the big bonfire during Longfire Night so the others in their adventuring band started to disappear more as the night came nearer. During tag, Galena told, or rather whispered to them that they were collecting sweet berries to make cookies for Gneiss. Kinda close to what they were doing, but it wasn’t a drink so Arkose couldn’t be mad about their choice. Tephra had made some drawings they were going to give to their favorite grown-ups stashed under their bunk which Arkose had seen them take out to work on when the chaperone left for the night. Moraine was keeping theirs a secret. And everyone knew Mica was going to do some stupid smartypants thing they were too smug to explain to them. But this time Arkose would show them. Their gift would be so much better. They'd make the whole village tipsy!
The best thing about parties was that grown-ups got fun during them. A couple drinks down the hatch, and they’d be adventuring like hatchlings all night. Last time a barrel of sapwine was brought out, Arkose had watched Slate chuck a whole box of firecrackers into the ghost matter pit and watching the resulting crackle-storm was the first time they’d respected the old fish. Hornfels had come out of the observatory and blared their horn for, like, an hour straight and people actually laughed instead of getting cranky about it. So they played their recorder under the cover of the OWV scientist’s trumpeting and nobody said anything about it.
So, more wine meant more laughs which meant a better party. Arkose congratulated themself for getting so good at gift-giving and helped themselves to a handful of Galena’s sweetberries.
When Arkose next checked on their concoction, though, it smelled kinda funky. Sapwine’d always smelled kinda foul but it wasn’t usually that…musty? But eh, whatever. There were some floating patches in it which ended up dumped in the river, and standing on the stepping stones watching the gunk float away and away, Arkose could hear the rapids at the bottom of the waterfall and remembered something wonderful. The mixing barrels! They sounded just like them, right, so why not use them the same? So, they got a net and some heavy stones to set on either side of the banks, and for two days the bucket (sealed) tumbled up and down in the rapids.
They were so damn smart. Mica would eat their freaking tail when they heard about this.
Longfire Night finally came and the village was standing around the tall, tall bonfire at the crater's center. Crockpots of stew and crawdads had been left to warm on the stones around the fire and everyone had about finished making their bowls. Arkose rushed to fill their own, preferring a hot meal to the cold, overly-smokey taste foods had late into Longfire. But aside from that, their mind was only on drinks.
Tephra handed out their drawings to the people they liked most, and then Mica revealed their gift to Slate: a hearth-dang, rock-sucking jetpack. Version “3.5” or whatever. Okay, Mica, Arkose thought. Two could play at the flame game, but only one could get this party sparking! So when Porphy began filling cups from the huge wine barrel sitting at the edge of the bonfire’s glow. The little hatchling acted fast, fearing they'd supply the village with sapwine before they could taste theirs. With a heave and a huff, they lifted their freshly-cleaned bucket onto the table next to the giant barrel.
"Oh? What's that, Arkose?" asked Porphy.
"Just my Longfire gift," the hatchling declared, enunciating so everyone nearby could hear. "For everyone!"
Porphy’s ears lifted with a smile, and villagers began crowding around curiously.
"Oh, how sweet!"
"What is that?"
"A bucket?" Mica asked sarcastically.
"Sapwine!" Arkose announced proudly.
Everyone suddenly got real quiet. Porphy's brow raised. The winemaker looked at the bucket, then at Arkose. Then back to the bucket. "You made wine?" they echoed. After the hatchling nodded, Porphy raised the lid on the bucket and stiffened.
"Oh," the winemaker mouthed. "What in.... What a, uh.."
They looked at Arkose.
"....What a dark color!"
Something was off. The hatchling's ears drooped. "What's wrong with it?"
"Oh honey, I didn't say that—" Porphy backpedaled. "Just, I'm curious how you made it?"
"Well, I got some sap and charred some autumn nuts. Then I waited and tumbled it in the river."
"...Huh."
Arkose was getting impatient. Was something wrong with the wine or not? "So, are you gonna try if it's good?"
Porphy’s mouth scrunched up. "I don't know if I should--"
"Ahhh c'mon Porphy, you're not gonna try the little sucker's wine?" crowed a high, scratchy voice, and scratched-up/scar-striped Hearthian strolled up through the crowd, leather vest open with the white of their Outer Wilds Ventures patch flashing in the firelight. Feldspar!
"It's not that I don't want to," Porphy protested, to which the shorter grown-up just pshhh-ed. "It may not be winemaker quality, but it's still a gift. 'Would be rude to refuse, yeah?"
As Feldspar scooped a cupful of the dark drink, Arkose thought they were gonna blast off into space, head full of stars. The best space explorer ever was gonna taste their gift first!!! They waited with bated breath as they took a loud sip…
Then immediately keeled over, absolutely sputtering.