🌾 CHAPTER 5 – YSELDOUS’ POV
1092 Words
Effort has a sound.
It’s not loud. It doesn’t demand attention. Most people don’t even notice it unless they’re listening for it.
But I do.
It’s in the way footsteps slow down instead of stopping. In the way hands hesitate, then try again. In the quiet shift between giving up and continuing.
That morning, I heard it from her.
Golden was still clumsy with the work. That much was clear. Her movements lacked rhythm, her timing was off, and she overthought everything she did. But she hadn’t walked away.
And that mattered.
I stood a few rows away, pretending to focus on my own task while keeping her in my peripheral vision. Not to watch her fail. Just to see what she would do next.
“She’s still here,” Mang Rodel said beside me, voice low, almost amused.
“Yes.”
“I thought she’d last an hour.”
“So did I.”
He chuckled. “You don’t sound disappointed.”
“I’m not.”
There was a pause as we both looked toward her.
Golden wiped her forehead with the back of her hand, leaving a faint streak of dirt across her skin. She didn’t notice. Or maybe she didn’t care anymore.
That, too, was new.
“She’s trying,” Mang Rodel added.
“Yes.”
“That surprises you?”
“No,” I said. “It interests me.”
He glanced at me briefly, then back at her.
“Careful,” he said. “Interest becomes something else if you let it.”
I didn’t respond.
Because he wasn’t wrong.
And I wasn’t ready to decide what that “something else” could be.
Golden suddenly straightened, stretching her back slightly before looking around.
Her eyes landed on me.
She raised her voice just enough.
“Is this supposed to get easier?”
I walked toward her, unhurried.
“No.”
Her expression shifted immediately.
“That’s not encouraging.”
“It’s honest,” I said.
She placed her hands on her hips, breathing slightly heavier now.
“I feel like I’ve been doing this forever.”
“You’ve been doing it for less than an hour.”
“That’s worse.”
I almost smiled.
Almost.
She looked down at her hands again.
They were no longer clean. The dirt had settled into the lines of her skin, under her nails, into places she probably never paid attention to before.
She turned her palms slightly, studying them like they belonged to someone else.
“I don’t recognize myself,” she said quietly.
That wasn’t something I expected her to say.
I watched her for a moment before answering.
“You’re still you.”
“It doesn’t feel like it.”
“It will,” I said. “Eventually.”
She glanced up at me.
“You say things like you’ve seen this before.”
“I have.”
“With who?”
“People,” I replied.
She narrowed her eyes slightly.
“That’s vague.”
“It’s enough.”
She exhaled, then crouched down again without being told.
That caught my attention.
Yesterday, she would have argued first.
Now, she moved first.
I stepped closer, observing her hands as she worked.
Still imperfect.
Still uneven.
But better than before.
“You’re rushing again,” I said.
“I’m not,” she replied immediately.
“You are.”
She sighed, stopping for a second.
“I don’t know how to not rush.”
I crouched beside her.
“Then don’t think about time,” I said.
“That’s impossible.”
“Then think about the plant.”
She glanced at me.
“That’s your solution?”
“Yes.”
She looked back down, frowning slightly.
“I don’t even know what I’m looking at.”
“You don’t need to know everything,” I said. “Just enough.”
She tried again.
Slower this time.
More deliberate.
We stayed like that for a moment.
Working in the same space.
Not speaking.
It wasn’t uncomfortable.
That surprised me.
“I used to hate silence,” she said suddenly.
I didn’t look at her.
“Used to?”
“I still do,” she admitted. “But it feels different here.”
“How?”
She paused, as if trying to find the right words.
“It doesn’t feel empty,” she said. “Just… unfinished.”
I considered that.
It wasn’t wrong.
“That’s because it is,” I said. “There’s always something being built here.”
“Even when it looks like nothing’s happening?”
“Especially then.”
She nodded slightly, like she understood more than she wanted to admit.
A few seconds passed before she spoke again.
“Why are you helping me?”
I looked at her then.
“Because you’re here.”
“That’s not a reason.”
“It is for me.”
She frowned.
“You could just leave me to figure it out.”
“I could.”
“But you don’t.”
“No.”
She studied my face, like she was trying to read something I wasn’t saying.
“You’re not as strict as you pretend to be,” she said.
“I’m not pretending.”
“Yes, you are,” she insisted. “You act like everything is about rules, but you keep… helping.”
I stood up slowly.
“Rules exist so things don’t fall apart,” I said. “Helping exists so people don’t.”
She blinked.
That was enough.
I stepped back, giving her space again.
“Continue,” I said.
She rolled her eyes slightly, but there was no real frustration behind it this time.
Just habit.
As I walked away, I could feel it more clearly now.
The shift.
Not in her.
In the space between us.
It was still tense.
Still unfamiliar.
Still built on resistance.
But it wasn’t empty anymore.
Behind me, I heard her voice again.
“Yseldous.”
I stopped, turning slightly.
“Yes?”
She hesitated.
Then—
“…thank you.”
Simple.
Quiet.
Uncertain.
I nodded once.
“You’re working,” I said. “That’s enough.”
She shook her head.
“That’s not what I meant.”
I held her gaze for a second.
Then answered honestly.
“I know.”
I turned back toward the field.
The day continued like any other.
Work, movement, small adjustments that no one else would notice.
But something had changed.
Not dramatically.
Not completely.
Just enough.
And sometimes, that’s all it takes for something new to begin.
- Writer
