{"id":369,"date":"2023-05-07T07:45:00","date_gmt":"2023-05-07T13:45:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/libellus.de-fenestra.com\/?p=369"},"modified":"2025-09-11T07:09:21","modified_gmt":"2025-09-11T12:09:21","slug":"downtime-guest-post-magdas-day-off","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/libellus.de-fenestra.com\/?p=369","title":{"rendered":"Downtime Guest Post: Magda’s Day Off"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The player behind Magda sent me this as her contribution to the 15 August holiday downtime. It’s posted with her permission (and with the award of some delicious XP).<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

For context, Magda and her Cook specialty have taken over management of Ponikla’s communal cooking arrangements. Her normal crew is three of the village’s elderly ladies and one of the rescued teenagers from the railyard. They’re doing this for her own good…<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\n\n\n

Magda stands outside the door of the hostel\u2019s kitchen. Her<\/em> kitchen. Which is currently being blockaded by two less-than-imposing figures. Tamara\u2019s in the middle of a growth spurt; her spindly elbows jut out as she crosses her arms. Old Antonina\u2019s eyes glint sternly behind her scratched glasses.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI need to start the bread,\u201d Magda says, confused.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cNo, you don\u2019t,\u201d Antonina says. \u201cIt\u2019s a rest day. Go rest.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a feast<\/em> day. We need to\u2014”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Antonina waves a gnarled hand to silence her. \u201cThe last rest day was two weeks ago, and you spent it in here, cooking. If you\u2019re not out scouting or harvesting, you\u2019re in here stirring the soup. You need a day off. We\u2019ll handle everything.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Magda looks past Antonina for support, but comes up empty. Kazimiera\u2019s wrinkles deepen as she grins and nods decisively. Over by the stove, Josefa glances toward Magda and flips one hand. Off with you, girl.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIf you\u2019re sure…\u201d Magda says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The door closes in her face, firmly but not unkindly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Magda looks around the tiny courtyard. Rest? She walks to the gate and stands there for a moment, trying to think of something to do that wouldn\u2019t involve work. Maybe just…go for a walk? She circles around to the hostel\u2019s front door, climbing the stairs to her cubby of a room. When she comes out, she\u2019s got a small pack on her back.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She negotiates at the kitchen door briefly. They still won\u2019t let her in, but Josefa approvingly provides a picnic packet, along with a canteen of water. Magda tucks them into her pack and sets off, hiking northwest through the trees.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Soon enough, she reaches the river and walks upstream until she finds a large, spreading oak. Feeling odd, she climbs up among the branches. She hasn\u2019t climbed a tree since she was a child, but it\u2019s here, and she\u2019s here, and there\u2019s a perfect perch on a large branch not too high up. She settles herself with her back to the trunk, with her pack in front of her.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The river ripples placidly. A warm, gentle wind caresses the long grass on the riverbank. Clouds drift across the sky.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s so lovely, so serene, it makes Magda\u2019s chest hurt. A tear drips down one cheek, then the other. She holds herself taut for a moment, then gives up. There\u2019s no one here to see or care. She curls around her backpack and sobs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It shouldn\u2019t be so beautiful here. How could anything dare to be so peaceful in a world gone utterly insane? In another time, she\u2019d have wanted to share this view with someone, but everyone from before<\/em> is gone, either dead or lost. At Christmas five years ago, her grandparents\u2019 farm had been a chaotic, jubilant mass, at least fifty people, counting herself and her siblings, parents, uncles, aunts, cousins…not to mention the babies and the people who weren\u2019t family but might as well have been.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Maybe some of them are still alive, somewhere.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She can\u2019t remember the last time she cried like this, huge, racking, coughing sobs, until her throat hurts and salt water runs down her arms. Finally, the ache in her chest eases, and she raises her head, sniffling.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The river burbles, wind riffles the grass, and the clouds float on. Nothing has changed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Everything has changed.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

She opens her pack and pulls out the canteen with quivering hands. After all that foolishness, she\u2019s probably dehydrated. She takes a few careful sips, then hangs the canteen strap off a branch. Josefa\u2019s packet proves to contain a few strips of dried meat, two wheat rolls, a little ceramic tub of fresh cheese, and another of plum jam. A bundle of cloth secured with twine holds what must be the last of the fresh cherries. Despite herself, she smiles through her tears at the kindness.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She remembers buying cherries in a grocery store. Just a little treat. She hadn\u2019t realized then what an unimaginable luxury it truly was.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So much is gone, and wrong, and strange, and not what it was. There was before<\/em>, and now there is after<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She takes another sip from the canteen and leans her aching head against the warm trunk behind her. She\u2019s tried very hard, up to now, not to think about either of the two worlds. There was simply work to be done, and she did it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Why? Why does she keep trying? She\u2019s never thought of herself as a survivor. The people who could make it in this new world are people like…like Minka, tough and fearless and capable. Or like Red, whose skills are welcomed and valued anywhere he goes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The murky river swirls below her. She snaps off a dry twig and lobs it toward the water. It lands without a splash and disappears.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If she never returned to the village, would it matter?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The wind picks up, hissing through the oak leaves, and a branch taps sharply against her leg. She looks down just as the carpet of leaves below rises up, dancing across the ground. The way they spin…she shuts her eyes tightly and clutches the sturdiest branch, holding on against a sudden surge of dizziness.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The wind dies down again. She doesn\u2019t move. Scenes play themselves on the insides of her eyelids: Zenobia and Red, asking Josefa where Magda had gone, why she hadn\u2019t come back. A search party, Leks and Minka and young Miko. Tamara begging to come along to help. Antonina holding her rosary in both hands, a stricken look on her weathered face.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

No. She can\u2019t do that to them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Her friends would put themselves in danger, roaming around to look for her. She can\u2019t tell herself it wouldn\u2019t happen that way. It would.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She matters to them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

They matter to her.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The wind breathes another sigh, ruffling her hair and drying the tears on her cheeks. She opens her eyes and slowly relaxes back against the sturdy trunk.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Antonina can run the kitchen if needed, but she\u2019s not able to climb a cherry tree or shoulder a rifle. Tamara is nigh-ungovernable, with her teenage overconfidence, but she listens to Magda. And what would the others have done in that last fight with the ZOMO if Magda hadn\u2019t turned the BTR\u2019s gunner into barszcz<\/em> before he could fire at them?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Maybe she\u2019s not ready to think about before<\/em> or after<\/em>. But she doesn\u2019t have to. There\u2019s just now<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She pulls a cherry out of the tiny sack and pops it into her mouth, eating around the pit. She\u2019ll save the pits in the sack and bring them back home. Maybe there will be a good place in the village to plant them.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The player behind Magda sent me this as her contribution to the 15 August holiday downtime. It’s posted with her permission (and with the award of some delicious XP). For context, Magda and her Cook specialty have taken over management of Ponikla’s communal cooking arrangements. Her normal crew is three of the village’s elderly ladies […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[105,108],"tags":[36],"class_list":["post-369","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-kaserne-on-the-borderlands","category-fiction","tag-guest-post"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/libellus.de-fenestra.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/369","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/libellus.de-fenestra.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/libellus.de-fenestra.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/libellus.de-fenestra.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/libellus.de-fenestra.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=369"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/libellus.de-fenestra.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/369\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":371,"href":"https:\/\/libellus.de-fenestra.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/369\/revisions\/371"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/libellus.de-fenestra.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=369"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/libellus.de-fenestra.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=369"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/libellus.de-fenestra.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=369"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}