A Bushel and a Peck

Posted on Sun Aug 31st, 2025 @ 11:59pm by Remal Kajun
Edited on on Mon Sep 1st, 2025 @ 12:49am

576 words; about a 3 minute read

Mission: For Bajor!
Location: Bajor

The path into the village crunched beneath his boots, each step stirring dust that clung to the air like smoke. The land was brittle. What had once been lush terraces of barley and fruit trees now looked like a painter’s canvas left too long in the sun—faded, cracked, hollow.

Remal adjusted the strap of his satchel and kept walking, though every hollow house and wilted garden pulled at him. He had known famine before, during the Occupation, when hunger was a weapon. But this was different. This was nature withholding its hand. Bajor felt… abandoned.

“Remal Kajun!” a voice called. It was Kael Tovan, leaning against a stall with only two jars of pickled roots to show. His eyes were older than Remal remembered, beaten down by seasons of waiting.

“You’ve kept the choice pieces for me, I see,” Remal said, forcing the familiar jest.

Kael’s lips twitched. “Choice? If by that you mean edible, then perhaps. The land is empty, my friend. We barter hope more than goods these days.”

As Remal took a jar, Kael’s gaze lingered, thoughtful. “And your family? I heard you and Rhenora have a little one now.”

The words struck harder than he expected. Patina. A child whose first breaths were tangled with prophecy, with a destiny Bajor would one day look to. He hesitated, thumb brushing the rim of the jar.

“She’s strong,” he said quietly. “Too young to know hunger, and may she never. But… I see the land, Kael. I wonder what world she will inherit.”

Kael’s expression softened with something like pity. “Bajor has endured before. We will again. Still, I pray your daughter grows with more rain than dust.”

Remal offered a tight nod and moved on, the words biting deeper than the parched wind.

Further down the lane, a group of children kicked a ball of bundled cloth. Their laughter carried, thin but defiant against the dryness. One of the mothers, Nira, greeted him warmly. She pressed a bundle into his hands—dried herbs, tied with fraying twine.

“For your stew,” she said as she pressed dried herbs into his hands with a brittle smile.. “It isn’t much, but it flavors the water.”

He tried to refuse, but she insisted. “You came back. That is worth more than herbs.” she said. “And for your little girl. A child with her future… she must taste something more than boiled roots.”

The words caught him off guard. He carried on, weaving through stalls that held more empty crates than produce. A few carrots here, a wedge of aged cheese there. He bartered what he could, though no one asked much of him. These were his people—neighbors, not merchants.

He managed a thank you, but the herbs felt heavy in his grip, heavier than any sack of grain. Every face he passed reminded him of the same truth: Bajor was fragile, and so was the future they placed upon Patina.

By the time he turned toward the trail, his satchel was half-full at best. Yet it weighed on him like stone. The cabin awaited, a week of solitude and thin meals, but his thoughts circled only one thing—the quiet question lodged in his chest. Could Bajor survive long enough to be the world his daughter deserved?

The drought had stolen the green from the hills, but it was doubt that threatened to strip color from his soul.

 

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