INTERVIEW WITH PAST ME

Attempt n°4

Hello! Welcome to the interview, how are you feeling?

Hi Fred! I'm feeling great, thanks!

Would you like to introduce yourself to the audience?

Of course! Hello audience, my name is Featherpicker and I used to be an aspiring guardian for the Yerkeii Forest.

Now, you have already appeared in my page, on the Annals of the Forest Guardians I made a while ago, so you already got a dedicated fandom

Oh, so someone read that after all!

Yes, I convinced three diffrent people to read it, Tsi'an said he loved it.

That's the guy from your office right? Tell him I said hi!

You could also come with me one of these days.

You could also bring people over for once.

Noted.

I mean things get boring when it's always the same people.

Didn't you used to live in the middle of nowhere with Budorcas?

Yeah! I'm tired of it! At least back then I could explore the woods, you live ten kilometers from the nearest park!

Now, don't disrespect the park down the street.

A square of grass is't a park! It only has two trees! TWO!

OK! Fine, I'm taking you to Titanfoot this weekend. Sheesh.

Yay!

Anyways back to the interview. Can you tell me what you life was like back then?

Hmm, diffrent. Quieter for sure, even boring sometimes. After so many years, there's only so much that happens in a forest. It's either some desease, a fire, some animal that somehow ended up half a forest away from it's habitat, some hunters sneaking in, population control. I'd call it repetitive more often than boring. But it did get boring sometimes.

That sounds like a ton of work

Oh yeah! We had times that we couldn't stop even to sleep for two or three days. And we knew that around summer we'd have to control a fire every week or so.

You keep saying "we", would you like to talk about your... uh... dad?

Haha, that's one way to call him.

That's ominous.

It's not, really. Budorcas always wanted me to call him my teacher. Or fellow guardian when I was older. Something about family was too unprofessional to him.

So he was too professional to raise you as his own?

I mean it's just words. And I called him dad behind his back all my life, he raised me as his child, he just didn't say it out loud.

But still... isn't it sad?

I don't think so. I was raised by a loving father, that is more than most of us can say. And I never saw the point of getting upset over words, not then and not now.

Well then, what was he like?

Great! Or, well, he was great to me. In genreal he was more... asocial? He was all shy and akward around other people, he'd always rahter be alone in the forest. And most people don't really understand all that, so he didn't have that many friends. Or friends at all, actually. Even with the people he got along with he was a bit standoffish.

Like asking you not to call him dad?

No! Actually, maybe, a bit. But with me it was diffrent. He always tried so hard with me, to care for me, to make sure I felt comfortable and loved. It was a real effort too! I could always see how hard it was for him to try and communicate, and he tired! With me- For me, he tried.

That's really sweet. Reminds me of my Mama, she's always saying "oh, I'm not good with words...". And she's rigth. She's got a talent for finding the worst possible phrasing for every ocation. But she tries.

Your Mama is a wonderful lady.

The best of the best!

And her apple pies are the best!

Oh you didn't get to meet my Nona, those pies were out of this world. We're getting out of topic.

Oh yeah, interview!

Actually, speaking of grandmothers (kinda), what can you tell me about Mirtha?

Not a lot, she died hundreds of years before I started existing.

Yeah but what can you tell me about... her works.

Her books were the stuff of legend, not a word out of place, every illustration was like a plant growing out of the page-

You know that's not what I mean.

-aaaand the piles of extremely explicit porn hidden under her room could have been written by anybody.

Oh, really?

Gods forbid a turtle have hobbies beside writing encyclopedias! It was her right to collect all the porn she could get her hands on, as far as I care!

Sure, sure, I respect all perverts. But did you check them out?

...some of them...

So, did you find anything FUN in there?

birds.

Huh?

Lots of... bird people. Avians, were-birds. Most love interest were, even when they weren't there was some prominent bird character.

That's oddly specific.

More odd than specific if you ask me.

So Mirtha had a thing for the feathery, huh.

Can we PLEASE talk about something else???

Ok, ok. I guess to finish talking about the guardians, how was it to meet Asaris now that you're both dead?

Awsome! Asaris is so fun! The stories I grew up hearing painted her as this mythologic figure, all very elegant and, honestly, very boring.

Yeah, elegant and boring are not the words I'd use for her.

Exactly! When I first met her I was soooo nervous, she's the stuff of legends! At least, the legends I grew up with. But she made me feel right at home immediately! She was exited to meet me! Can you belive it? She was the saint we painted at the door and she wanted to meet me!

The saint you painted at the door?

Oh, I guess you don't do that anymore. We painted a saint or a powerful spirit in the front door to ward off bad luck. Asaris wasn't literally the one we painted, the guardians' shack always had the Mother Tree painted on it's door. But, it works as a turn of phrase.