Figs

His wife had been incredibly insistent about what she wanted: a handful of plump, juicy figs. She would waste away to nothing without them. It was the pregnancy hormones talking, but he wasn’t foolish enough to suggest that. Every day he went to the markets to come home empty-handed. The native soil was not equipped to handle growing the odd fruits, and recent fighting in the borderlands kept many traders out of the city. Much as he adored his wife, he was not going to ask one of the few traders that could make it through to make room in their packs for something as delicate as fruits. There were people who had far more urgent needs.
He had one last option: the old woman that lived on the top of the hill outside of town. She had the most lush garden anyone had ever seen; fruits, vegetables, and plants that he couldn’t even name sprung up from the soil behind the stone and iron fence that circled her land. The old woman opened the gates for no one. Sometimes you could see her bent, gnarled form moving across the rows of plants through the iron bars. Deaf and blind some said. Uncaring and uninterested the majority agreed.
And Gods above had he tried. He knocked on the gate, shook its bars. He screamed in her direction, at nothingness when she wasn’t there. Day after day for a week with not so much as a glance his way. Voice given out from calling and shouting, body exhausted from shaking the bars, he collapsed onto his hands and knees in the dirt on the eight night. He couldn’t go home empty handed. Not again. So, he made a choice.

An hour later, the sun disappeared fully behind the horizon. What felt like an eternity after that, the lights went off in the windows of the little house. The man had walked the span of the fence many times in the days he had tried to do things the polite way. He knew there was a crack in the stones, enough to get him a foothold so he could pull himself up. After a few failed attempts, he at last managed to hoist himself up, scrambling to the flat top of the walls. With a grunt and a soft thud, he dropped over onto the other side, wincing at the impact of the fall on his knees.
He paused, waiting to see if the sound would send some sort of alarm. Perhaps a guard dog of some kind he had missed before. But there was nothing but silence. Perfect. He moved along the path the old woman’s constant walking had made in the dirt, gawking at the greenery. The night flowering plants were things he couldn’t hope to name. The vegetables grew large as his head. Enough to feed the town until the blockades were taken care of. If she wouldn’t give it willingly, perhaps it was time to take it-
No. That wasn’t why he was here. Let someone else worry about the town.
Making his way past the house itself, he kept low, crawled, slowly on his hands and knees. He could hear the clock call out an hour since he had started this before he was on the other side where the fruit trees and bushes were. The purple fruits bent the boughs with how heavy they made them. Each one the size of his palm, as he raised his hand to hold one and inspect it. There were so many, he could pick a dozen and the woman wouldn’t even notice one was missing. If she had only answered his pleas he wouldn’t have had to resort to this.
He picked them one by one, making sure to take from a different location each time so it wouldn’t be so obviously picked over. Each one went into the bag he had brought along with him, sitting now at his feet so he could fill it. After four of them, he noticed a buzzing, bugs coming out from the center of the tree. He could see no nest or hive. He ignored them at first, swatting at one that came too close. One became two. Two became four. With a grunt, he brought both hands up, trapping and crushing one. When he was certain he felt no movement, he opened them to take a look.
It was as long as the space between two of his knuckles, with transparent wings. Too large to be mosquitoes or flies, but he had never seen anything like them before. The thin body came to a point at the end, with a growth that looked like a needle. The question was answered for him when another of them landed on, and stung, his neck. The pain was a throbbing thing, spreading beyond the entry point. Ripping another fruit from the tree, he decided he had enough. He dropped the last fruit in the bag before bending to pick it up. He held the opening of the bag with a hand on other side, so he could look in for one last inspection of his spoils.
One of the bugs flew out, practically vibrating with that menacing buzz. Then two. Then ten. A cloud of them seemed to pour unending from it, even as he dropped the bag to the ground with a shout. The swarm of them blinded him as he made his way towards the gate in an attempt to flee. Soon, even his screams were swallowed by the sound.

In the morning, the man’s wife was beside herself. Her husband hadn’t come home. Perhaps, she decided, he had gone to the pub and had one too many. She would walk her way there and find him sleeping on the bar, like she had before she was with child. She would scold him, they would laugh about it, and then they would go home.
As she stepped out the door and settled her scarf about her head, she nearly tripped over a bundle of something. A sack, which she stooped and picked up. The woman took a peak inside, eyes widening before she closed it. A look left down the quiet path. A look right. No sign of anyone,so she opened it again. Five of the most beautiful figs she had ever seen. Her husband must have been working all day to find a merchant who was able to get them. Bless the man.
She pulled one of them out, biting into it without a second thought. The juice spilled across her lips and down her throat, sweet as anything she had ever had. She could have wept with joy as she took another bite. Her teeth hit something hard at the fruit’s center. Of course, they had tiny seeds no matter how perfect they seemed to be. She reached her fingers into her mouth to dislodge whatever one had gotten stuck. But this seemed far too large. Like a stone of some kind. Closing her fingers around it, she pulled it out with a wet pop.
A golden band, covered in fruit flesh and dripping with juice. Her own name engraved on the thing’s inside. There were no buzzing beasts to cover her scream.