Appleluck

Ama(aye-may) was not a typical, beautiful woodcutter's daughter.
She had luxurious long brown hair that tangled in everything; fishing line, on rails, in tree bark, around chair backs. She had the most luminous brown eyes that she rammed into cabinet edges and stable doors, keeping them in a bruised state. She had the most luscious berry-pink lips that she cut on every ceramic cup and drinking glass. Her gold-touched skin had black marks and red welts from tripping over her own shoes, banging into open drawers, tumbling into bushes, having random objects like nuts drop from above.
When she wore her finest attire, she would snag the hems on blades of grass, or a bird would snatch her hair ribbon and race away. Drinks would stain the fabric, her new shoes would collect smudges like a pack rat collected shiny things.
The townspeople called her Amasuoliovhin (aye-may-sue-lee-vin), or Supremely Unlucky--but not unlucky in a deadly way. Unlucky in a fart-during-the-moment-of-silence-at-a-funeral way.
Ama grew tired of the teasing. She had not always experienced such ill luck! It started after the local Luck Apple Festival two years ago, and she had no idea why. But that night, she had tripped over the pail of milk her mother accidentally left out, coating the kitchen floor in sour white stuff that took a few days to air out.
And her luck went downhill from there.

Her mother and father had suggestions; rise with the sun to beat lazy bad luck, drink warm sugarberry tea with the noon meal to sweeten the day, walk in a circle three times before bed, which should confuse the bad luck and make it go away.
The suggestions did not work.
Her aunts and uncles suggested various foods to eat at certain times of day, and her cousins told her to knot the hems of her dresses and cloaks, hoping to tie good luck to her.
The suggestions did not work.
The baker told her to make a circle of sour salt around her home. The butcher told her to make a charm from roohawk tail feathers and put it under her pillow. The candle maker gave her a foul-smelling wax to burn and drive the bad luck away.
The suggestions did not work.
Other townspeople told her to braid apple leaves into her hair as a good luck charm, stay a night in the ice house to freeze the bad luck, stand outside during strong winds to blow it away.

During a midyear outing to town, one old woman, bent in half with age, did not suggest odd folklore remedies. No; she said Ama had to jump from the tallest overhang into the fast-flowing river along the main road outside of town. Ama, flabbergasted, asked why. Every year the river drowned many in its rapids, and most sane folks kept far from it. The trip up the steep slope was not a woodland stroll, either!
The old woman smiled and told her that bad luck showered down on her head in random droplets, rinsing away the good luck. If she wanted a return to normal, she would need to jump into luck's lap, rather than wait for it to amble back around. She needed to take a luck apple, hike up to the top of the overhang, and jump with it into the water. Simple.
Ama winced. She had avoided apples since that fateful festival day. Skeptical, but at her wit's end, she did as the old woman suggested. She snagged a luck apple from her mother's basket and headed for the top of the overhang.

She slid often, dirt and pebbles poured into her shoes, a sharp twig tangled in her hair and refused to let go, so she broke it and let it hang from her tresses. She had numerous other misadventures before reaching the top of the overhang, though she had not lost the apple.
She refused to call that good luck.
She stood on the edge of the overhang and looked down. The road curved under the overhang, leaving her a clear jump into the deep hole in the river bottom right below her. Well, almost a clear jump; if she leapt and did not clear another bit of rock jutting out further below her, it might bump her to the side and into the road instead.
Nervous, she absently took a bite of the apple, and winced. The taste reminded her of the last thing she ate without biting the inside of her cheek; a slice of apple luck pie. The shopkeep sold it to her that fateful festival day, not realizing another woman had already purchased it. The sugary slice had started sweet but turned sour on the last bite. The woman, annoyed her purchase went into the gullet of another, had crabbily wished her apple's luck and stormed off. She had not eaten an apple since.

She spit out the bite, clutched the sticky fruit to her chest, closed her eyes, and jumped.
She hit the jut of rock rather than clearing it, and fell, rear first, to the road. Acknowledging her final moments, she could have thought or prayed a number of things, but she held the apple up and apologized to the unlucky woman from the festival.
She landed in a farmer's wagon. The man turned around, shocked, that a woman fell from the sky and into the dung pile headed for the fields. He helped her from the bed, and she smiled in relief he saved her from a crunchy.
Nothing happened; no dung stuck to her dress, no terrible smell wafted from her, no bruised bottom from crashing into the rock. She accompanied him to his fields, where she discovered he had never heard of the unlucky lass from town.
The old woman had been right. She needed to fall into luck.
They continued to meet at the fields, and eventually married, living a life as happy as any.

Appleluck is a tale from the farmlands that border the Sea of Condioh in southern Condioh. The local communities consider it bad luck to name the woman who purchased the pie piece and lost it to Ama, but outside the farms, it's common knowledge the woman is the sylfaone of luck and fruit, Ciorvhion Mala (seer-veeh maylay).
The local moral: sylfaodolon are assholes, but don't tell them that.
The religious moral: be gracious, even if you did not intentionally do something wrong. If Ama had offered to buy another pie piece for the woman, none of her misfortune would have happened.

All artwork by Shade Melodique