2022-03-02 - Plant-sperimentation

Never let it be said that when Una gets an idea in her head, she does not immediately run with it. (Sometimes.)

After yesterday's lawn makeover (which still lives, and isn't doing anything weird or anything, so that's a positive thing so far), the redhead has evidently been busy spending grandma's money: behind 5 Oak, the overalls-clad redhead has clustered together a reasonably impressive collection of plants in nursery pots, their early-spring (lack of-) plumage making them just perfect for a few little experiments.

It's these that she takes a photo off, sending it off to Ravn and Ava (not, perhaps, the intended purpose of the business card Ava gave her, but, well: needs must, and this is definitely a 'need'), accompanied by a quick message: I vote we see what else can be done to these poor plants, y/y? Doesn't have to be, like, now or anything. Lawn's still fine, so we're good.

The tall Dane receives a text while sitting in his kitchen window, looking at the white picket fence, laced with flowering clematis that seen to have decided to turn up about four months too early -- in fact, this yard is taking straight out of a Disney movie, all it needs is somebody singing a duet with the birds. Everything is almost too green and verdant, too neat -- from the tinkle of a dew drop in a spider's web (plink!) to the wild rabbit sniffing around in the dandelions at the far end of the back yard. The trees down there are full of lush, green foliage offering shade and shelter -- while their counterparts everywhere else aren't even budding yet.

It doesn't take much effort to pull on his wind breaker and head over next door. He turns up with a lazy wave and takes in the display. "Did you buy all of Roen's shop? Are there any petunias?"

Kitty Pryde may be the goddess of death to the local gremlins, but Ravn Abildgaard is the god of death to petunias.

The texts got her attention, and with the day off to get all sorts of paperwork out of the way, Ava figured why not stop by and see what she can do to help. Not long after Ravn's arrival, she's falling in step behind him, appearing behind the house with a little smile. "Hey there. Hope I'm not too late. Glad to see everything is still looking all green and lovely. I'm not sure how well it will survive once the snow hits, if it snows again, but I guess we'll see."

She drifts over towards the potted plants, waving towards Ravn and then kneeling next to Una. "What did you have in mind?"

"I don't think Della's been outside yet today," says Una, glancing over her shoulder to grin at Ravn. "I hate to think what it might do to her brain. The lawn's just so pretty! Not all, though I think the sales attendant ended up desperately wishing they worked on commission. I clearly can't do what Ava can, but..." Hopefully she can at least keep them alive.

There are, indeed, petunias. And azaleas. And dahlias. And...

"Ava, hey! I wasn't sure if you'd be working. I was thinking, I guess, just about understanding more what's possible. Smaller-scale," aside from the sheer number of plants, of course, "but... does it ignore basic plant biology? Can we make them things they weren't meant to do? I don't know."

Ravn squats down to look at a pot of petunias (and they are cringing away from him as plants best can, or at least it looks that way to him). "Easy, guys. I'm not doing anything today."

Can petunias breathe out in relief? One could get that impression.

Then he looks back up. "I'm honestly not sure what ordinary people see. Maybe it looks like bad piping to them. Like those places where you have snow everywhere except in a stripe where there's a leaky hot water pipe underground, and the ground never freezes. Maybe they edit it out entirely, hell if I know. I'm pretty sure this region doesn't have geothermal activity, so they probably don't blame it on very small hot springs."

He straightens back up (cue another relieved petunia sigh). "I'm not sure what the limits are. I know people have done amazing things. Roen built a bird cage from a living tree, just encouraging to grow in a way that it's a living tree voliere. Finch de la Vega used the lawn of Addington Park once, to rise up and trap a dragon like a living wall of green. It all fell back down and made a hell of a mess when she was done, but she did it. And then of course the Gazette claimed that the mess was because of escaped bison from the little zoo -- which to the best of anyone's knowledge never had a bison enclosure, but you know how it is, never let facts get in the way of a good story."

"Understanding is one of the keys to growing more powerful," Ava says with a nod. "It doesn't ignore the biology of the plants. Or people, for that matter. I cannot make a petunia plant grow a rose. But I can make a seed blossom into a full grown flower. I could make a good one hundred yards around be come into full bloom if I cared to. But only to their own, natural limits." She gestures to Ravn's examples. "Grass can grow. So Finch made it grow to extremes. Roen simply shaped the tree into a form. Crafters have been doing things like that for years with saplings and tools, we simply don't need to wait years and use all that effort," she explains."

"Your current level allows you to help things grow. You already have that ability inside of you. When I increased your power yesterday, and what I did here, that allowed me to shape and move the plants. But I didn't really move any of them. If you uproot them and force them from their home, they will die."

"I'll probably start getting people wanting to know who my gardening service is," Una concludes, straight-faced. "Even if they can't see the extent of it. Just-- my yard looks good." It looks gooooooooood.

She reaches out to touch the bare stem of a pot of pansies, but makes no effort to try and influence them; it's more a thoughtful gesture than a deliberate one. "Okay," she agrees. "No ignoring biology; that's good to know. Growing and shaping. Extending what it does already. That lawn thing, though; that's cool. I wish I'd seen that. Though preferably not with my lawn. I'm getting fond of it, and I'm still hoping the faeries will help to maintain it."

"You probably can ignore biology, if you're insistent enough," Ravn theorises. "But it probably would require extreme effort and the kind of power to sustain that you might as well send Cthulhu a dinner invitation in gold print. I can't do anything like this -- but I do know that when it comes to moving something, it's a lot easier to add to the speed of something that's already in motion, than it is to send it flying in the first place. I figure the principles at work here aren't much different."

He glances at the petunias. "That's what I did to them -- or to their ancestors, I figure. I taught them to fly. Or rather, I threw them at a gunman, that way. But there was so much power in the air that day from other people doing similar things that they seem to remember."

Are the potted petunias cowering? You're probably imagining it.

"Well, do you know if the faeries came out last night?" Ava wonders. "I came by with my offerings for Kitty Pryde to see if that would sate her so that she wouldn't eat the faeries. Did you put out alcohol as well as the sweets? Maybe it all worked?"

Ravn gets an arched brow. "What did you do?" There's a laugh that follows, her head shaking. "He's probably right. You probably could do that. But I imagine taking a risk like that would have to be in a very dire situation. Someone is dying kind of situation."

Una's little choke of laughter is for the flying petunias, probably, though she's facing the plants and not her two companions, making it harder to see for sure. Perhaps she's simly laughing at the plants. "Poor petunias," she decides. "Don't worry-- I won't experiment on you first."

The pansies, however? They are in for it.

"I don't know for sure what happened with the faeries. I definitely left them out some cooking brandy," here's hoping they're not too particular about the quality of their alcohol, "plus cookies and milk, and it was gone this morning."

With a bright, "Ah!" of triumph, after a moment of deep concentration, she beams in the direction of the pansies, which have abruptly blossomed. Of course, being pansies they have that look about them: those judgemental little not-quite-faces, staring like a trio of mean girls.

Ravn nods and takes a step backward (somewhat to the petunias' relief). He dips into a pocket for a cigarette and his lighter, and proceeds to use both while watching. Then the silver zippo is returned to his wind breaker and he says, "I suspect the faeries may in fact have had ideas. I mean, you did a lot yesterday. But this -- the whole Disney summer with rabbits and singing robins and what have you, that's almost more. Maybe they figured that if that's what we want, sure, that's what we get. And then we get to explain it to the neighbours, indeed."

Ava chuckles and rests her hands in her lap, glancing around. "Yes. I did make it a tad Snow White-ish, didn't I? Sadly I don't have the mental skill to lift a finger and call a bird to it so that it will sing sweet nothings to me." There's a wistful sigh. "Alas. But you can't say it doesn't look amazing." Her eyes drift towards Una as the woman begins to work on the flowers, a proud smile drifting across her lips as she watches the pansies blossom. "Beautiful! Perfectly done!"

"It was a lot, yesterday, but I think Ravn might be right... it's more, now. It's..."

It's definitely something. Something Una seems delighted with (though right now, that delight is more focused on the sulky little pansies), though who knows what her roommates think (will think?) about the Disney wonderland they now live in.

"As long as my house doesn't turn into a gingerbread cottage. I don't think I'm ready to be a wicked witch, fattening up unsuspecting children."

She extends a finger to touch, just lightly, one of the pansies. It's probably her imagination that it ducks back away from her fingertip. (Probably). Still, she glances back over her shoulder to beam at Ava.

"It's a funny distinction," Ravn observes, more to the air than to anyone in particular. "You two can do this. You can affect something that is alive, make it grow or decline. I can't. It's as impossible for me to do as breathing fire or growing wings. I can't for the life of me work out what I should do, how to ... well, flex my mind, for lack of a better term. But the pot the things grow in? Easy peasy."

He flicks a finger -- and the pansies in front of Una take off to rise up and hover in front of her face. Or rather, it's not the pansies -- it's the pot they grow in. Because clay is a dead matter, and as such prone to a mover's machinations. "That's what I did to the petunias -- I threw the pots they were in, not the plants themselves."

"Well, what a droll life it would be if we all could do the very same things the very same way. I can't do that for the life of me," Ava states as she gestures to the floating pots. "But together we could make a full on Fantasia around here. That's why we're all stronger together. We have strengths and weaknesses that fit." She reaches out to rest a hand on Una's shoulder, giving it a squeeze as she beams at her. "It's a wonderful feeling, it's it? Sparking life like that? Have you healed anyone yet? Watching a wound mend in front of your eyes? There's nothing like that feeling either, let me tell you." The stronger you get, the more you can do. The more careful you have to be, as well."

"The balance because harder deal with. It's part of why I am a coroner instead of working in the hospital. It's easier to work with patients that can't give me sad eyes. I'd want to fix all of them. That would be a problem."

The pansies, if it's possible, look even less impressed.

Una laughs, and one of the other pots (this one containing what will eventually probably be a dahlia) lifts off the ground after the pansies. She looks a little cross-eyed as she does it, but there's satisfaction, too: look at her, demonstrating all the (low-level) power today.

When she turns her head again to grin up at Ava, her nod is quick and certain. "It is. I've-- little things. Cuts and bruises, nothing more than that. It's a good feeling. It's--"

Evidently this is too much distraction, and her pot of dahlias crashes back to earth, fracturing into pieces.

Ravn's pot of pansies comes to a gentle landing next to its shattered cousins. At this rate, the flora of Gray Harbor is going to declare Oak Avenue the first circle of Dante's Inferno -- just with less dead Italians. "I've been healed like that. My room mate, Aidan -- he's a healer like that. And thank God for that, because I am a veritable magnet for scrapes and bruises."

Or for trouble in general. Some people just are more squishy than other people. And some people never remember to duck.

"It's got to be handy to combine this kind of healing with a medical background, though. It can't get harder from actually knowing what you're doing. If it was me? I'd have to point and say something like, 'uh, get well, I command thee'. You can actually visualise the process -- the things that need to mend." Ravn scratches his chin. "I find it's easier to do things when you can visualise them, at least. Sometimes, I try to imagine that there is a kind of force field around me -- and it does help some, I've seen things bounce off it."

Ava watches the dance of the pots with a touch of amusement. It's adorable. "Even cuts and bruises. It's wonderful. Nothing like it. For me anyway. Healing is just... there's something about it. But then, there's something about life in general, I suppose. All of nature." She glances around at the Disney garden, smirking faintly.

"It certainly hasn't hurt," she agrees with Ravn. "The magic knows what it's supposed to do, to a point, but being able to guide it, and making sure I know what's actually needed and what's not? That's more helpful than I ever thought it could be." She reaches out a hand in the space around him, as if trying to find the forcefield, but there's not one right now. "You could truly mess with a mime's head, you know that?"

The pot holding the dahlias may be destined for the scrap-heap, but apparently the dahlias themselves are not: it's probably not immediately visible, but the roots spread into the soil, and look, now they're a little more upright, a little more green. Because sure, why not have a random dahlia in the middle of the lawn.

(Una rubs at her head, though, and then glances down at her fingers. Okay, so maybe this is more power than she's used to using.)

"Huh," she says, glancing back at the other two, and now rising to her feet and dusting off her grubby knees. "I hadn't thought of it, but it makes sense. For me, it's definitely just trying to push power at it, because I don't know how things fit together, or how they move. I might be able to put that pot back together, though, because... clay just makes sense. It fits."

Ravn squats down again and then glances at the petunias. "What do you guys say? Do you want to grow in our lawn too?"

The petunias do not answer. But then, petunias generally don't. As a species, they are not all that communicative, unless you're a horny bee.

At the end of the yard, a rabbit sits up on its hind legs and sniffs the air. A couple of blue jays -- well, sing is not quite the term. They make happy noises. Sun shafts filter down from above, parting the gloomy March clouds to form dancing patterns across the lawn.

"I don't know about you guys," Ravn murmurs. "But if this keeps up? I'm okay with this. We may have to come up with some explanation as to what's going on, but -- worth it."

"Eventually, when you get powerful enough, even if that pot were shattered into a thousand pieces, as long as you had one spec of it left, and you remembered what it looked like? You could reform it. That's what the most powerful of those in the spirit magic can do. I'm almost there. Not quite." Ava grins. "But it's nice to think about. And hey, pushing power at things is one way to do stuff!" she laughs, not dismissing Una's way of doing stuff.

She glances at Ravn, a soft smile on her lips. "Hey, I'm with you. I love it. You know what it also seems like?"

"A really great place for a miracle to happen."

"I love it too," confirms Una, abruptly grinning brilliantly: it's like the culmination of a little girl dream to live in an enchanted garden (particularly when you live in a high rise block of shitty apartments). "I really don't care what the neighbours think, how they explain it away."

She does, however, give Ava a sidelong glance, mouth twisting ever so slightly. "Just as long as it doesn't catch too much attention." This time, she probably doesn't mean the neighbours.

"Somebody probably ought to be the party pooper now and point out the correlation between the use of these powers and the interest from the Veil. But you both know that -- anyway, it's been said, party pooped, check." Ravn grins a little. He's kind of the walking testament that excessive power use is definitely not the only reason the Other Side might take special interest in somebody. He's spent more power today making that pansy fly a bit than he's spent during the last three weeks.

Well, he did bend a spoon to impress a barista. You have to impress the baristas, they control the coffee supply.

"I am kind of waiting for the other shoe to drop." The folklorist glances at the faerie circle. "Mostly because the fae in Celtic tradition never are easy to deal with. They're shrewd -- the idea of just accepting a bargain without trying to negotiate sounds likely. Maybe they're doing the dope peddler on us -- let us get used to a nice, warm, Disney garden, and then up the price. The first hit is free, and all that."

"It's easy enough to explain away with some landscaping trucks and a rumor about coming into some extra money. The Veil will take care of the rest. You just need to do the subtle drops to make it easier." Una gets a wink at that. "But I hope this isn't the first hit, because I'm buying a place with a big yard so I can do a big Secret Garden style set up. I was obsessed with that book as a girl. Or an English Garden theme. It'd be exquisite."

"The party has been sufficiently pooped, but yes. Lots of power equals more eyes pointed in this direction. So I suppose I will not attempt the miracle in the Disney garden." Ava sighs. A touch dramatic as her shoulders slump. Buzz killed.

Una's dramatic sigh is overkill (and follows Ava's), but she follows it up with a nod of acknowledgement: party pooped, reality intrudes, alas. "Look, as long as my garden stays 'garden' and not 'evil forest' or whatever, I'm cool with it. I'll keep paying my cookie dues. Traditionally, though, how bad could this kind of unspoken bargain become?" Replace traditional with 'theoretical', maybe.

For Ava: "Oooh, maybe with a maze? Topiaries? And there you were, thinking about an apartment of all things, when you could have all this..."

"I suppose 'came into some extra money' isn't unbelievable in Gray Harbor of all places. Mostly in conjunction with the fact that this place draws people from all over the world, and the ones who can afford leave everything for some place on the Pacific Northwest coast aren't the ones with no resources at all. I'm always laughing about how many famous writers this town has for a place so small. It's a lot." Ravn grins slightly.

Gray Harbor. Where successful authors, streamers, and game devs go to find obscurity once more.

Then he gives Una a slightly more serious glance. "Let's not plant anything edible, though. Let's say that this yard is kind of, sort of faerie territory now, since they tend it. One might get nitpicky and say that gives them some kind of claim. And we all know that you should never ever accept food or drink from the Celtic fae, because it gives them a claim on you. Which means that picking an apple from a tree grown in a faerie garden leads to potential boatloads of trouble -- and I for one don't want to have to go negotiate the hostage release when the kids down the street have emptied out the cherry tree."

"Ooooh. Maybe not evil forest, but haunted enchanted forest could make for quite the aesthetic. But that would take quite a lot of land. Not a neighborhood spot. That would need a cabin already out in the woods. Maybe for when I retire. But that's a long way off." She nudges Una, smirking. "Don't tease me," she laughs. "I was thinking an apartment near the clinic, to be fair. To make it faster to get to patients. This is just so much nicer."

Her face twists into concern and just a little bit of horror at the thought of what Ravn suggests might happen if they planted edible things in the garden. "That's terrifying to think about."

Una nudges Ava in return, although she doesn't quite go as far as sticking her tongue out. The implication is still there in the grin she's not quite held back. "It's not as if town is that big," she points out. "It doesn't take so long to get anywhere."

Ravn's more serious comment draws a wince from the redhead. "Ah fuck," she says. "There goes any plans for a vegetable garden." This would be more of a loss if it were, say, a chocolate garden. A spice garden. "Or a healing herb garden for that matter. What's the bet they grow us some nice fruit trees anyway. We'd better watch out for that, 'less we get caught unawares."

"Well, unless we can negotiate the right to harvest." Ravn looks around. "I mean, maybe we can make a trade. They grow our squashes and we buy their ice cream, something along those lines. Just have to be sure to have a proper agreement in place."

Is he seriously standing here, considering the finer points of a service contract with some overlapping reality faerie kingdom? The folklorist scratches his neck and chuckles. The longer one stays in this town the more bizarre it gets.

"It really wouldn't be a bad idea to have a list of stuff you might be willing to do for them ready to go before hand. That way you seem more prepared if they show up out of the blue. They may not take kindly to hemming and hawing. Oh! Remember, if they ask you for something simple like they're going to borrow it, they're not going to borrow it, they're going to keep it. Same goes if they ask for your name. So, if they say 'May I have your name please?' as though they are asking what your name is, do not say your name. Does that make sense?"

Ava pauses and then rubs the back of her neck sheepishly. "That's how Harriet in Faerie Hearts Flutter ended up losing her name in chapter two," she reveals. "I loved those books when I was twelve." Don't judge her.

Serious consideration (negotiating with faeries is very serious business) is interrupted by a burst of laughter; Una had been nodding slowly in answer to negotiations and preparations and all the necessary planning involved, but Ava's revelation cuts that short. "Of all the things... I never thought I'd be taking advice from pre-teen fantasy novels. The real question is, did Harriet get her name back in the end?!"

Una seems serious in wanting to know the answer, though she adds, "It really would be easier to have an outright negotiation, arcane rules or no arcane rules. This--" a wave of her hand-- "guesswork and assumption isn't helping much. Though I do want to keep my name, and my freedom."

"Where Celtic fae are concerned, always listen very close to the wording," Ravn agrees. "It's a story telling tradition that's based on word play and people acting before they speak. A culture of tricksters who cannot lie -- but they are masters of twisting words around. Not that the Scandinavian tradition does not have similar examples, but they're not quite so smart, usually. The sidhe really are assholes a lot of the time."

He glances at Ava. "I can't say I've read that particular version. The idea that a name is sacred and contains your sense of self and your true identity is common to many cultures, though. It pertains to a time when reputation and name was all you had in terms of legal weight. That's when the oath of twelve other men with good, 'honest' names could clear you of a crime even when you all but ad the bloody axe in one hand was a thing."

No, Ravn. No one asked for a lecture. At least this time, he manages to stop himself.

He nods at Una instead. "Let's make sure neither of us agree to anything without asking the other household first. That buys us time to think things through, and to catch any questionable wording. Also, if they do manage to get me to agree to something accidentally, it's an escape clause -- it doesn't apply unless they get you too."