milliways_bar | Gardening post!

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Gardening post!

This Monday morning, very early, Asar-Suti is in the garden, working. Everything is lush and green now, but the branches of the conifers still have their light-green tips, and on some of the other trees there remain the sorry left-overs of bloom.

Tulips and Hyacinths have gone, to be replaced with peonies and rhododendrons as the main flowery attractions. And the herbs are sprouting in all directions, the beds of the kitchen garden overflowing with abundance.

At the moment, the purple god is gently plucking the last of the woodruff for this year, to deliver to the kitchen.-

[[OOC: Put up for Lucrecia, but open to all! If your charrie is on the gardening team, this is the chance to show them doing their job. Tag them in, and have them chat to each other, or with 'Suti, or meet Lucrecia when she's tagged in -- might be fun!]]

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It was a good thing that Monday was not too far along. Lucrecia had been restless, as she always was before something to anticipate, and rose to be ready with the sun. It wasn't quite early enough, however, as the garden's proprietor was already hard at work by the time she spotted him, lit by just one of dawn's hues.

"Good morning," Lucrecia greets Asar-Suti. It's very quiet and very beautiful, the chill air and all its fragrances. The sweetness of the woodruff's are particularly prominent. "I'm not late, am I?"

"No, you are not," Asar-Suti says, turning his head to smile up at her.

"I live with the head cook, who gets up near the crack of dawn many mornings to get breakfast underway; and in the summer, when there is so much to do and enjoy in the garden, I often get up then as well. In the winter, when there's just the library, I heartlessly turn over and sleep in."

There had not been a specified time, besides the time of day, but Lucrecia still felt inclined to ask and much assured because of it.

"So this place has the four seasons." She learns, a small smile for his familiar winter habits. It brings another question to mind. "Do the gardeners usually transfer over to librarians by winter time? Or is that considered a vacation?"

"Oh, no!" Asar-Suti laughs. "I just started both, and run both. And we have four seasons, yes -- it's copied from a place on earth called Scotland, and they've got that there, too. Lovely winters, too -- I love going to the snowy woods to get a Christmas tree! And in our first winter here, we had an igloo...."

Ahh, well.

She can surmise and conclude from the earlier account of his nameless world, a world that did have the name of Earth, her own planet Gaia, and her own experience with time discrepancies, that Milliway's is a spectacular crossroads.

"That sounds wonderful. Did you build the igloo, too?" Lucrecia says quietly when he trails off. She brushes her skirt beneath her knees as she lowers herself toward the ground to watch him work. "I hope I'll be able to see what winter is like here."

"Gil built it, resourceful faun that he is!" Asar-Suti says, smiling. "I didn't know about igloos back then; I had barely learned what chocolate and coffee are."

Beat.

"And winter here is lovely! But if you can go before that, it's not enough reason to keep you here. But you should have seen the enormous snowball battle at first snow, last November! Days afterwards, everybody had a cold, even the grumpy Goth!"

Lucrecia, for one, would never have made it through any of her final examinations without chocolate and coffee.

"It sounds like it's worth it. A little cold for a lot of fun," Lucrecia comments, even though she can hardly remember the last time she's had a snowball fight, much less a battle. Winter had been the best time for studying, and summer for field work of a different nature than gardening.

"If you've been here three years though, it must be worth it," Lucrecia is thinking. It's mostly in the way he talks about his stories. "Or have you been Bound for all this time?"

"No," Asar-Suti says. "I have been to lots of other worlds, under my own steam. But I can't return to my own world; a mountain fell on top of me, and I can't get out. And I fear I might forget what I have become here. That's too valuable to risk."

She's much quieter this time. They are a bit more alike than she had originally thought or ever would have expected. Not that she is a god or even former god at that.

"If people like us," She was referring to their state of being. Being trapped. "If we did go back to our own world, we probably wouldn't be able to come back here again..?"

"I don't know," Asar-Suti says. "But I fear I would lose the 'me' I have become here if I became one with my purple magical fire again. What good would it be for me to be powerful, eternal, angry, an trapped again, if I forgot how to plant tulips, how chocolate tastes, and, most importantly, that I love Gil?"

Beat.

"He is mortal. I am not. I'll go home, many years from now, when..."

She can't help but to feel inspired by his change. Even if what he shares, in the end, is sobering, almost too realistic, to keep her gaze on him.

"But there's a time discrepancy," Lucrecia begins to think, to offer, not knowing what else to say. "If time stands still on the other side, perhaps time itself is an anomaly here, too. Otherwise the parallels would..." And then she realizes she could be wrong or babbling or both, and says softly sufficing, "I'm sorry."

"Time itself is an anomaly, here," Asar-Suti agrees. "Milliways exists on a time loop around the events you see in the Observation Window."

Lucrecia nods, not sure if that is a good or bad thing, or how it helps or how it might apply, if at all. For the time being she leaves it as it is, no matter how difficult it may be for her to do so.

"Then, while its coming close to summer time," She comes back to the purpose at hand, not quite sure how she has distracted them but not really minding it either. "What would you like me to do for you and your team, Asar-Suti?"

"You said you would like to take care of flowers and trees?" Asar-Suti says.

He tries to give his people jobs they enjoy; they work better that way.

"Yes," she confirms, and can't help but to add, "They often look just lovely together."

"That's why both of them make a garden," Asar-Suti says, grinning.

Beat.

"But if you have new ideas for arrangements, new ways of planting things that we haven't thought of yet -- go ahead! This place can use the input from the very, very many worlds from which a door opens to the bar."

"Ah! That would only make sense, wouldn't it?" Lucrecia chuckles softly in spite of herself at the blunt realization Asar-Suti kindly points out. She did have a thing or two to learn about gardening, after all.

"Actually, I think I do have an idea or two." She muses, turning to look out over the field. "I'd like to see more flowers growing up from the grass around the trees, like a sanctuary, even if its only for one summer." Turning back to him with a hopeful smile, "Does that sound like something I can do here?"

"It does," Asar-Suti says. "Like little islands on the lawn, you mean? It sounds lovely! Go ahead, make some, and convince me we should have more of those!"

"I will! Thank you very much!" She's beaming, quite determined. She already knows what it will look like, but creating a vision is another challenge altogether. She's looking forward to it.

"Now, as far as tools and seeds go, do we ask the Bar for whatever we might need?"

"Unless we already have it in the potting shed," Asar-Suti points out. "That's over there, behind the vegetable beds."

"I'll go take a look, maybe meet some of the others," She tells him. Lucrecia follows his indication, hardly able to linger with the way she's gravitating towards it. "If I have anymore questions I'll be sure to come back and find you."

Her brisk walk progresses toward a light jog. Partway she reminds herself to turn back and wave a goodbye.

"Oh yes, do that!" Asar-Suti says, watching her go.-

"Hello, boss," said a female voice.

Hearing the voice, Lucrecia looks up towards it. Though she expects to find a new fellow coworker, she doesn't quite expect the woman's appearance.

She's seen forms that are not quite human before. Humanoid. Other times far from it. Some of them might even be called monsters, but no more monsters than other human beings.

It's difficult to find a balance between not staring and not looking away as if to keep her eyes averted. At a momentary loss for words, she's glad that it seems proper enough to wait to be introduced.

"That's Rem; she takes care of the rhubarb," Asar-Suti says, turning back to plucking the woodruff.

Rem smiled and tried not to be creepy.

"Yes," she said, "And it has grown, has it not?"

And as an after thought a bone pendant is produced from who-knows-where and put on. She is now a little less Shinigami, and more human looking.

Lucrecia nods and looks up to Rem, trying her best to be as casual as possible. She's not particularly frightened or unsettled, but it is new nonetheless.

"Oh, you didn't have to..." Lucrecia begins when Rem's appearance changes. She feels a bit guilty that she might have caused Rem to feel like she needed to change, but tries to make up for it.

"I'm Lucrecia. Lucrecia Crescent." She says, extending her hand toward the other. "It's nice to meet you, Rem."

"Hey boss."

Chase approaches, with his big spade.

"What's the plan today?"

"Feel up to starting those new beds over there, towards where the forge is?" Asar-Suti asks.

"Sure thing. Want them digging up or new stuff putting in? Or both?"

"How about first the one, then the other?" Asar-Suti said. "With the digging coming first!"

"Okay. That one there?" Chase doesn't want to dig up the wrong bed by mistake.

"Did I do the other ones okay?"

"Oh, all is fine!" Asar-Suti says. "The garden is really lovely this year, down to the rhubarb, thanks to all the people working with me here!"

Chase grins. "Great."

Beat.

"Uh, which one is the rhubarb?"

"Long pink stalks, large leafs?" Asar-Suti says. "Rem has been taking care of it. The scary one."

Chase looks around, seeing Rem.

"Oh, yeah. Is she actually scary?"

"No," Asar-Suti says. "She tries very hard to please. But she cannot help but look scary."

Chase considers this, then shakes his head.

"The scary ones? Are the ones who look like everyone else."

"Clever young man!" Asar-Suti says. "I wouldn't expect anybody to know that."

Chase grins slightly and shrugs. The grin didn't quite reach his eyes.

"Sometimes, you learn the hard way."

There is darkness in his eyes just for a second, before he picks his spade up again.

"What are we planting over here?"

"Oh, yes, some things can't be learned any other way," Asar-Suti agrees.

Beat.

"Shrubbery, flowery bushes, and lawn in the middle -- I had roll-out lawn for that. But the stuff there needs to be dug up first, any way."

"You want me to dig that bit up too, or is the lawn going in the bed by the forge?"

"Just dig up the entire thing," Asar-Suti says. "The shrubs go around the lawn so it's protected from sight, from almost anywhere."

"Okay." Chase takes his spade and gets cracking, occasionally using a watering can over the tough bits.

"Oh, um, boss, what do you want me to do with the extra grass? Keep or mush?"

"Mush," Asar-Suti says. "We have new and improved lawn to put down afterwards!"

Chase nods, picks up large amounts of turf and flops them in the barrow to take for compost.

Asar-Suti nods; Chase is doing it all very well.

So he turns away, and walks back to his woodruff.-

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Gardening post!

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