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Post by Noa on May 8, 2019 18:09:32 GMT -6
The people he didn't know well wouldn't bring up this sort of topic, or come to his garden plot to begin with… And the ones who might be privy to it would already know him well enough to guess more or less what had happened.
Interestingly, it seemed almost as if the Evergreen had been waiting for this. As Aster turned away from his thankless task, the Evergreen deliberately walked into his line of sight, leaning in, as if trying to make eye contact with him. Aster didn't exactly startle, but he did look surprised. This was the first occasion that the Evergreen had made any kind of attempt to engage with him.
A part of him was immediately set to wondering if the Evergreen had any requests. The gargoyle had had some when it had made the effort to engage with him. Or one request, really, presented as part of a deal.
(26)
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Post by Noa on May 8, 2019 18:10:33 GMT -6
But what would an Evergreen want that he could offer it? A lifetime supply of fertilizer to eat, or to spread over its roots? Regular trips to a professional pruner to get prettied up? The death of all its enemies? Did a tree even have enemies? Maybe all it wanted was to be rid of whatever pests infested its kind on a regular basis.
His thoughts were getting away from him. Well, alright then, he thought, and made eye contact with the creature. Once it was sure it had his attention, it walked off--- and then when it noticed he wasn't following, came back and took Aster's hand.
What a very strange sensation that was. The Evergreen's hands didn't just look like wood, it felt like wood too. The skin or bark or whatever of it felt rough beneath his own hand, and it wasn't soft and yielding in the manner of flesh.
(27)
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Post by Noa on May 8, 2019 18:11:13 GMT -6
But it moved, and yielded when the Evergreen wanted it to yield, so it wasn't quite like holding onto a strange wood carving or a weirdly shaped branch or anything either. It felt like holding onto the hand of a living tree-creature.
This was probably what it was like to have a Nyssa too, he supposed. The trouble with that was that the Nyssa was monolithic, and might not hold your hand so much as hold all of you in one.
Well, it was just as well that that wasn't what Aster was dealing with. He didn't own any Nyssas either, thank the gods. They might have been useful in their own ways--- though not as the source of any crops as far as he knew--- but he already had Grunty if he wanted something huge and lumbering, and on the whole he found the Thundergug easier to deal with than a tree. (28)
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Post by Noa on May 8, 2019 18:11:37 GMT -6
Maybe it was because he had already been dealing with Grunty for so long; maybe it actually hadn't been any easier in the beginning. But it was easier now, and he wasn't inclined to change something that already worked.
The Evergreen didn't drag him all that far. There wasn't a great deal of "far" for him to be dragged. Despite his best efforts, the amount of land he had managed to clear was not very large. It was only just the size of a room, and not even a very large one, all of it fetched up against the edge of the plot.
It was at this edge that the Evergreen stopped, releasing Aster so that it could hunker down to get a better look at something. Aster wasn't sorry to be let go either. The sensation was a little unnerving, and he was glad to have his hand back.
(29)
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Post by Noa on May 8, 2019 18:13:31 GMT -6
It took him a moment to even begin to be interested in what the Evergreen was looking at, but he did come around once he remembered why he was here in the first place, and not where the machete still was. I The Evergreen had dragged him here, so it must have meant for him to see it too, right? It would have been a waste of both their time if he didn't even look.
He had to squat down to do it, mostly because the Evergreen was crouched, and he was a good bit taller than it was when they were both standing. As he hunkered down next to it, he could see that it was poking around in the dirt around the bit of fencing that served to separate this plot from the other plots in the area.
Upon closer inspection, however, there seemed to be a little more than just dirt.
(30)
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Post by Jack on May 8, 2019 20:24:06 GMT -6
As you're working in the garden, you notice that one of your fences has a broken board... You'll have to repair it before you can continue, which will no doubt take a whole day's worth of work! Oi, well... you can't let your pets out, nor the pests and predators in, can you? Best start working...
(the next 5 posts yield no result)
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Post by Noa on May 12, 2019 20:55:24 GMT -6
It was hard to see at first, since the things were kind of a dingy color--- and the soil was growing dry and pale from the start of the summer heat--- but there seemed to be… flowers growing there. Flowers, growing right on the fringes of the garden plot.
If he was being perfectly honest, these were probably weeds. He certainly hadn't cultivate them, and he didn't see their like in any of the surrounding gardens either. Probably it just wasn't something people went out of their way to grow.
But it technically was on his land, and hey, it wasn't as if he had anything else to take home besides a bunch of dead brambles. They didn't even have any berries in them as far as he could tell, though maybe that was where the Evergreen had found its single--- double--- purple fruit. And while Aster personally wasn't really a flowers kind of guy, the Hara might like it.
(31)
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Post by Noa on May 12, 2019 20:55:52 GMT -6
They'd all been born in flowers, and a few of them still had quite a fondness for plants, maybe as a holdover from that.
Would that Rey were here. He would know what to do with this garden. Maybe Aster ought to pay him a visit sometime, get some advice… But all of that was presuming he meant to keep up with this, and with things as they currently stood, he didn't know if that was true.
He would wait a little while longer and see, he supposed. Just because Rey had moved out didn't mean they were really all that separated. Rey still lived in the city, and theoretically Aster could visit anytime he wanted. For that matter, Rey could have visited Aster too. There was just the very small matter of Aster living on the edges of the countryside, just barely before they were out of the limits of civilization entirely…
(32)
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Post by Noa on May 12, 2019 20:56:36 GMT -6
And Rey, of course, had chosen a very small, very urban location, at least in part due to the issue of funds, though he had also mentioned wanting to experience the city. Rey's creatures still lived in the city kennels for the most part because he just had no room for any of them.
Anything to do with anywhere like downtown was unappealing to Aster pretty much by definition. There were always too many people. Most folks who hated the city minded the noisy and the lines and all along with the press of bodies, but with Aster, the former two were minor inconveniences at best. What he disliked most was just the presence of people, and the physical contact it sometimes necessitated in cramped spaces.
There was a good reason he bought a TROD. He hadn't had to go to the city in quite a while, personally. But you couldn't really send a TROD to visit someone.
(33)
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Post by Noa on May 12, 2019 20:59:27 GMT -6
Well, maybe you could; he certainly didn't think Rabbit would refuse it if he had asked her for that kind of favor. But it would still defeat the purpose, in this case, since the point of going to see Rey would be for Aster to see him.
He sighed. "Well, thank you," he said to the Evergreen. Presumably the Evergreen had meant for them to share this moment, anyway, and that was reason enough to offer his thanks. He reached out for the flower, doing so slowly enough that he could check its reaction to see if it would protest him doing so. Fortunately, it didn't seem perturbed by this, so Aster plucked the flower, and put it away.
Hopefully it wouldn't be too squashed by the time he got home. The Hara liked pressed flowers as much as anything, but crushed flowers would probably be pushing it a little too much.
(34)
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Post by Noa on May 12, 2019 21:02:05 GMT -6
With that done, Aster straightened. It wouldn't be too good to crouch for too long. His legs would go numb if he did that, and he had never been all that fond of the pins and needles feeling that came with it when it happened.
It was as he rose that he noticed the gap in the fence. If he had noticed it any earlier--- say, before he had taken a good look in the dirt and found the flower that the Evergreen had dragged him here to show him--- he might have cursed out loud. His work cutting the brambles had left him in a real sour mood. But now that he had calmed down, he just felt tired looking at it.
It would have to be repaired, of course. And he was almost certainly going to have to be the one to do it, because that was how these things panned out.
(35)
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Post by Noa on May 12, 2019 21:04:44 GMT -6
There was another garden on the other side of the fence, but if that person hadn't repaired it by now, he imagined they probably weren't going to. Maybe they thought there was no point, since this plot was very clearly abandoned.
And up until today, they would have been right. Aster hadn't exactly been a very active gardener up until now. Even now, what he was doing couldn't exactly have been called 'gardening', could it?
"I don't suppose you can just grow some wood to cover this up? Do a little tree magic?" he said, looking at the Evergreen. Hey, it wasn't impossible. Some plant creatures could do it, right? Summon wood from nothing, or make vines erupt from the ground to hold you or something. This Evergreen creature was at least kind of a tree, so it wasn't completely out of the realm of possibility for it to be able to do it.
(36)
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Post by Noa on May 12, 2019 21:07:34 GMT -6
If it could though, it certainly wasn't doing it. And it wasn't offering him any assistance either. Aster sighed again, but he had known himself that his words were more of a joke than anything. As if it could be that easy.
"I don't have the tools with me for something like this," he said, scratching his head. Maybe he ought to have brought them. In fact, in retrospect it had been kind of stupid not to expect something like this to happen. But he hadn't, and so he was stuck like this. He'd have to bring them from home at another point.
It wasn't, of course, that he couldn't do it. Aster had learned some woodworking, the way he'd learned a little of a lot of things. He lived in a pretty out of the way area, and he didn't like dealing with other people, up to and including the kind you hired.
(37)
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Post by Noa on May 12, 2019 21:10:25 GMT -6
And if you didn't want to pay for someone to do it for you, then your only real recourse was to do it yourself. Nothing was going to stop your home from falling into disrepair otherwise. Given his options, Aster had chosen to become a bit handier rather than a bit less antisocial.
But it had never been much of a choice, really. Learning the right way to hold a hammer was nothing compared to trying to quell the unease he felt around other humanoids, even now. People here weren't the touchy feely type, which was part of why he had settled here at all; no amount of good prospects or happy circumstances could have convinced him to stay anywhere where the people greeted each other with hugs or kisses to the cheeks or casual pats on the shoulder. But even the presence of people was a little uncomfortable, like wearing a shirt that didn't quite fit.
(38)
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Post by Noa on May 12, 2019 21:13:31 GMT -6
It would always be there, nagging a him in the back of his mind, and reminding him by its presence that he wasn't okay.
Maybe he could work through it--- maybe he ought to. But he was getting on alright the way he was, and he had found ways to make his current life work for him. As there wasn't any pressing need for it, Aster remained more or less as he was.
And all that self sufficiency sure came in handy for moments like this. Saved him money too, not that that was a huge concern for him anymore.
He made a mental note to see about those repairs and bring tools for next time, but for the moment, the most he could do was... Hmm. Aster cast about for a moment, searching for something he could use to fill the gap in the fencing. There had to be something around here somewhere...
(39)
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