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Post by Briar on Oct 8, 2020 12:01:29 GMT -6
The new targets were ones that were less appetizing than the stick that he had dealt with before. Aubrey presented him with plain sticks, toys, cushions, anything he could think of that wasn’t a punishment to the Houluh’s mouth to have to bite down on. Eventually, and with a little trepidation, he even offered his own heavily padded arm. Loki seemed a bit uncertain at this last one, and kept looking at Aubrey as if wondering whether Aubrey was sure about this. But with enough prompting, yes, Aubrey got Loki to bite down on his padded arm too.
It didn’t hurt, but he could still feel the force of the bite.
“Whew, I think we’re done for now. Good job, Loki,” Aubrey said.
There were probably other things Aubrey could teach him, but for now this seemed like a good place to pause and take a break.
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Post by Jack on Oct 9, 2020 23:14:12 GMT -6
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Post by Briar on Feb 1, 2021 17:58:54 GMT -6
Another year had come and gone… Aubrey wasn’t sure how the time had managed to pass so quickly. It certainly hadn’t felt like a year. But the passage of time was relentless, and winter came for him whether he was ready for it or not.
It had been a relatively warm winter, so Aubrey hadn’t suffered as much as he had the previous year, at least as far as that went. But a lot of it had passed in a fog, and he found that no matter how hard he tried, he didn’t get as much done as he would have hoped to. The Houluh, mercifully, were not particularly inclined to fuss, and Yeo-reum had kept them and himself busy, playing games in the snow. There was some merit to having several creatures who could play with one another when he wasn’t feeling up to the task.
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Post by Briar on Feb 1, 2021 17:59:26 GMT -6
Now that they were all grown, it was a weight off his mind. But the winter could only last so long, and at the first signs of a burgeoning spring, Aubrey decided he ought to go out and get something done around the garden. It wasn’t spring proper, of course, but he could sense it coming the way some people could sense the coming of rain from the aches in their joints. Fortunately for him, the sensations he associated with it were much more pleasant than joint pain. It was only ever the coming of winter that was painful, though fall often felt like a long prelude to what was coming.
Of course, his own feelings on the matter were likely not in line with those of the garden’s sole resident, a King of Evergreen named Thistle. Or at least he called her this, ever since he had first taken her home.
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Post by Briar on Feb 1, 2021 17:59:50 GMT -6
Whether she thought of it as an identifier for herself was a matter of real debate. To this day he hadn’t seen her respond to it when he called to her like that, so he rather doubted it, but who knew? Maybe it had sunk in on some level, though he expected it probably hadn’t.
Thistle, he knew, liked the wintertime. Evergreens weren’t bothered by the cold due to their physiology, he supposed, but through two years of observation, he had managed to conclude that she really did dislike the heat. And the colder it got, the more active she was. In the winter he often saw her bustling about with, if not vigor, then at least more energy in her movements. As a creature who was at least partially a plant, speed wasn’t really her specialty, but it was a marked difference from how she fared in summer.
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Post by Briar on Feb 1, 2021 18:01:05 GMT -6
In all of July, Aubrey wasn’t sure she had ever left her shaded shed, and sometimes she went for days without ever seeming to move at all.
The first year that he had known her, the behavior had alarmed him, and he had gone off to the Herbologist’s Delight in a fluster to ask for advice. But now he knew better; this was simply what happened to them during the summer, and if that was all it was, there was no reason to panic or take her to a healer for any treatment. Instead, this year he simply kept water available, and misted her twice a day in the hot summer months.
Still, it was gratifying to see her back in good form, even if it was at the expense of his own comfort. And even if that time of comfort, for her, was coming to an end.
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Post by Briar on Feb 1, 2021 18:01:42 GMT -6
At first, Thistle didn't even look at him. She paid him attention only once it became clear that he was approaching, and not simply passing through for some purpose of his own. Aubrey had planned to get some work done in the garden in general, but the thought occurred to him that he may as well try to teach Thistle some basic things while he was here too. Starting with her name, since he wasn’t sure whether she knew how to respond to it.
“Thistle,” he said. She was already paying attention to him, so maybe this wasn’t the best start to things. And how was he supposed to reward her, anyway? Did she eat? As far as he was aware, she photosynthesized. Ah, but maybe she would enjoy a fertilizer pellet? He offered a very small bit of fertilizer to her, and she studied it for a moment.
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Post by Silver on Feb 2, 2021 3:41:50 GMT -6
Thistle is off to a good start, already producing some nice berries for you to collect.
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Post by Briar on Feb 25, 2021 13:55:33 GMT -6
Aubrey thought that maybe he had made a mistake, and was about to take it back, when she picked it up and ate it after all.
“Is it good?” he asked. She couldn’t answer, but he thought she looked as though she was savoring it, so that was good. He supposed he would find out whether she liked it or not when he offered it to her again.
He busied himself with preparing to garden in the meantime. That would give her enough time to stop paying attention again, and he hadn’t just come out here to bother her, after all, even though he was sure she thought he did. A lot of the time he still felt like an intruder in his own garden, though he wondered if he was simply imagining it.
He took the time to don some gloves to protect his hands, since he meant to do some digging today.
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Post by Briar on Feb 25, 2021 13:55:45 GMT -6
They weren’t exactly comfortable, but it was better to work with them on than without. He didn’t have the sort of tough working hands that could do without the protection, and the time and effort it took to develop those kinds of hands… Well, he supposed he could undertake it with the idea that it was an investment, but it was frankly easier and faster just to wear gloves. They weren’t that expensive, and good ones lasted quite a while.
By the time he was done, Thistle really had stopped paying attention to him, so he called out to her again. “Thistle,” he said. She looked up, likely more from the fact that he had called out all of a sudden than because she recognized the word itself, but she had looked up all the same. “That’s a good girl,” he said, smiling at her, and handed her another pellet.
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Post by Briar on Feb 25, 2021 13:56:05 GMT -6
She couldn’t have too many of these in one sitting, but for now they made a good reward. It did feel a bit patronizing, treating her the way he might have treated one of the Houluh. The Kings of Evergreen were not, he knew, sentient creatures, but they looked near enough to a spoken race that it made him uneasy all the same. Were it not for the bark-like skin and the fact that her ‘fur’ was made of needles, she might have passed for a somewhat strange-looking Kapper, or a small Uthax, as it were… Though perhaps that would have given offense to those races, were they to hear him say that kind of thing out loud.
After Thistle’s attention wandered again, Aubrey called out to her a third time. “Thistle!” This time she responded more readily. Maybe she was already picking it up after these few tries.
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Post by Briar on Feb 25, 2021 13:57:09 GMT -6
Maybe he was simply being optimistic about this, but it would be a very nice thing if she did. Maybe in time he could even train her to help him out around the garden a little.
From there, they fell into a pattern. Aubrey would do a bit of gardening, digging up a flowerbed and picking out some weeds, and every once in a while he would call out to Thistle. If she responded to her name, he would give her a treat. It wasn’t a very difficult concept to impart, and although they weren’t sentient, the Kings of Evergreen were certainly clever enough. She picked it up after not too long, and in the meantime, while he taught her, Aubrey made sure to speak to her in general, so that she could learn to respond to the specific word and not merely to the sound of his voice.
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Post by Briar on Feb 25, 2021 13:57:57 GMT -6
Aubrey had thought that mixing in the training with his gardening would make him less productive at both, but by the end of the session, he found that it didn’t feel like that at all. The training broke up some of the monotony of the more dull garden work, and gave him a reason to take little breaks. And the gardening… kept him from having to wait without anything to do when he had to wait for Thistle’s attention to wander off again.
He didn’t keep it up for very long, since today was meant to just be a preparatory session - for the garden, of course, not for Thistle. But by the time he had to step back into the house to take care of other chores and errands, he felt surprisingly accomplished. In a day or two he would take on a more serious project, but he felt that he had done enough for the day.
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Post by Jack on Feb 25, 2021 18:36:08 GMT -6
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Post by Briar on Feb 25, 2021 21:51:59 GMT -6
A few days later saw Aubrey returning to the garden, in the hopes of doing the work that he had meant to do before. More bad news for Thistle, whose peace he had returned to disturb. Honestly, he meant to come back earlier, but then there had been a late season fall of snow. It was technically still winter, he remembered now, even though it was February. For some reason, in his own mind, he had always pictured November as a winter month, and associated February with the coming of spring more than as a last remnant of winter.
It didn’t really feel like spring right now, but a week ago it almost had. They’d had a sunny spell, and it had been warm enough to have thawed off the worst of the snow and ice. Aubrey had been optimistic that there would be an early coming of spring after all.
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