|
Post by Jack on Feb 26, 2021 13:12:39 GMT -6
|
|
|
Post by Briar on Feb 28, 2021 21:25:38 GMT -6
But, well, even if she did, it shouldn’t have mattered that much. After all, he wasn’t gardening to entertain her, or to gain her approval. And it wasn’t as if he was doing anything thus far to suggest that he would be doing anything far out of his normal routine, so he didn’t even really know why she was suddenly taking an interest. Maybe, of all things, it was that she was expecting more fertilizer pellets… But if that was the case, then she was about to be in for even more disappointment. He didn’t even have them today. He was only going to be doing some digging, not fertilizing anything, so all he had on him were the tools to help him do just that.
But it was worth trying to remember, that he should be careful about where he left that stuff from now on.
26
|
|
|
Post by Briar on Feb 28, 2021 21:25:57 GMT -6
And when he did have it on him, he should be careful about that too, in case she tried to get at it that way. Having a few once in a while was fine… and to be honest, he didn’t necessarily know how many would be enough to be bad for Thistle, or even if there was such a threshold at all. But it would have surprised him to find out there wasn’t one. With most creatures, too much of a treat was necessarily a bad thing, wasn’t it? Just like people couldn’t have too much candy, Kings of Evergreen probably shouldn’t have too much fertilizer. Treats were considered treats for the richness of their nutritional content relative to the diet of the organism in question, right?
“I don’t have any treats for you, if that’s what you’re thinking,” he warned her.
27
|
|
|
Post by Briar on Feb 28, 2021 21:26:09 GMT -6
He wondered if she could tell from the tone of his voice that he was trying to discourage her. He doubted she would understand the words, of course, but he had been speaking around her for so long that she must have understood something of tone, surely…? But then as soon as he did it, he second guessed himself. Not, of course, for the idea that she might understand tone, but rather the possibility that she understood it very well. After all, he didn’t actually want to discourage her from trying to interact with him, if that was what she was doing. On the contrary, that was definitely something he wanted to encourage in her as much as he could. He only wanted to make sure that she did it for the right reasons, and he had no way to either ascertain that nor to communicate it to her.
28
|
|
|
Post by Briar on Feb 28, 2021 21:26:20 GMT -6
It really was troublesome… But fortunately for him, she wasn’t put off by what he said. Maybe she didn’t know how to read his tone after all, or maybe she just didn’t care. Actually, knowing her, if the former wasn’t true then the latter was very likely. She never did seem the type to yield to this much gentle pressure.
He wondered if it would become an issue somewhere down the line, come to that. Sure, it was fine now when all she did was hang out in the garden, and she was content to leave Aubrey alone when he hung out in the garden too. But if she got more comfortable, and pushier, with people, at some point Aubrey would find himself in a position where he would have to tell her ‘no’... And when that time came, he wondered if he would be able to properly discourage her.
29
|
|
|
Post by Briar on Feb 28, 2021 21:31:23 GMT -6
But he supposed he would just… have to cross that bridge when he came to it. In the meantime, he tried to reassure himself that it would probably work out. He had managed to teach Yeo-reum to respect boundaries… Though that had been when Yeo-reum was younger, and still a fish. The Tat hadn’t actually been easy to handle even back then, but Aubrey couldn’t really imagine trying to do that now, with him full grown and bigger than a man himself.
“At least you’re still a reasonable size,” he said under his breath. At his words, Thistle inclined her head. “Oh, it’s not an insult,” he assured her, though she wouldn’t even have understood enough of it to interpret it as such. And thus she definitely wouldn’t have needed an assurance to the contrary. Still, he felt a bit guilty about it all the same, unaccountably.
30
|
|
|
Post by Briar on Feb 28, 2021 22:11:30 GMT -6
The thought flitted through his mind that girls didn’t like to have their weight discussed, but that shouldn’t have applied here, right…? After all, she wasn’t actually a woman from a spoken race. She was, at least in part, a tree, and such creatures ought to have no concern about their own weight…
… Actually, for that matter, people in general should probably pay less attention to things like that, Aubrey thought. But it wasn’t really the kind of thing that he could say to anyone. Not that he had anyone to say it to, for that matter.
There were plenty of useless thoughts kicking around in his mind, to be sure. He wasn’t sure what to do with any of them. But he did know that he was out here to garden, and now he really did mean to do it, whether he had an audience or not.
31
|
|
|
Post by Briar on Feb 28, 2021 22:11:48 GMT -6
“You can stay and watch if you want to, Thistle,” he said. After all, there was no reason for her not to, even if it did feel a bit out of the ordinary for her, given that nothing else had changed. But maybe she only tired of birds, and wanted a change of pace in the things she observed in her time here. It wasn’t a very large garden, and even though she didn’t seem terribly discontent, he didn’t know if he knew her or her kind well enough to adequately judge how she was really feeling.
Dwelling on her presence wasn’t going to dig the flowerbeds for him though. He rolled up his sleeves… then rolled them down again immediately, when the cold hit his skin and he remembered what time of year it was. It was just a habit, and he generally worked better with his lower arms exposed.
32
|
|
|
Post by Briar on Feb 28, 2021 22:12:48 GMT -6
But that kind of thing was more appropriate for spring, and for that matter, a good proper spring that they were well into too, not this edge of winter burgeoning of somewhat warmer weather that they were having right now.
It was a shame that his sleeves were probably going to get dirty like this, but better that than him suffering under the brutal chill of the last dregs of winter. A coat could be washed, or cleaned by other means, but if he was sick, he was sick. Once his sleeves were rolled down and settled once again, he grabbed a trowel and went for it.
He had sort of expected the soil to still be hard, but he wasn’t sure how hard that would be until he tested it out by digging. It had yielded under gentle pressure from his hand, at least, so that seemed promising enough.
33
|
|
|
Post by Briar on Feb 28, 2021 22:13:03 GMT -6
And in the end, he found that it wasn’t really icy so much as it was… muddy, still, and kind of packed down hard from the weight of all that water and snow these past few months. Not pleasant to work with, but not impossible either.
It was the right time to strike, at least. Waiting wouldn’t really have done him any more favors here, since it wasn’t a matter of whether it was frozen or not. His only caveat here was that he could do all this work, and then it might just snow again, and render all of it moot… But if he thought of it as a little pleasant exercise, then it wasn’t so bad.
He adjusted his grip, and went at it with the trowel again. This time it was better, since he knew more what to expect, and how much force to exert.
34
|
|
|
Post by Briar on Feb 28, 2021 22:13:52 GMT -6
Still, he could tell from his success here that this was going to leave him feeling quite drained when he was finally done with it.
And in the meantime, his audience stayed right where she was. Thistle really did seem to be watching him dig with at least a modicum of interest. She stayed close, and observed him with the air of a scholar studying something incomprehensible, or at least quite novel… But it couldn’t have been the latter, could it? She had seen him garden before, and he had dug flowerbeds before.
… Maybe she just hadn’t been paying attention then. Just how interesting were those birds, anyway? Or, on the other hand, how off-putting an object of study had Aubrey himself been? Hold that thought, Aubrey wasn’t sure he really wanted the answer to that particular question. Some things were just better left alone, for self esteem reasons if nothing else.
35
|
|
|
Post by Jack on Mar 1, 2021 8:12:49 GMT -6
|
|
|
Post by Briar on Oct 31, 2021 22:33:06 GMT -6
Briar looked out at the expanse of gardens before him, and did his best to hold back a sigh.
A job as a gardener for a rich man who made him uncomfortable... The irony of it all was too much. Had he really escaped from his last situation only to end up right back where he started? It hadn't even been three months since he had left his old master's estate behind, and when he had left, he had promised himself that things would be different. And maybe they were -- there was plenty about Noa that was different from the house he had served before -- but not enough. Not if this was what he was doing now.
Yeo-reum didn't think it funny so much as frustrating. His tail lashed, but he kept looking over his shoulder, as if he half expected that strange looking Wiurn to show its face again.
1
|
|
|
Post by Briar on Oct 31, 2021 22:34:05 GMT -6
Briar didn't blame him for being wary; it had been a terrifying encounter when they had first found the Gracehaven estate, to be suddenly discovered and then threatened by a creature like that. In retrospect it was perhaps more terrifying than they had known at the time, now that Briar knew more about the extent of Avander's training. Noa, it seemed, did not raise his shock troops and his guard beasts by half measures. In a fight, he knew that Yeo-reum would have had almost no chance, and now Noa was working on raising two more giants to join Avander in his ranks.
Briar shuddered to think of the other two, the glimpses he had seen of Noa taking them out for this fight or that round of training. One was another Wiurn, who looked just as strange as Avander did -- or stranger, at least on the face of it.
2
|
|
|
Post by Briar on Oct 31, 2021 22:34:23 GMT -6
Without the forelegs, it did look more like a Wiurn, but it had strangely long claws protruding from the knuckles of its wings, and a fringe of fleshy tendrils around its jaws. Briar thought that he might have heard it laughing once, but he would rather not dwell on that if he didn't have to.
The other was a Pliathor, one that was apparently capable of functioning outside of water. That in and of itself was enough to make it a threat. Just about the only thing that made Pliathors reasonable was that they couldn't leave the water, but the monster he called 'Azalea' had short legs instead of fins. It didn't matter that her back was covered with flowers; knowing Noa, they probably had some sort of deadly function. It wouldn't have surprised him if they were really made of blades, or produced a toxic pollen, or something similarly awful.
3
|
|