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Post by Briar on Jan 22, 2022 19:50:05 GMT -6
At the time he had never encountered one before, and his literacy was a burgeoning thing at best, so it was a great deal of trial and error to figure out what the creature wanted, what it needed from him. That it looked so much like a person -- a strangely furred Kapper, perhaps, with particularly leathery skin -- had unsettled him too.
That wasn't the case anymore. And although those eyes had a sort of intelligence behind them, it wasn't what he would have expected from Yeo-reum.
As the cold set in, the King of Evergreen became more active, and today Briar saw it out and about already as he arrived. Generally it was a recluse at all other times of the year, preferring to stick to the cool shade of the trees on the less cultivated part of the property, which if Briar was being honest, was most of it.
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Post by Briar on Jan 22, 2022 19:50:17 GMT -6
And Noa didn't seem particularly intent on controlling where it went or what it did, so long as it came back every winter, so that its berries could be harvested. Nothing else would do for the making of nodes, so the berries were a precious commodity, and if the creature had not come willingly, Briar had no doubt that other measures would have been taken... But fortunately it didn't come to that, and in practice getting the berries wasn't terribly difficult, provided they were in season.
They could take their time though. There were still a few left from last year, just enough to tide Noa over, so it wasn't vital to produce a harvest of berries immediately. He approached the King of Evergreen slowly; this was only his second year with it, and he didn't know how much of their acquaintance had reneged over the intervening time, when the King of Evergreen had been hiding away in the shade.
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Post by Briar on Jan 22, 2022 19:50:37 GMT -6
It acknowledged him by lifting its head, dark eyes sliding over his features. When it made eye contact like that, it really did seem very much like a member of a spoken race. It held his gaze for a moment, the eyes moving back and forth slightly as if searching for something, before it finally looked away. But it was calm, and did not move to get away from Briar, so some of the familiarity must have held.
Briar smiled a little to see it.
They were not close, the two of them -- not the way Briar and Yeo-reum were close, nor the way that Noa was with his beasts either. But it was not so bad, to garden in the quiet companionship of a creature like this.
Briar did not immediately begin attending to the King of Evergreen. He could have; the creature was, if not friendly, at least comfortable enough with his presence.
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Post by Briar on Jan 22, 2022 19:50:52 GMT -6
But he didn't want it to feel quite so... transactional. The idea that he was only out here to fetch its berries for an uncaring master who would just as soon dispose with either of them if they didn't give him what he wanted... Well, even if it was the truth, he didn't want to be reminded of it hanging over his head like that. And it was still true, too, that he had to tend the gardens themselves, even if during the winter there was not much tending to really be done.
The King of Evergreen also didn't seem to mind not being the center of attention, though that was hardly surprising considering it avoided people for most of the year. Perhaps this was the habit of all of their kind, or perhaps the one Noa had on his property was simply a shy individual. Briar hadn't met any other specimen of the species, so he couldn't know for sure.
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Post by Briar on Jan 22, 2022 19:51:05 GMT -6
Still, it kept itself at a companionable distance, and seemed to take a mild interest as Briar went around to other parts of the garden to begin his day's work.
Last winter, aside from caring for what few winter harvest plants there were here, he spent most of his time doing things like repairing fences and keeping the paths clear. It was the dull, humdrum work that couldn't be done at any other time of year, when there was more at hand immediately to attend to.
If it weren't for the cold, he wouldn't have minded it. He liked plants, and fence repair was much less his forte, but it was also a pleasant change of pace from the bulk of his job. He thought that he could really love tending a garden of his own somewhere, someday. He loved it now, but there was always an undercurrent of consideration for his circumstances.
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Post by Briar on Jan 22, 2022 19:51:19 GMT -6
What would it be like to have something that was his? A plot of land, however small, to do with as he liked? He imagined setting up his own flowerbeds, mending his own fences, and acquiring his own small collection of plant creatures to care for and tend.
It was a pleasant thought. It warmed him even as the air stole the warmth from his fingers. He wore gloves, because he had to; he generally went without for most of the year, preferring to feel the dirt and vegetation unhindered, but once winter set in, there was no going without it. Even with the gloves, his hands were usually chilled through and aching, or devoid of sensation altogether, by the time he went back inside.
Now he checked the beds. Most of the annuals had already been pulled out and added to the mulch pile, some before they wilted of their own accord and others after.
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Post by Briar on Jan 22, 2022 19:51:33 GMT -6
The busy work of autumn left him with mulched beds and not much else to do. He did a little cursory maintenance work on the beds themselves, mostly to have something to keep his hands busy, as his mind turned over the tasks of the garden slowly, and tried to find other things he could put his time toward. The ground was cold and stiff, so there was not much he could do about shifting it around, but then there would be no real planting until the spring thaw anyway.
It would probably be repair work again this year. There wasn't as much of it to do now, the efforts of the previous year having by some miracle held up in the intervening time, but there were improvements to be made. There were also projects that he hadn't tackled the year before, for a lack of time or desire, or perhaps inadequate skill.
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Post by Briar on Jan 22, 2022 19:51:45 GMT -6
This year there was less excuse to avoid them. He would simply have to do the best he could with what was available to him, and if the results were lackluster, well, they had gotten on well enough without the previous year, so it must not have been terribly important.
When he had first been learning his way around the property and the gardens, he had asked some questions of the TROD, who was luckily able to communicate with him. He had wondered if it was programmed with sign language, or if it was simply capable of it because Noa was; but it had turned out that the two of them did not have the usual brain link that came with the robots. Briar, who had expected to find that it was due to some health defect or paranoia on Noa's part, had been surprised to learn that the defect was actually the TROD's.
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Post by Briar on Jan 22, 2022 19:51:57 GMT -6
But as Noa had no apparent desire to micromanage the TROD, he hadn't felt the lack. It had been easier to trust the robot after that, knowing as Briar did that Noa could not look through its eyes as he liked, or take it over to say something dreadful without warning.
He had thought to ask the robot for advice on the repairs, but it had surprised him yet again by informing him that it was the master of the house who had maintained it these past few years. The mansion and its grounds were significantly reduced from what must have been their former grandeur -- much of it overgrown, and the interior of the house covered with dust in most of its rooms. But the walls were sturdy, and Briar had found that the aspects of it most vital to its defense were in good shape, or at least better shape than several years of unchecked neglect would have produced.
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Post by Briar on Jan 22, 2022 19:52:34 GMT -6
It was only later that he realized that the work must have been done by magicked servants and tools, after he saw brooms floating halfheartedly around the house, enchanted to a purpose.
Briar didn't have the power to command such convenient magics. That Sprites had a reputation for magical affinity was something he had only learned from Noa's needling chatter on one of his visits. He knew that Noa's command of magic came from possession of small objects of magical power, created from crystals and pieces of a soul -- this because he had been tasked with making them himself. It had never sat right with him that he was offering a piece of himself to fuel the power of someone like Noa, but his situation was too precarious to refuse. But the way Noa had spoken seemed to imply that Sprites were in possession of something more innate, an inborn sort of magic.
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Post by Briar on Jan 22, 2022 19:53:10 GMT -6
And Briar had never been capable of doing anything in the realm of what Noa could do. He had a talent for plants, but that was the result of hard work, and he still had to tend to them and care for them to make them grow.
But then, he didn't know if he would use such a power even if he had it. Maybe it was Noa that made him mistrust magic, or maybe it was merely force of habit, but he thought there was something dishonest about a plant grown with magic, rather than with the natural forces of time and sun, and the work of attentive care.
By the time he was finished with the dead beds, he felt a little more... 'lucid' wasn't the word he was looking for, but something close to it, perhaps. The brisk air and the quiet space to think had revitalized him somewhat.
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Post by Briar on Jan 22, 2022 19:53:47 GMT -6
Even if he didn't usually care for the cold, it wasn't particularly stinging today, unusually warm for January, which was why he had come out hoping to do more work in the first place.
As he rose and made his way to the perennials, the King of Evergreen drifted in his wake. It came a little closer, as if in anticipation. That was almost amusing, but it also made sense. There was nothing terribly exciting that could be happening with an empty garden bed this early in the year. The King of Evergreen must have understood this, for all that it was no gardener itself. Perhaps its understanding was of a more innate nature, being something like a plant itself.
There wasn't much to do with the perennials at the moment, aside from checking them for any signs of bad frost damage, and making sure that the protective coverings he had on some of them were still doing their job.
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Post by Briar on Jan 22, 2022 19:54:29 GMT -6
He took his time with these tasks though, since he hadn't yet come up with anything better to do, and it was an excuse to spend time outside without drawing suspicion or inviting any particular scrutiny, since it was technically his job. It didn't mean Noa couldn't come out here to bother him, but it made him look occupied, and he did find that Noa made his visits less often in winter. The cold didn't agree with him either, apparently. Maybe it had something to do with his ailments.
Briar's companion came a little closer still as Briar inspected his plants, and Briar glanced at it to see if it would shy away. It blinked at him, but stood its ground. A slightly wan smile pulled at one corner of his mouth, beneath the heavy scarf he wore pulled up close to his face. He wasn't threatening enough to spook the creature, apparently.
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Post by Briar on Jan 22, 2022 19:54:43 GMT -6
But then, he supposed he hardly cut an intimidating figure, being even shorter than the King of Evergreen itself, for all its hunched posture. He didn't do much to intimidate other people either, even when they realized he wasn't a child -- and more often they didn't, because Briar didn't give them much of a chance to. The less time he spent under other people's scrutiny, the better.
But animals were different, even clever ones, so long as they weren't quite so clever as people. Their criteria for assessment didn't run along the same lines. In some ways they were simple: is it bigger than I am, do I know it to be a predator? But Briar thought they read intent in other ways too, ways that people had gotten out of touch with. The scent of sweat, the subtle cues of body language, that people had become less aware of as their higher functions and little self-deceptions divorced their minds from their bodies.
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Post by Briar on Jan 22, 2022 19:56:43 GMT -6
Whatever this King of Evergreen read in him, it deemed him not to be a threat to itself. Which was just as well, since Briar could use a friend -- even though he remembered the last time he had had a friend in a garden that he tended, and how well that had turned out for them both.
But Yeo-reum was still with him, and in a sense the Tat-lung's plight was better now than it had been. And Noa didn't seem to have a real interest in the King of Evergreen, for good or for ill, beyond the caveat that it continue to provide him with healing berries for the nodes he tasked people with making. And that, as far as Briar knew, was standard practice with the care of these creatures, and could be done without any particular cruelty to them. Otherwise his own feelings about this would be more mixed.
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