Life Is a Garden - Dig It?

Posted on Sun Jul 16th, 2023 @ 8:09am by Cooper O'Reilly & Arca Loxley & Daiyu

Mission: Oh, Give Me a Home on The Range
Location: Blue Cloud Ranch, Ezra
Timeline: 18 November 2517

Without waiting for Arca to guide the way, Daiyu burst through the door from the kitchen to the great outdoors. A simple walkway led away from the house toward the pastures and outer ranges, but adjacent to the house was a fenced partition that spanned over half an acre.

Daiyu slid to a halt at the wooden gate that was one of the few openings to the otherwise impenetrable wire mesh that surrounded the green space, held up by ten foot posts every so often. The corner posts rose up like sentinels with towering oil lamps that would allow gardening by night or in early daylight.

None of it was especially new for Daiyu, but after so many weeks in the black, hopping from rock to rock, it was amazing to come up against such a verdant environment. The hydroponics at the Monastery were uniform duplicates of one another. What Arca had built here was a small jungle of plants whose diversity defied the obvious order and symmetry in which they were planted and cared for.

"Whoa..." Daiyu's almond eyes opened wide and her jaw even wavered a bit. "I want to live here."

"Well, I shall just take that as the best kind of compliment, Daiyu," said Arca with a warm smile. "Thank you." She looked over her shoulder to the Shepherd who had positioned himself quietly at the kitchen door and adopted a comfortable lean within its generous frame. Cooper seemed to follow Daiyu about the place, and Arca had an idea why, one she wasn't about to question right now.

"You certainly look right at home," Arca noted, following Daiyu to the gate and then lifting the latch to allow them both entry into the generously sized herb garden. "Shall we walk around together and check the plants, or would you like to have some time to yourself to just get a feel for the place?" She asked, gently. "I often come here with a book and simply read by myself, but I do have a habit of talking to my plants too," Arca admitted. "They're good listeners."

Daiyu gave Arca a questioning stare. "Your plants talk to you?" She sounded skeptical but not altogether disbelieving. It seemed more a matter of trust than possibility. "Wh-wh-what things do they say?"

Arca laughed gently, in a self-depreciating manner. "I was too literal, wasn't I?" She said, brightly. "No, they don't talk at me, they simply listen to the words, or at least stay nice and peaceful-like while I say some things I'd rather not say to people. Just sometimes saying things out loud to get them outta my head helps when I'm frustrated."

Stopping between equally rampant bushes of mint and lemonbalm, Alden's mother breathed in the air and sighed softly. "Alden tells me you grow plants out there in the Black... That's very impressive, you must be a talented and patient gardener?"

"That was my duty," Daiyu said quietly. "Back at the Monastery. I tended to the hydroponics and aeroponics. Father Johns always said I had a gift for it." For a moment, she looked lost in memory, or perhaps in the absence of it. Then, something caught her eye.

"No..." Daiyu ran a wilting lemon balm leaf between her thumb and forefinger. Her keen eyes jumped from leaf to leaf, across stems, and even to nearby plants in search of... "You have fungus," she said. "Maybe in your soil."

As if a girl possessed, Daiyu ran back to the porch and darted into the supply shed. After a brief moment of rummaging around and knocking things about, she exited with a watering can and some cleaning oil and threw them on the ground. Then she saw a root cellar. Running down there, she came back up with an armful of assorted vegetative foodstuffs, a glass jar with an amber liquid, and a burlap sack.

Moving only slightly, Cooper adjusted his position to ensure he could see what the young woman was doing, where she had gone. He made no gesture to prevent Daiyu's plan, but kept a quiet, wary eye on the scene from his comfortable distance. So far, he considered, the garden seemed to be working its magic.

A nearby handpump for the garden's irrigation had a handy pale. Daiyu filled it half full and then tossed in a few of the contents from the root cellar -- a handful of hot peppers squished to a pulp in her hand, a horse radish root, a clump of garlic, and a squeezed lemon, peel and all.

Leaving the pale to sit, she rushed back to the watering can, dumped some white powder from the burlap bag and swished it together with the amber liquid from the glass jar. She put only a single, hard pump from the tap, which was enough to put the watering can at about 3/4 capacity.

With preparations made, Daiyu rushed back to the lemon balm plant and began sprinkling the concoction from her watering can all around the leaves and the roots.

"This mild solution should stop that shi dàn fungus!" Daiyu spat the words like bitter venom. "Let the pale steep overnight and then pour it around your soil and bury what's left next to any other trouble spots."

Only when the watering can ran dry did Daiyu's intensity begin to subside. She looked at Arca with a long side-eye, nearly embarrassed but making no apology. "Your garden is very beautiful," she said at length.

While Daiyu moved with purpose and focus, Arca took it upon herself to do a little weeding, dead-head some of the flowering plants that she didn't wish to seed just yet, and gather up some rosemary. She kept half and eye on the busy young woman on a mission against fungus, but allowed this newly arrived virtual stranger to carry out her administrations as Daiyu saw fit. Clearly, Arca considered, this Father Johns had been correct - the young woman had talent indeed.

"Why thank you, young lady," Alden's mother replied, both in response to the ministering and her compliment. "It's a labour of love for me," Arca continued, casting her gaze outward, then back to Daiyu. "My mother, my grandma, my great grandmother, they all worked this piece of land. Along with a few uncles and my eldest - many greats - grandfather who began it all." She paused, taking a moment to follow the trail of Daiyu's recent work. "My deepest thanks to you for the work you've completed here already," Arca noted, with the utmost seriousness accompanything her gratitude. "If you wish to spend time here while you're on Ezra, I'd be honoured to have you help with our plants."

There followed a winsome smile that broadened as Arca regarded her visitor. "My daughter has neither your knack or botanical instinct. And my boys do little more than visit to steal strawberries or sprigs of herbs for cooking." She wondered at the monks who were likely missing Daiyu's talent back at that afore-mentioned monastery, and knowing only the precious little information Alden had shared, risked questions in the interest of understanding more. "Was the monastery your first garden?" Arca asked.

The empty watering can fell out of Daiyu's hand and clattered onto the ground. Daiyu's face froze in a deadpan expression, though her eyes bulged outward. "She remembers a beautiful garden, terraced and full of fruiting plants. Berries and flowers and vines filled the air with such pollen that she needed medication when the blooms came or else her nose would run."

A smile crept over her vacant face as Daiyu, or someone else, lost herself in reverie. "Such was the case with crossbred pollination. Not even the birds or the bees could suffer such abundant verdancy."

"But it was not to be." Her tone lilted as if a child spoke. "The monsters came. The green turned red." Only then did her eyes flick upward and met Arca's with a penetrating stare. "With blood." The right corner of her mouth ticked up in a knowing smirk. "Leaves don't care for blood," she went on, her tone dropped into a vocal fry register. "Blocks the sun. Inhibits photosynthesis. But roots?" The half smirk spread across her entire mouth. "They love it. Blood meal repels pests, insects, animals, even weeds. It's only the prey who fears the monsters. Plants... plants don't mind so much. Sometimes... they are even grateful."

Cooper adjusted his stance now, standing upright and steeling himself to intervene. Daiyu's words were a clear warning of the memories buried within, and the mention of blood more than once raised immediate concerns. She was, he noted, only speaking for the moment though, not enacting any dangerous behaviour. He'd remain on alert and allow this to continue to play out for now.

Oops! Thought Arca as that can hit the floor, but she waited, close but not connected and paid close attention to this young woman. Alden had given his mother some warning, such information as he could as to Daiyu's situation, but nothing quite prepared a person for that unexpected shift in personna.

From hayfever memories of some time-distant garden to a character new to those features that Arca observed. Yes, she considered, it seemed there was a split somewhere beside that scarred face and unknown years. A little unsettling, but also interesting once that initial adrenaline rush subsided. Right up to that stare. Tah ma duh, that stare!

Arca forced herself to remain where she was and avoid an involuntary backwards step. She kept a casual (as much as possible) eye contact with Daiyu and nodded, while actively forcing her own heartrate to slow down.

"You've seen folks die," Arca said, her voice low and calm. "A lot of folks, I'm guessing. Was it raiders? Or the war?" What have you seen, child? What awful things have you been made witness to?

"Is zhere a soul in the 'Verse zhat has been spared from ze touch of death?" Daiyu's mouth asked. Her eyes rolled back into her head for a moment. When they refocused on Arca, the pupils were narrowed to pinpoints. "Ze War. Ze Colonies. Ze Alliance. Novhere has escaped ze inevitable. Vhy vould she be any different zhan anyone else? Hm? Because her colony vas to be a paradise? Because ze promises of progress looked to be true?" A wry, sardonic chuckle bubbled from the back of her throat. "Nothing vas as zhey said. It vas all lies!"

Well, that raised more questions than it answered, Arca considered privately, her blood chilling some in her veins as Daiyu spoke with a different voice yet again. An older, wiser in all the wrong ways, sort of voice. The elder woman let the younger speak and pushed on through the goosebumps that pricked her neck and shoulders as Daiyu chuckled.

"Alliance certainly has plenty of lies to share," returned Arca, her own voice steady and calm. "Where were you, child? Which colony - Shadow?"

The persona manifested in Daiyu shook her head. "You vould not hafe heard of it and if you vere to speak ze vord, I do not know whezher I could reztrain ze mogwai wizhin." Cocking her head to one side far enough to drape her hair over one shoulder, she said, "Ah, but I zhink you know. Hafe you recognized what ze ozhers could not?"

Arca filed this away for so many future questions, but had no immediate chance to ask as the quiet, stationary Shepherd made his gentle intervention.

"C'mon lil lady," Cooper said, his tone softly bringing the hope of order into the about-to-be-chaos. "No mogwai's today, okay?" He didn't touch Daiyu physically, but simply put himself between her and Arca so that the younger woman had no means to cause more harm than had been already done by her words. "Beautiful garden, remember? We're on Ezra, with friends. No war, no raiders, no open veins." He didn't say the 'b' word, neither did he touch Daiyu, but his arms formed a potential barrier to any forward motion. "Maybe you and I can check the rest of the garden for troublesome things like slugs, white-spot and beetles? How 'bout that?"

At first Daiyu's head tremored which preceded the rapid blinking and sudden jerk of the neck. "I... I need to lay down," she said with a whimper. "I don't... I don't... I don't know..." Her eyes rolled back into her head. "So sleepy..." And then she was down for the count, sprawled out amidst the thick garden rows.

With the hands of the gentle giant he could be, Cooper scooped Daiyu's unconscious form up into his arms and held her close against his chest. He gifted Arca Loxley a sheepish smile accompanied by a direct, confident glance and completed the wordless intro with an upward nod before he said a word. "I'll be taking Miss Daiyu to her bunk now," he said, simply, then turned to leave. Just before long strides took him back towards the ranchhouse, Coop turned back to Alden's mother. "Thank you," he said, simply and with soft sincerity. "For showing her the garden. Makes a big difference for the lil lady."

Arca nodded in return. "You're always welcome," she said. Then added, simply. "I have questions. They'll keep until she's safely a'bed though."

So many questions. And she needed to speak to her eldest son, alone, too. As a priority.


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