InsaneJournal

Tweak says, "You're a cool cart."

Sue Wanda "Swan" Prescott (planted_it) wrote in indarkness_logs,
@ 2010-08-09 21:18:00

Entry tags:

!complete, 2032 08, magius, swan prescott

RP: A Garden
Characters: Swan, Magius
Time/Date: morning, August 10
Location: behind the hotel
Warnings/Rating: none
Summary: Swan starts a garden
Status: Complete

Now that the weather was relatively stable, and nothing seemed to be happening outside (though she had heard about the grief from the week prior), Swan thought it was high time she got started on her project. Jaime had helped her find some seeds, and Swan had simply smiled when Jaime didn't know whether or not they'd grow.

If she could grow corn after nuclear weapons went off, in the dark cellar beneath a store, she could make anything grow. It wouldn't be the first time she brought dead plants, dead seeds to life. This place wasn't so very different from home, but the death had happened much farther in the past, here. If it had been tended, it might have been brought to life already, but it hadn't.

Carting the seeds and a small trowel she'd found in the hardware store, Swan searched around for a place to start. Moving toward the back corner and deciding to work her way along the building, Swan crouched down and began to dig at the death earth. Once she had a hole, she rolled the dirt around in her hands, bringing the soil back to life before tucking the seeds into it. Pressing the ball of dirt back into the hole, she patted around it and moved over to repeat the process.

When things grew, they should have a respectable fruit and vegetable garden. There was some corn, some carrots, potatoes, strawberries, and even a few watermelon seeds. It would all grow, of course, and grow well, and she trusted everyone would appreciate having fresh fruit and vegetables - even when their captors saw fit not to provide it.

Swan thought that if they were here long enough, she'd look into growing things like wheat ... and maybe they could develop ways to process it. She thought that the fewer things they depended on their captors for, the better it would be for them.

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thededicated
2010-08-13 03:22 am UTC (link)

Magius was wandering, almost brooding, really. He felt somewhat useless here. He had powers and abilities, and even some clues about others with abilities, but he had no way to get out, or to help others get out. He did not even know if his magics would last, as he had found neither his greater spell books, nor the staff he treasured. It was... vexing.

Upon a wander, he felt somewhat bereft, trying to find something, anything... to do, to focus on. Happening around the corner and seeing the woman working, his eyebrows went up and a grin came alive. A garden! That... that was brilliant. With a slightly faster step, he approached.

"Hello, milady? Would there be any chance you might need some assistance? It has been long since I worked the soil, and I think I do miss it."

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planted_it
2010-08-13 03:39 am UTC (link)

Swan jerked a little in surprise, tipping her chin up to regard the man curiously. Her deep blue eyes had muted flecks of gold in them, and she blinked once before offering him a light smile.

"I don't ... quite think you can do what I can do," she said gently. She hadn't met anyone else like her, after all, though she supposed if there'd be anyone who could wake up the earth, she'd meet them here.

Finishing the small ball of dirt in her hands, working the seeds into it, she pressed it into the hole and carefully covered it up.

"The earth is dead," she continued with a gesture to the barren ground around her. "I have to wake it up before it can be anything, or do anything." Which was what she was doing just then. Waking up the seeds, waking up the earth.

She certainly wouldn't stop him if he wanted to dig in it, and she smiled gently. "My name is Swan," she introduced herself, though she didn't extend a hand to shake, as hers were both dirty.

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thededicated
2010-08-13 03:44 am UTC (link)

He squinted, then looked at the ground. "Hm. Mayhap not. What can you do? I admit to being no great green thumb, but I've aided in the care of a few gardens in my time." He was curious as he looked to her. Was she mystic, perhaps?

Hm. "Wake it up... magic of a kind, then? Excellent!" She had answered his question, and he felt bemused and excited, all at once.

As stepped carefully in to watch her and the ground both. "Do you commune with the Earth, or something else?"

He settled out of the way, unsure what he could do to help. "If there is anything I can do to aid, that does not require your talent, I will be glad to assist. Oh, and I am Magius, milady, late of Krynn, and most humbly at your service." His voice was soft as he spoke and sketched her half a bow there on the ground.

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planted_it
2010-08-13 03:56 am UTC (link)

"I don't know what it is, exactly," she admitted. "I've been able to do it, ever since I was little. Josh ..." she hesitated. "Josh and Sister said I had the power of life in me, but I don't think it's anything as grand as that. I just tingle and I can wake it up." She really was at a loss as how to explain, but she always had been. It was just who she was, how she was. Maybe it was magic, or maybe it was a mutation, or maybe it was something holy. She didn't know. Nor did she think the 'how' mattered so much as the 'what' did.

Her brow furrowed. "I suppose it's a little like communing," she agreed. "I can hear it," she added a little shyly. No one really understood that, how she could hear the hurting noises of the dying plants. "I can hear when it's hurt, like I can hear the difference in a bee's buzz." She looked around. "Not ... that there are any bees here. There weren't many at home, either. Not after all the ... the bombs and the war."

She smiled a little up to him. "If ... you wanted to loosen some of the dirt," she suggested hesitantly. If he really wanted something to do, she supposed it would speed things up. She just needed to hold the piles she was putting the seeds into, so it wouldn't matter so much if she wasn't the one to dig it up in the first place. Offering him the trowel, handle first, she lifted her shoulders in a tiny shrug.

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thededicated
2010-08-13 04:02 am UTC (link)

He hummed softly, letting himself relax as he watched her. Life in her, hm? Sounded like white magic necromancy. An odd thing, but powerful and useful in the extreme.

His smile grew at her words. "Like magic, then. I feel it all around us, all the time. It is my constant companion." His brow furrowed as she spoke. She sounded like a druid, almost.

"Ah, war. Never does it leave land or people unharmed." He glanced at her, and nodded. "Thank you, milady." He nodded to her, taking the trowel, and looking to how she had things so far, he began to process of loosening and digging a little dirt.

It was rough, but his hands felt old calluses and old bruises, and old muscle memory as well. He smiled as he worked, and his hands moved almost like he was directing music as he moved the Earth.

"If you do not mind the question, what led to you doing this, now, I mean?"

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planted_it
2010-08-13 04:08 am UTC (link)

"It destroyed the whole world," she whispered. "Almost," she amended. They'd saved it, at the very end. Her, and Josh, and Robin, and Sister. But the world was dead, and needed to be woken up.

"I wanted to, before, but the rain ..." she frowned. It wasn't even real rain. Just ... water pouring from a false sky. "The weather kept me inside. This is what we were doing, at home. Robin and I were ... visiting farms and orchards and fields and making the world live again, bringing hope to the people that had nothing. Waking up their fields to bring them crops so everyone could start all over again.

"I guess ... I just thought it was time to try here, too. Jaime found some seeds for me, and I thought I could make a garden. In case ... in case they decided to stop giving us food, we could still have our own."

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thededicated
2010-08-13 04:11 am UTC (link)

"Mankind often manages to destroy things, sometimes with the very tools he makes to create them or make them better."

He nodded as he worked. "It sounds like you had a purpose, which is always a good thing. Perhaps here you could have a similar one?" He glanced up at her, a small grin flashing across his face.

"To bring life to what is set up as just a facade, well, that would be a feat." And to her words, he nodded again. "Any aid I can give you, please let me know. This is an important thing, this garden."

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planted_it
2010-08-13 04:29 am UTC (link)

"It's something to do. Something useful." Swan pushed back some of her red-gold fire hair out of her face, smearing a bit of dirt on her cheek. "I think we all have a reason to be here. I mean, I think there was something about each of us, that made them pull us here.

"Some people have magic, or other skills, or have something to teach. I don't think anyone here is completely useless," she continued. Even the ones that seemed it, which she knew was a horrible thing to think about a person. But everyone had a purpose here, she was sure of it.

She worked some of the loose dirt between her hands, pressing a pair of seeds into it before rolling the dirt and seeds together between her fingers, between her palms. She pressed the dirt back into the hole, carefully covering it up before scooting over for the next one.

"I want to find other things to grow," she admitted. "But there isn't anywhere to get things, unless ... unless they put them out here for us."

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thededicated
2010-08-13 04:38 am UTC (link)

"Maybe so. I think life is sometimes random in such things. And the madmen who hold us have shown little real planning in their efforts."

He shook his head. "They remind me of a force of chaos on my own world, one known as Takhisis." He spoke her name with a not-quite-fear. That foul queen of dragons had done much damage to his world.

"Or we find ways to trick them into revealing such a cache. Maybe there is a place we could find them? I do not know. I do wish I could find more such of my world. One never knows what one will find." He nodded.

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planted_it
2010-08-13 04:45 am UTC (link)

Swan hadn't been here as long as some of the others, but she didn't think she really had a grasp on whether or not anything was planned. "Maybe their plan is to make it look as though they don't have a plan," she offered gently as she worked at the earth. Or maybe they really didn't have any sort of plan, and were simply sadists bent on breaking everyone here, one way or another.

"Can they be tricked?" she inquired. She'd been through war, she'd been held prisoner, she'd been almost forced to serve a sadistic colonel and his Army of Excellence ... but friends and faith had pulled her through that alive. Not unscathed, but alive.

"I suppose," she answered herself. "If they're human, they're fallible. They'll make a mistake with one of us," she decided.

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	thededicated 2010-08-13 04:50 am UTC (link)
	"Anyone can be tricked, eventually." He hoped. He was sure a straight-on fight would end in failure. And he wanted to get as many people out as possible. He nodded again. "Whatever their plan, I want and hope we can find a way for all of us to get home, eventually, and for now, for us all to find some kind of peace." (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

planted_it
2010-08-13 04:55 am UTC (link)

"I'm worried ..." Swan murmured as she worked another handful into place. "That the people here they've ... upset, will find a way to kill them before we get home. That the other captives won't ... think about it. About what they're doing, when they extract their vengeance."

Swan had seen plenty of the darker side of people in her time, and she knew how cornered dogs could bite ... and how it was worse if the dog had been teased first.

"Things are getting ... darker here, I think," she said quietly. "I just want to go back home. It might have been in worse shape than this, but ... at least I was free, with people I loved and who loved me." Her thoughts slipped to Robin, and she gazed down into the dirt as she worked the soil in her fingers.

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thededicated
2010-08-13 05:02 am UTC (link)

Magius nodded. "The thought had occurred to me. I will do my best to preserve all our lives, captors and captives, until we are all home again." He sighed.

"If I can. I fear, with so much of my magic undone and hidden, I will be able to do little."

He blinked at her words. Then he sighed. "I wish I could go back home as well. Though there is little there for me." He smiled at her. "But I hope you can make it home, yourself."

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planted_it
2010-08-13 01:57 pm UTC (link)

Swan's brow furrowed. Her home was all but destroyed, but there were still things there for her. How could his home have little for him? "Why?" she inquired before she realized she'd probably need a little more context.

"Why ... isn't there much at your home for you?" she clarified as she continued to work the dirt.

But maybe he just ... didn't have a lot of relations? Or he'd been ostracized. Or any other number of things.

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thededicated
2010-08-13 05:10 pm UTC (link)

"My world, Krynn, was ravaged by war, and my people, the wizards, do not like or trust me." He chuckled darkly, raising a hand. "Mind you, though, that last is my own fault." There was sadness in his eyes and voice as he spoke, but confidence at the same time. "It took me to the end of my days there to see truth, and to appreciate any merits than my own. Only then did I know the true gift of the Gods."

He sighed, then, and shifted. "In those hours of darkness, I found the light of hope and true magic, and nearly lost my life, before I arrived here. Now I wonder if I have any purpose here, either."

The darkness of those days claimed him for a moment. Remembering the times chained to a wall, and tortured, and the depths of self loathing as he found the truth of his own faults, and then the grace of the Gods... finally he shook it off of him with a visible and physical will.

"I am sorry." He offered her a bashful and rueful smile. "Melancholy comes upon me sometimes, but I will not let it have me."

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planted_it
2010-08-13 06:04 pm UTC (link)

Swan listened to his tale, able to relate at least a little to it, and she nodded slightly. Her world had been torn by war, but she ... she was a hero to the people, a guiding light. Everyone knew her name, even before she came upon their house, their town, their fields. It had been embarrassing, sometimes, the way people fawned over her like she was the next Messiah or something ... she was just a girl. That was all she'd ever wanted to be, but the world had other plans for her.

"I'm sure you have a purpose here," she assured him. "You just ... haven't realized it yet," she decided. "Sometimes purposes are hard to see, 'til they're needed," she added as she glanced up to him.

Her hands were busy in the dirt, and dirty, so she didn't touch him ... but she did smile to him.

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thededicated
2010-08-13 11:55 pm UTC (link)

He smiled wryly, then nodded. "I suppose you are correct. I have also not been out much, trying to understand my loss of power, and the necessity of those who abducted us in steeling some of my items." He sighed but strove to keep a smile up, feeling a mite bit better.

He smiled a little more in answer to her smile.

"You are wise, especially for one of your age, and kind. Thank you. Both for the work, and the words."

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planted_it
2010-08-14 01:03 am UTC (link)

"You should meet more of the people," Swan suggested, even as she realized the hypocrisy in the statement. She herself hadn't really made any efforts to socialize, aside from occasionally talking to Lily at breakfast, when no one else was there.

"I guess we all should," she reflected. "I don't think any of us are getting out of here alone ... without the help of others." Maybe that was the point. Maybe once they all learned to work together, they'd find a way out.

But she wasn't sure that was true. It would likely give them a better chance at it, though.

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	thededicated 2010-08-14 01:52 am UTC (link)
	He paused then nodded. "I suppose I should. Perhaps we can do so... sometime soon? I know little of get-togethers or of social things, but mayhap such a thing would be a good idea." He had seen, he thought, some of the others' social ideas, but had been too much caught up in himself for them. Now... well, maybe now he could attend such. (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

planted_it
2010-08-14 03:57 am UTC (link)

Swan nodded slightly. "Maybe we could even ... start one ourselves," she suggested. Everything else seemed to be suggested by other people, or run by other people, but she hadn't seen anything go up lately.

Maybe people were busy, or just ... involved in their own little groups. Maybe it was too late to break into anyone's group. She'd always been content to be her own group, but ... she couldn't get out of here by herself.

"Or I guess wait and see if someone has another ... group invitation and go join them."

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	thededicated 2010-08-14 04:11 am UTC (link)
	He blinked, then opened his mouth, and closed it again. He looked down at the garden, then up at her and slowly grinned. "Mayhap so. If two strangers can work on a garden, why not on other things." He nodded, thoughtful. "I think I would enjoy it. Especially with new friends like you to start." (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

planted_it
2010-08-14 04:29 am UTC (link)

Swan smiled softly up to him. Maybe, if she thought about it, or got up the nerve to do it, she'd post something in the network about a get-together.

But she doubted she'd find the nerve to do it alone.

Smiling again to him, Swan shifted down a little to start on a new row, carefully working the seeds and the dirt. She knew she'd want to go in soon; this was tiring work. But she could keep it up a bit longer, and keep the man company. Or let him keep her company; truthfully, she wasn't sure which way it was.

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thededicated
2010-08-14 04:36 am UTC (link)

He turned back to working, softening dirt, breaking it up, after a few moments, he paused and then restarted on a new row, making sure the ground was well broken for her.

He glanced at her as he worked. She was nice, and warm, and friendly. In truth, women were a mystery to him, but he had found in her a kindred spirit. And he grinned at the thought, and at her.

"I have forgotten the work it takes to do a garden, even as it feels good. And I forgot to ask, what plants are we planting?"

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planted_it
2010-08-14 04:41 am UTC (link)

Swan gestured to the rows she'd done already. "Corn here," she said before pointing off to another area. "Carrots and potatoes there. And there," she added as she pointed somewhere else. "Watermelon and strawberries. It was all that Jaime could find for me, and there aren't many watermelon seeds ... but they should grow all right."

She wondered if there'd be a chance for more seeds somewhere else, somewhere later down the line, but she wasn't going to hold her breath about it.

"She said Lily had some ... some herbs or some plants or something, but I didn't know her well enough to ask if I could have it to get the seeds out of it." If, of course, the plant even had seeds.

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thededicated
2010-08-14 04:45 am UTC (link)

"Herbs? Hmmm. Maybe I should ask her as well. Herbalism was part of my training back home. Many medicines and minor magics rely on them... and they could be useful in this often strange place." He thought of Woundhealer, and Coldbane, and even simple Hearth, all which were good for helping those in need.

He'd definitely consider talking to this Lily. He smiled wider at Swan.

"Would it be asking too much if I helped tend the plants as they grow? I do not wish to interfere in what is your project."

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