A spot of gardening
Nov. 16th, 2010 07:22 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shelbyrouIt is currently 13:07 Pacific Time on Tue Nov 16 2010.
Currently the moon is in the waxing Gibbous (Galliard) Moon phase (67% full).
Shore Around Half Moon Pool
The day is damp and cool, a pleasant change from threatening rain, though Shelby dresses as though it were twenty degrees colder. Bundled into a fleece hat and scarf in addition to her coat, the ragabash seems to be... weeding? A small pile of forlorn plants droops at her side, with a small booklet frequently consulted before she tugs another bit of greenery free of the dirt's embrace.
Someone else is also overdressed for the temperature. An ambulatory figure scrunches between the trees: mostly a long, shabby once-black coat coat, scuffed black combat boots and a myriad multicoloured wool scarves, all full of holes. The figure's path heads generally towards the pool. Every so often he- or she- pauses to pick up something from the ground- a glossy dark leaf, a shiny pebble- and tucks the prize into a pocket.
Shelby isn't unaware of the other's approach, though it isn't until a particularly stubborn bit of vine joins the discards that she settles back onto her heels to watch him--or her. While she waits she casts an eye up at the mostly cloudy sky and shivers, dusts her hands together before laying them upturned and innocent on her lap.
The figure eventually emerges from the trees, too tall and lanky to be feminine, although the eyes peering through the gap between bangs and scarves are large enough not to look out of place on a girl. It- probably he- pauses at the edge of the clearing around the water, blinking in the changed daylight before turning more attention on the Fang. Thos who have seen Norman, the Godi, in winter would probably have recognised him by now, although he doesn't yet speak to help out those less familiar with his cold-weather clothing.
"They say it's supposed to be like this all winter." Shelby says as though continuing an unheard conversation. "If not colder and wetter. I'm starting to think I should have gone to school in southern California."
"I've never been to California," comes the reply. Norman for sure. "Just Oklahoma and here. What," he adds, moving closer to peer, "are you doing?"
"Oklahoma's nice," says Shelby dubiously, entirely unconvinced of her own words, before beckoning the theurge closer. "Weeding. I got a pamphlet of non-native species, and I'm clearing them out. I should find a compost heap when I'm done. I'd think it's too late in the season for them to be able to germinate in there, don't you?"
Norman frowns at the 'weeding', but his expression clears at the 'non-native' part. "I don't know. I've never made compost. I could ask a decay-spirit?" he offers. "Is there that much from outside?"
Shelby says, "That would be nice, thank you. I could get a book from the library," she adds, turned dubious again, "but that's a week away." The ragabash frowns at her hands before tucking them into her armpits and turning a wry smile up at Norman. "Come keep me company? You don't have to weed if you don't want, but... well, I'd appreciate the company. You could talk about Oklahoma?"
Norman considers the proposition for a few moments. "I'd rather not," he says after that. "Most of it was not very nice." There's an edge to the words which implies 'not very nice' is an understatement along the lines of calling Mount Everest 'quite a big hill'. "And the rest of it is very Tribal. What are you doing these days? Apart from weeding?"
She blinks, but rallies almost immediately with a bright smile. "Well then, you can talk to me about Washington instead." She pats at the wet ground beside her as though she were inviting him to join her on the settee, shifts a few inches away and leans over to resume her weeding. "I just--well, not just, last week--got back from a visit with my grandparents. That was...." She pauses to think, everything stilling, before coming up with, "Nice. Different." Blue eyes slide over to the Get and back to her work.
"It's nice having grandparents?" Norman contemplates the possibility with a scientist's detachment. He looks at the ground where Shelby patted it, as though uncertain of its significance, and drifts vaguely in that direction without yet sitting down.
Shelby shakes her head, a touch of impatience crossing her features. "No. I mean yes, it is, but that's not what I meant." A bit of thorny vine and her fingers entangle; with a grimace Shelby yanks the former free and shakes it onto the discard pile off the latter. "Ow, those hurt. No, I mean...." A sigh, and she pats the ground again. "If you're not going to sit, let me know, because I'm going to get a crook in my neck if you keep looming like that."
"It's only pain," the Get offers automatically, before looking down at himself with a frown. "Nobody's told me I loom before." That is shorn of any tone that would suggest it was humor, or puzzlement, or pride, or embarassment. Rather than sitting he squats down with bent knees, the flats of his booted feet on the ground, his legs tucked up within his coat so that he becomes a mound of shabby fabric topped with dark brown hair. "Are either of them Garou?"
"Yes, and it hurts." Shelby squeezes her hands into fists once, twice, wincing against the tinge of blood before reaching for another set. "When it gets too bad I shift into Glabro." He squats and his reward is another one of her bright smiles even as she stretches for another bit of invader. "No. Nor their parents, nor theirs. Four generations back is the first time you find a Garou in my ancestors. Not to mention, the Rite of Baptism marked me as kin. So."
"Rite failed, huh? It happens," Norman says, seemingly oblivious to the smile. "I mean, I've heard. Any Rite can." He lapses into awkward silence.
"Yes," Shelby says again, patiently, "But it still makes going home for the first time since Gaia said, 'Surprise!' a little awkward." She glances over at him. "What's your family like? I never asked, and that was rude of me."
There's a heave upwards of the mound of fabric that is Norman, as the Godi shrugs. "I don't know. I never knew any of them."
Shelby ohs? "If it's not something you want to speak of, I'm sorry."
Another rustling and shifting of fabric reflects a second shrug from the Get. "I don't mind. I never knew them. I had a kinfetch, so someone knew what I was, once. Maybe I could find out somehow. There's Rites, to learn who someone's parents and ancestors are. I don't know them though."
Shelby consults with her little booklet before releasing one plant and moving on to its neighbor. "That's... well, that's something I don't about. I always had family. Maybe not my parents, but family." A moment later she offers, "Zosia-rhya might know. Know of them, anyway. Would you like me to ask her for you?"
"I..." The Godi pauses. "It would be interesting," he continues, speaking rather carefully, "but... I think it's the sort of thing that each Tribe has their own version of, because it's such a Tribal thing. It would be interesting to find out how someone else does it. But I wouldn't want to offend anybody. So it would probably be better to find a Get who knows it." There's another, longer pause, and then he adds, belatedly, "um. Thanks. For the offer."
The ragabash asks, half-amused and half-disbelieving, "You think a Silver Fang would be offended by you wanting to learn about family?" but shakes her head and doesn't press. "What have you been up to since I've seen you last? How is your pack?"
"Um. No. I think my ancestors might be offended if someone used a Silver Fang Rite to find out about them," Norman replies with more candour than tact. "KL-rhya's still on her Challenge for Adren." His voice there colours with pride and hopefulness, at least as much as the naturally dour Get ever exhibits.
"So when you say 'anybody', what you really mean is 'my ancestors'," Shelby says with a wise nod. "Good to know." She scants him another sidelong look and partial smile before settling onto her heels again and pulling a pair of gloves out of her jacket's pockets. "Oh? Remind me what she had to do, again? And when's her deadline for that - this moot, or next?"
"She's got to recover the Buffalo's Heart," Norman says, "but she hasn't gone yet. She's-" he waves a hand. "-meeting with Kaz-rhya and things. I'm sure she'll tell us. The pack. When there's something to tell."
"So she hasn't asked anybody for help?" Shelby asks, just a touch too brightly. She rinses her hands in the pool before slipping on her gloves and shrugging deeper into her jacket. "I hope she does well. We need all the Adren we can get."
"She's got her pack. And her Tribe. And she's smart. She'll ask if it's needed," Norman says staunchly. "If she's allowed to, under the terms of the Challenge. She'll be a good Adren."
All outward, wide-eyed sincerity, Shelby says, "I hope your ancestors are helpful."
The Get blinks. "Um. Thank you. But. I don't understand why you're saying it. Why would my ancestors help KL-rhya?"
The ragabash explains patiently, "It's a joke, Norman-rhya. I could explain it to you, but then it wouldn't be funny any more." She does wait a beat, however, before asking, "Do you want me to explain it to you?"
"Sorry. I'm not good at jokes," Norman says blankly. "What's funny about ancestors? Except some of the Rotagar, maybe."
With only a single breath exhaled the Fang does, indeed, explain things. "I asked if you wanted to know if Zosia knew any ancestor-rites, and you said no, you didn't want to offend anyone. Except when you said 'anyone', you really meant 'your ancestors'. Remember? And then I asked you if she'd asked 'anyone' for help." There she stops, looking expectant.
"Oh." Norman says flatly, his expression remaining largely unchanged. There's a short pause, and then, "okay." And that seems to be the size of his reaction.
"I said it was a joke," Shelby reminds him, not like she actually expects him to respond to that. "What were we talking about, before I tried to explain one?"
"It was KL's Challenge, and whether she'd asked for help, and before that you offered to ask Zosia-rhya if she knew of someone who knew the Rite for revealing ancestors, and I thought mine might not like a Fang Rite being used to find them, and before that it was my not knowing my family, and before that it was you visiting yours," the Godi almost recites, one step at a time.
"Right," Shelby says again, just as though she speaks to people with no sense of humor every day. "So I think we've beaten those particular topics so far into the ground they'll never come back up. Would you like to help me with my weeding? If not, I think I'm about done for the day."
"I can tell you about plant spirits," Norman offers, "and apologise to the spirits of the plants that don't belong for taking them out of the ground. But you'll have to show me which ones aren't supposed to be here, and tell me where they're supposed to be. I only know which ones are here."
In answer, Shelby hands over the pamphlet: it's two steps above homemade, perhaps 32 pages and stapled in the middle. The front cover proclaims that it deals with "Common Non-Native Plants of the Inland Pacific Northwest" and has been published by the SCCU extension office. "Congratulations, you now know as much about it as I do. I think weeding will be more helpful than apologizing - we still have to figure out how to compost these safely, after all, and it gets dark quickly."
"More helpful than... some of them have been here longer than you have," Norman says, a little reproachfully, even as he leafs through the booklet. "Not the small ones, obviously. But it's still polite to apologise and tell them that their shells will be making other plants grow strong. And if there are any seeds, they could be taken to the right sort of place and planted there."
Shelby slides another look over but doesn't argue; instead she reluctantly pulls off her gloves and stows them back in her pockets before returning to work. "I'll keep that in mind for the next time I'm in Japan. I merely point out that four hands pulling weeds means that we can get these to a compost heap and ourselves back by the time it gets dark and we can get to the umbra, where apologies and explanations will be better-received." So she merely delayed the arguing. "--Actually, you know what might be a good idea? If I got a bunch of these books and made the suggestion at Moot that people spend some time weeding. I should ask the Groundskeeper before I do that, though."
"Does that mean you didn't ask before you started weeding now?" the Godi asks, frowning suspiciously from under his bangs.
"Are you the Groundskeeper?" Shelby returns pleasantly, her hands continuing to work.
"No," Norman replies with a slight growl. "Did you ask her first?"
Shelby's fingers tighten around a stem: she jerks it free without so much as glancing toward the booklet. "Are you insulting my intelligence, or my honor, to ask if I remember basic etiquette, Norman-rhya?"
"No disrespect to your Tribe or your Elders, but if you were following the example of some around here then you might not even have realised there might be an issue," Norman replies with a jaundiced tone, then inclines his head. "My apologies if I'm telling you what you already understand."
It takes nearly a handful of seconds, but eventually Shelby returns the regal nod and tacks on a brittle, "Apology accepted." Two more invaders die horrible weedy deaths before she can add, voice returned to almost-normal, "So what do you think of asking her about doing this en masse?"
"It might give the cubs something to do?" Norman scratches his head with a dirty finger. "I'm usually thinking about spotting different sorts of intruders when I'm patrolling the Bawn. But it wouldn't hurt to know what plants should and shouldn't be there. Means Jormangundr would be less able to sneak in through plants. And we'd be more likely to spot if the tree disease came back."
"Intruders are intruders," Shelby points out, and a moment later, "They also serve, who only sit and weed," which coaxes another fragment of smile back. With a decisive nod, "I'll ask her, the next time I see her."
Currently the moon is in the waxing Gibbous (Galliard) Moon phase (67% full).
Shore Around Half Moon Pool
The day is damp and cool, a pleasant change from threatening rain, though Shelby dresses as though it were twenty degrees colder. Bundled into a fleece hat and scarf in addition to her coat, the ragabash seems to be... weeding? A small pile of forlorn plants droops at her side, with a small booklet frequently consulted before she tugs another bit of greenery free of the dirt's embrace.
Someone else is also overdressed for the temperature. An ambulatory figure scrunches between the trees: mostly a long, shabby once-black coat coat, scuffed black combat boots and a myriad multicoloured wool scarves, all full of holes. The figure's path heads generally towards the pool. Every so often he- or she- pauses to pick up something from the ground- a glossy dark leaf, a shiny pebble- and tucks the prize into a pocket.
Shelby isn't unaware of the other's approach, though it isn't until a particularly stubborn bit of vine joins the discards that she settles back onto her heels to watch him--or her. While she waits she casts an eye up at the mostly cloudy sky and shivers, dusts her hands together before laying them upturned and innocent on her lap.
The figure eventually emerges from the trees, too tall and lanky to be feminine, although the eyes peering through the gap between bangs and scarves are large enough not to look out of place on a girl. It- probably he- pauses at the edge of the clearing around the water, blinking in the changed daylight before turning more attention on the Fang. Thos who have seen Norman, the Godi, in winter would probably have recognised him by now, although he doesn't yet speak to help out those less familiar with his cold-weather clothing.
"They say it's supposed to be like this all winter." Shelby says as though continuing an unheard conversation. "If not colder and wetter. I'm starting to think I should have gone to school in southern California."
"I've never been to California," comes the reply. Norman for sure. "Just Oklahoma and here. What," he adds, moving closer to peer, "are you doing?"
"Oklahoma's nice," says Shelby dubiously, entirely unconvinced of her own words, before beckoning the theurge closer. "Weeding. I got a pamphlet of non-native species, and I'm clearing them out. I should find a compost heap when I'm done. I'd think it's too late in the season for them to be able to germinate in there, don't you?"
Norman frowns at the 'weeding', but his expression clears at the 'non-native' part. "I don't know. I've never made compost. I could ask a decay-spirit?" he offers. "Is there that much from outside?"
Shelby says, "That would be nice, thank you. I could get a book from the library," she adds, turned dubious again, "but that's a week away." The ragabash frowns at her hands before tucking them into her armpits and turning a wry smile up at Norman. "Come keep me company? You don't have to weed if you don't want, but... well, I'd appreciate the company. You could talk about Oklahoma?"
Norman considers the proposition for a few moments. "I'd rather not," he says after that. "Most of it was not very nice." There's an edge to the words which implies 'not very nice' is an understatement along the lines of calling Mount Everest 'quite a big hill'. "And the rest of it is very Tribal. What are you doing these days? Apart from weeding?"
She blinks, but rallies almost immediately with a bright smile. "Well then, you can talk to me about Washington instead." She pats at the wet ground beside her as though she were inviting him to join her on the settee, shifts a few inches away and leans over to resume her weeding. "I just--well, not just, last week--got back from a visit with my grandparents. That was...." She pauses to think, everything stilling, before coming up with, "Nice. Different." Blue eyes slide over to the Get and back to her work.
"It's nice having grandparents?" Norman contemplates the possibility with a scientist's detachment. He looks at the ground where Shelby patted it, as though uncertain of its significance, and drifts vaguely in that direction without yet sitting down.
Shelby shakes her head, a touch of impatience crossing her features. "No. I mean yes, it is, but that's not what I meant." A bit of thorny vine and her fingers entangle; with a grimace Shelby yanks the former free and shakes it onto the discard pile off the latter. "Ow, those hurt. No, I mean...." A sigh, and she pats the ground again. "If you're not going to sit, let me know, because I'm going to get a crook in my neck if you keep looming like that."
"It's only pain," the Get offers automatically, before looking down at himself with a frown. "Nobody's told me I loom before." That is shorn of any tone that would suggest it was humor, or puzzlement, or pride, or embarassment. Rather than sitting he squats down with bent knees, the flats of his booted feet on the ground, his legs tucked up within his coat so that he becomes a mound of shabby fabric topped with dark brown hair. "Are either of them Garou?"
"Yes, and it hurts." Shelby squeezes her hands into fists once, twice, wincing against the tinge of blood before reaching for another set. "When it gets too bad I shift into Glabro." He squats and his reward is another one of her bright smiles even as she stretches for another bit of invader. "No. Nor their parents, nor theirs. Four generations back is the first time you find a Garou in my ancestors. Not to mention, the Rite of Baptism marked me as kin. So."
"Rite failed, huh? It happens," Norman says, seemingly oblivious to the smile. "I mean, I've heard. Any Rite can." He lapses into awkward silence.
"Yes," Shelby says again, patiently, "But it still makes going home for the first time since Gaia said, 'Surprise!' a little awkward." She glances over at him. "What's your family like? I never asked, and that was rude of me."
There's a heave upwards of the mound of fabric that is Norman, as the Godi shrugs. "I don't know. I never knew any of them."
Shelby ohs? "If it's not something you want to speak of, I'm sorry."
Another rustling and shifting of fabric reflects a second shrug from the Get. "I don't mind. I never knew them. I had a kinfetch, so someone knew what I was, once. Maybe I could find out somehow. There's Rites, to learn who someone's parents and ancestors are. I don't know them though."
Shelby consults with her little booklet before releasing one plant and moving on to its neighbor. "That's... well, that's something I don't about. I always had family. Maybe not my parents, but family." A moment later she offers, "Zosia-rhya might know. Know of them, anyway. Would you like me to ask her for you?"
"I..." The Godi pauses. "It would be interesting," he continues, speaking rather carefully, "but... I think it's the sort of thing that each Tribe has their own version of, because it's such a Tribal thing. It would be interesting to find out how someone else does it. But I wouldn't want to offend anybody. So it would probably be better to find a Get who knows it." There's another, longer pause, and then he adds, belatedly, "um. Thanks. For the offer."
The ragabash asks, half-amused and half-disbelieving, "You think a Silver Fang would be offended by you wanting to learn about family?" but shakes her head and doesn't press. "What have you been up to since I've seen you last? How is your pack?"
"Um. No. I think my ancestors might be offended if someone used a Silver Fang Rite to find out about them," Norman replies with more candour than tact. "KL-rhya's still on her Challenge for Adren." His voice there colours with pride and hopefulness, at least as much as the naturally dour Get ever exhibits.
"So when you say 'anybody', what you really mean is 'my ancestors'," Shelby says with a wise nod. "Good to know." She scants him another sidelong look and partial smile before settling onto her heels again and pulling a pair of gloves out of her jacket's pockets. "Oh? Remind me what she had to do, again? And when's her deadline for that - this moot, or next?"
"She's got to recover the Buffalo's Heart," Norman says, "but she hasn't gone yet. She's-" he waves a hand. "-meeting with Kaz-rhya and things. I'm sure she'll tell us. The pack. When there's something to tell."
"So she hasn't asked anybody for help?" Shelby asks, just a touch too brightly. She rinses her hands in the pool before slipping on her gloves and shrugging deeper into her jacket. "I hope she does well. We need all the Adren we can get."
"She's got her pack. And her Tribe. And she's smart. She'll ask if it's needed," Norman says staunchly. "If she's allowed to, under the terms of the Challenge. She'll be a good Adren."
All outward, wide-eyed sincerity, Shelby says, "I hope your ancestors are helpful."
The Get blinks. "Um. Thank you. But. I don't understand why you're saying it. Why would my ancestors help KL-rhya?"
The ragabash explains patiently, "It's a joke, Norman-rhya. I could explain it to you, but then it wouldn't be funny any more." She does wait a beat, however, before asking, "Do you want me to explain it to you?"
"Sorry. I'm not good at jokes," Norman says blankly. "What's funny about ancestors? Except some of the Rotagar, maybe."
With only a single breath exhaled the Fang does, indeed, explain things. "I asked if you wanted to know if Zosia knew any ancestor-rites, and you said no, you didn't want to offend anyone. Except when you said 'anyone', you really meant 'your ancestors'. Remember? And then I asked you if she'd asked 'anyone' for help." There she stops, looking expectant.
"Oh." Norman says flatly, his expression remaining largely unchanged. There's a short pause, and then, "okay." And that seems to be the size of his reaction.
"I said it was a joke," Shelby reminds him, not like she actually expects him to respond to that. "What were we talking about, before I tried to explain one?"
"It was KL's Challenge, and whether she'd asked for help, and before that you offered to ask Zosia-rhya if she knew of someone who knew the Rite for revealing ancestors, and I thought mine might not like a Fang Rite being used to find them, and before that it was my not knowing my family, and before that it was you visiting yours," the Godi almost recites, one step at a time.
"Right," Shelby says again, just as though she speaks to people with no sense of humor every day. "So I think we've beaten those particular topics so far into the ground they'll never come back up. Would you like to help me with my weeding? If not, I think I'm about done for the day."
"I can tell you about plant spirits," Norman offers, "and apologise to the spirits of the plants that don't belong for taking them out of the ground. But you'll have to show me which ones aren't supposed to be here, and tell me where they're supposed to be. I only know which ones are here."
In answer, Shelby hands over the pamphlet: it's two steps above homemade, perhaps 32 pages and stapled in the middle. The front cover proclaims that it deals with "Common Non-Native Plants of the Inland Pacific Northwest" and has been published by the SCCU extension office. "Congratulations, you now know as much about it as I do. I think weeding will be more helpful than apologizing - we still have to figure out how to compost these safely, after all, and it gets dark quickly."
"More helpful than... some of them have been here longer than you have," Norman says, a little reproachfully, even as he leafs through the booklet. "Not the small ones, obviously. But it's still polite to apologise and tell them that their shells will be making other plants grow strong. And if there are any seeds, they could be taken to the right sort of place and planted there."
Shelby slides another look over but doesn't argue; instead she reluctantly pulls off her gloves and stows them back in her pockets before returning to work. "I'll keep that in mind for the next time I'm in Japan. I merely point out that four hands pulling weeds means that we can get these to a compost heap and ourselves back by the time it gets dark and we can get to the umbra, where apologies and explanations will be better-received." So she merely delayed the arguing. "--Actually, you know what might be a good idea? If I got a bunch of these books and made the suggestion at Moot that people spend some time weeding. I should ask the Groundskeeper before I do that, though."
"Does that mean you didn't ask before you started weeding now?" the Godi asks, frowning suspiciously from under his bangs.
"Are you the Groundskeeper?" Shelby returns pleasantly, her hands continuing to work.
"No," Norman replies with a slight growl. "Did you ask her first?"
Shelby's fingers tighten around a stem: she jerks it free without so much as glancing toward the booklet. "Are you insulting my intelligence, or my honor, to ask if I remember basic etiquette, Norman-rhya?"
"No disrespect to your Tribe or your Elders, but if you were following the example of some around here then you might not even have realised there might be an issue," Norman replies with a jaundiced tone, then inclines his head. "My apologies if I'm telling you what you already understand."
It takes nearly a handful of seconds, but eventually Shelby returns the regal nod and tacks on a brittle, "Apology accepted." Two more invaders die horrible weedy deaths before she can add, voice returned to almost-normal, "So what do you think of asking her about doing this en masse?"
"It might give the cubs something to do?" Norman scratches his head with a dirty finger. "I'm usually thinking about spotting different sorts of intruders when I'm patrolling the Bawn. But it wouldn't hurt to know what plants should and shouldn't be there. Means Jormangundr would be less able to sneak in through plants. And we'd be more likely to spot if the tree disease came back."
"Intruders are intruders," Shelby points out, and a moment later, "They also serve, who only sit and weed," which coaxes another fragment of smile back. With a decisive nod, "I'll ask her, the next time I see her."