chlorophylliac | 30 ❦ Video

30 ❦ Video

[Ivy is sitting in the lovingly upgraded greenhouse, on the edge of the fountain pool she's created at the centre, and absolutely nobody was surprised. There's a plant/animal hybrid on her lap; anatomically a small rabbit, but what it's covered with is more like moss than fur and its eyes are completely black.]

The first greenhouses used on Earth were recorded by Pliny the Elder, two thousand years before my time.

The Roman Emperor Tiberius wanted cucumbers all year round, so, his gardeners made it happen. Their specularium predated the invention of glass; they used oiled cloth or sheets of mica. They weren't used constantly, only at night, to protect the plants from the cold after they'd had the benefit of the sunlight during the day.

More sophisticated versions appeared over a thousand years later. The Vatican, in the thirteenth century, to house plants brought as trophies from tropical exploration. Korea, two centuries afterward. What my contemporaries would consider a modern greenhouse didn't appear until the eighteen-hundreds.

By my time, commercial technology allows plants to be grown out of season, thousands of miles from the environments where they evolved, untroubled by parasites or predators or the vagaries of the weather. Even the most diseased specimens can heal in a place designed for precisely that.

[She falters, briefly, gaze going out of focus. It looks like she's fighting something off, consciously or otherwise.]

Which is perfectly fine, if all you want is something that will thrive in an artificial environment. But when you return it to its home -- with all the threats and dangers that plant is subject to --

[Ivy tunes out again, gaze going flat and empty.]

The following Warden and Inmate have been paired:

A.J. Crowley //

sauntervaguelydownwards → Arthas Menethil //

darknessb4me

The warden should expect a file to be delivered to his cabin shortly. Please familiarize yourself with the information therein and introduce yourself to your new Inmate as soon as possible.

[She blinks slowly, coming back to herself.]

Sometimes the rot runs particularly deep, of course. I hope you'll be very happy together.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Anthony! When the fuck did you graduate?

[... And then she sees who her friend is paired with.]

Oh, shit.

[After their conversation in the infirmary, Tiffany feels a little braver, so...]

Hey, Ivy.

You making a metaphor about inmates there?

Yes.

[Hm.]

Has 'Anthony' ever had a warden assigned to him?

I don't know, I never asked.

[Well. Either he was always a warden masquerading as an inmate, or an inmate who graduated with a previously unheard-of lack of fanfare. He remains beneath her contempt regardless, so, never mind.

Switching filters; business first.]

If you are explicitly threatened by Arthas because of whatever relationship you have with his Warden and whatever other support you have is unavailable, you can come to me. I've handled him before.

I'm more worried about Anthony. I don't think he's got real powers or nothing.

... You'd wanna help me? Why?

I don't like men throwing their weight around.

Who does. Arthas ain't a regular person, though. You can really handle him?

As I say, I have before. My resources were better at the time, but then, so were his.

Consider me your last line of defense. I didn't enjoy the degree of collateral damage.

I meant it when I said I didn't tell Iris. She wanted me to and I said no. I don't snitch.

You got problems with girls throwing weight around too, or just guys?

Women tend to have better reasons.

I hope you stick to your guns with Crowley. [Suspects she won't, but.] You're right about him.

You mean about him being a bad friend? I didn't know you knew him.

I don't. But on the basis of that conversation and his transparent, repulsive attempts to kick you while you were down, [i.e. his lecturing on the Biblical view of abortion] I know him well enough.

Edited 2015-06-16 06:11 (UTC)