Pamela Isley | Poison Ivy (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
chlorophylliac) wrote2015-06-15 09:13 pm
chlorophylliac) wrote2015-06-15 09:13 pm
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.
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 // darknessb4meThe 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.
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Should I be inferring that you're speaking from experience?
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[A mild shrug] I'm not sure whose mind I understand, but I hope it's not mine. You seem to know more than the normally allotted human share, though.
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I'm not human.
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But you have to live with them, back home.
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Oh? Any names in particular? I don't talk much about the environment with people; everyone's world being different from mine.
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I try not to. Just because I have to live with them doesn't mean I have to make conversation.
[And talking seriously about plants or the environment with almost anyone feels miserably futile.]
What about your world is different?
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[But, because she probably has more insight, he adds:] I get the feeling having special abilities doesn't change the odds as much as I would have hoped.
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No, it doesn't.
Some of the insects are larger, stronger than others. Some have the necessary perspective to see the trail; to know where it leads. But there's no one way to change the path that everyone would agree with, and no insect strong enough to disregard the others' opinion and act regardless.
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Would you want there to be someone like that?
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If there was, they would be frozen with indecision. You couldn't take medicine for fear of killing germs; couldn't eat animals, couldn't eat plants, couldn't stand animals eating plants or plants eating insects...
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Exactly.
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When did you end up on the side you're on?
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Why are you interested?
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[He seems like he might not answer for a moment. Then he decides, why not.]
Because no one back home gives a damn about much. Let alone things they don't know how to interact or communicate with.
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When you say 'things they don't know how to interact or communicate with', applied to me you're talking about...?
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You understand things they don't. Of course, they like to stab each other out of boredom, but still: the world is different to you than it is to them.
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I'm assuming they didn't intend for you to understand what you ended up learning.
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I think the expectation was that I'd either wind up a weapon to be aimed, or a few disks of useful data and a body to dump in landfill.