Day 40: Greenhouse

[thatdamnedninja]

Yuffie was in two minds about how the 'meeting' with Orangello had gone. No, scratch that; two was way too small a number. Maybe four? Or five, no, make it six. Maybe. The only thing she knew for sure was that something had to give, and it sure wasn't going to be her. Whether or not she actually joined up with anybody was irrelevant, as long as she

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[sheisthecause]

Meche used to love flowers. She trailed her fingers along the rows of daisies and cheerful sunflowers and wondered when that had changed. Probably around the time flowers had started to be used as murder weapons, she decided. It kind of killed the joy.

Fortunately, there were also a lot of vegetables and even some herbs here, so she wasn't at a loss for things to do. The fact that this shift was all women meant she'd have no chance of seeing Manny even if he did come back (and torturing herself with that thought every shift wasn't doing her any favors), but she'd needed to get out of the Sun Room for the day.

Meche turned her attention to picking the suckers off a tomato plant. The simple work was strangely calming; she could just empty her mind of all the chaos and look at each tiny goal. Maybe, she thought, today could be an okay day after all.

[for Senna]

[windstwilight]

[♥]When Senna left breakfast, she realized her growling stomach told her that she hadn't ate much of it. She grimaced, rubbing a hand across it. This was two days in a row now. Lunch better be good. Yesterday's pizza... Mmm. She smiled contently. How many had she got up to? Six? That was good. Every day seemed to be better and better regarding food, and Senna was taking every joy in eating as much as possible. Food, was love

[sheisthecause]

Meche's face broke into a grin as a familiar figure bounded towards her. "Hey, Senna!" she greeted the girl, letting go of the tomato stalk and turning to face her. "How are you doing?"

The pint-sized death god looked a lot happier than she had the other day, at any rate. Meche was glad for it. If anything, her own situation had gotten worse, but hopefully Senna's fortunes had improved--or maybe she was just continuing not to let anything get to her. That was definitely still a quality Meche had to work on.

[windstwilight]

It seemed the living dead girl was as happy to see her as she was. Cool. Meche was another person that Senna could be herself with, ask the questions that wouldn't apply to anyone else, and know she would be understood. It was nice. Comforting. Senna kept smiling as she reached up and started to retie her hair ribbon.

"I'm doing," the girl said cheerily. "Existing, at least. I've had a couple people disappear on me in the past few days, and a couple of people..." Died was such a case-by-case term. "Well, we lost a couple of people. And some more are in a bad state right now. But I think it might get better." Especially if Hokuto and her kidnapped Momo one day to cheer her up. "Personally," she added. "I've found a couple people to relate to here, which is extremely cool. And the food yesterday was great. Plus we found some weird ruins last night."

She ended off the sentence with her content smile, then stuck her tongue out at Meche. "But how are you, lady?"

[2cuprhubarb]

Plants

[fencing_captain]

Juri was attracted to the sight of someone working so industriously. She didn't like gardens or greenhouses that much. They reminded her of the Rose Bride's creepy little rose garden. But the nurse seemed to think it would be therapeutic for her to get her hands dirty and break her fingernails. Juri rolled her eyes behind the woman's back as she departed. She picked up a trowel and, with a sound of almost happy relief, a pair of heavy duty (and incredibly tacky) gardening gloves.

Then she knelt beside where the older dark-haired woman was digging. "What's down there?" she asked. "Antarctica?"

[2cuprhubarb]

While she didn't notice her new companion immediately, the young woman was polite enough to speak first. GLaDOS didn't look up as she kept on digging, the pile of dirt around the hole slowly growing taller. She pressed her hand flat into the hole to check its depth after a few moments. Just past her wrist. Nowhere near deep enough to stick someone's head in, nor was it wide enough. Their face, maybe, but it was hard to bury a face.

"Dirt," she responded, picking her trowel back up and resuming her digging, finally turning her eyes up to the young woman for just long enough to get a look at her. "Nothing more than sediment, roots, worms, and a variety of insects. Antarctica is also probably on the other side of the world, or at least several thousand miles in either direction." The only way she could possibly be digging to Antarctica was if they were on the same land mass, and given the current temperate weather, that seemed extremely unlikely.

[fencing_captain]

"I knew that," Juri said, crossly. "I didn't mean that you could literally get to another continent. It's what people say." She shook her head. "Is there a reason you're digging such a big hole? I could help if you're tired." She displayed her trowel and gloves.

[jokers_wildcard]

[Free]

Sleeping in this morning probably wasn't a good thing. Harley wasn't feeling particularly refreshed, in any case. Her nurse, on the other hand, seemed almost genuine in her good mood this morning. That stupid fake smile of hers was actually bright as she led her care to a section she'd never been to before.

A greenhouse? She hadn't even noticed this place had one. Normally, she wasn't particularly interested in this plant stuff (though she loved flowers), it lightened her mood just a little bit. This place... it made her think of Red. Not the mean, clone Red but the real one. Her friend probably wouldn't want to leave this building if she were here. Harley missed her... so much. She missed everyone.

Pammy had always been one with plants or something like that, right? Even though it was sad to think about everyone left back home, it didn't feel so lonely in here. It was almost like her friend was with her again. Kind of. Harley ran a hand carefully over the tops of some of the smaller flowers, lost in nostalgia.

[roseoverture]

Much as she was worried about Hinamori and was grateful for her advice, Utena was glad when breakfast finally ended. The older (much older, apparently) woman's sadness was almost as hard to deal with as Himemiya's had been on the night she had arrived. She had wished the shinigami a good day and luck with the trials of the coming night before leaving, and went with her nurse to the greenhouse

[jokers_wildcard]

Harley pulled her attention from the flowers as soon as the voice regarded her. A girlie she'd never seen before, and she would have remembered this one. What with the shocking pink hair. But what was better was the girl's smile. There were far, far too many people in here who couldn't even do something as simple as that. That was enough to get Harley to flash one right back, though it was more like a half-faced smirk in this case.

"Yeah, well, even psychos gotta have hobbies, right? Though I never figured this guy for a green thumb," she said, eying the way Pinkie was gently revering one of the roses herself. "You into gardening a lot?"

[roseoverture]

"I guess that's one way to put it," Utena answered with a slight laugh, though it felt odd laughing about the man who had imprisoned them all so easily. She was glad to see her smile returned at least, even if it wasn't a full one. "And I don't really garden myself, but one of my close friends does. She keeps a whole greenhouse full of roses at our school, and not a single one ever looks unhealthy. It's amazing to see."

Without meaning to, Utena winced very slightly at the mention of Himemiya. The girl had so many talents apart from her duty as the Rose Bride. Gardening, doodling, caring for animals, (explosive) cooking: all that and more, and yet she never seemed to take any credit for it. And on top of all that, now the Himemiya here with her was saying that Utena didn't really know who she was? It was enough to make her feel like she was going to have an aneurism over that girl sometimes.

[brightlyshine]

It took Elena a little bit of time to get out of the cafeteria, although getting away from all the food smells was helpful. She actually didn't mind the shift away from all the boys after the discussion from breakfast. Because, well, yeah they were her family, but she didn't want them over-worrying about her. And she figured there'd be a lot of time for that later in the day, or something.

But at the moment, there was someone else she thought that could be helpful. She made her way into the greenhouse, looking around before she spotted the familiar face. "Yuffie?"

[thatdamnedninja]

Yuffie quickly gave up on the plant. It was… plant-like. So, what? What was she supposed to do with it, aside from wonder if it was edible? The only thing she really knew was what kind of trees were best to sleep in, and which herbs were helpful or harmful.

Luckily, Elena didn't take too long. “Hey!” Spinning away from the plant, the ninja clasped her hands behind her back. After the Turk's reaction to the whole 'going out at night with Reno' thing, it'd been a bit surprising that she'd been asked to meet up like this. Not bothering to school her expression to hide her curiosity, she cocked her head to the side. “'Sup?”

And now that she was looking a little closer, she could see that Elena really didn't look too good. Pretty roughed up, actually.

[brightlyshine]

She seemed happy enough, Elena thought, or at least enough of her usual self that she assumed Yuffie was doing okay so far for what this place was. And she did feel a bit sorry for her knowing that Cid and Cloud had disappeared...

But Elena had so much more she was worried about, and she wondered if the other girl might have a better clue than she did.

"Sorry... Really rough night," she greeted, glancing at the plant Yuffie had been paying attention to. "You know, getting kidnapped and experimented on, that kind of fun stuff. Found out a couple things about materia, though..."

That should get the girl's attention.

[thatdamnedninja]

Happy wasn't exactly the word for it, but Yuffie was a master of the superficial. A master of 'getting over things'; nothing could stop the Great Ninja Yuffie, not ever. She wouldn't let it. Besides, why would she go showing weakness to a Turk? Even if they had a decent working relationship-- or not working, in Reno's case -- there was no excuse for that.

Rough night, huh. That wasn't exactly surprising. “Business as usu--- wait, back up a second!” Yuffie straightened, arms falling to her sides. “You kinda look like somebody drop-kicked you out of a low-flying helicopter, yeah, but you got dragged off for those experimentation things-- and materia? What about materia?” She paused for a breath, her expression an odd mixture of dismay and fascination. It was kinda like walking down a path to a train wreck. “Don't tell me this was some kind of Hojo wannabe. Or the guy himself.”

The name still sent pinpricks of anger zinging up and down her spine. And, with it, something that almost, almost resembled fear. They'd taken a Turk. For

[tostepforward]

It was more than a little irritating for Ayumu to emerge from a damage control session in the cafeteria only to find that her efforts were likely wasted at this point. Not that she wanted to entirely alienate Robin, of course, especially given the fact that he knew a little more about her than she was comfortable with, but without Mello his value as a contact had significantly decreased. Well, it'd save her some time and energy to cut things off with Robin now, and the minor argument this morning would give her a pretext for it

[lady_general]

"Oh, Nancy, you'll be so pleased today. Why, Mr Jenkins told me just how much you enjoyed gardening, and I think getting out of that stuffy Sun Room will do you some good," her nurse prattled on as she lead Celes into the greenhouse. Celes didn't listen to her, already looking over the plants with a keen eye.

There were roses. Celes' face lit up for a split second in sheer delight as she waved off the nurse imperiously and settled before a somewhat abused plant. How horrible. One would think that they would take better care of the roses, of all plants. She picked some of the dying leaves off and realized that she was standing next to another young woman. "Ah, my apologies. Were you tending to this plant?"

[tostepforward]

The woman's approach had been noted and her potential to be a threat calculated, but Ayumu hadn't looked directly at Celes until she was addressed. At that point she jumped a little, giving a slightly dramatic wince when she moved her right arm without thinking, and shook her head quickly.

"Oh, no," she replied, waving her uninjured hand in a dismissive gesture. "I was just enjoying the sights. And smells - it's nice to be surrounded by growing things rather than just the blank walls, isn't it?"

[lady_general]

"Quite," Celes replied quietly. "Though, I've only ever had eyes for a single thing here," she added as she ran her fingers over the velvety petals of the dying rose blossom and smiled grimly.

"But that's neither here nor there, Miss...?" Celes paused her pruning of the plant to get a proper look at Ayumu. She certainly looked as though she'd been through the meat grinder, didn't she? Celes kept her opinion to herself however, and continued to prune the plant of dying leaves.