Welcome to Gaia! ::

Life was simple for Uxten.

It always had been, for her. Her elders had always advised her to find her niche, and then work within it, and that was what she had been doing thus far. She didn't have a delicate touch with her hoof, and she was no innovative thinker. But she had a sturdy body and simple desires, and she abhorred the thought of those more capable noulicorns suffering as they went out to heal Vykeli.

Ah, that wasn't self-deprecation. Uxten knew her strengths, and they lay in her sharp hooves, her large size, and her understanding of a body's weak points. They made her wholly unsuitable, she thought, for a noulicorn's primary purpose. But that had always been fine for her, too. She was happy enough to do what she could, and to defend her home and its inhabitants as they took on work for the greater good of Vykeli. She hadn't expected for that to mean the Grandfather Tree was calling her, now. Why would it want to choose someone like Uxten?

Still, she knew the correct way to respond to that strange tug in her chest. She alerted the people who needed to know and began making the trek. The Grandfather Tree was a familiar destination, and she'd helped escort other noulicorns this way, too. And though she hadn't ever expected it to find her worthy, she was honor-bound, in her opinion, to answer its call.

Of course it roused her to stand here, though, knowing that it was, for whatever reason, Uxten's turn. Whatever path she'd been taking...something about it had to be the right one.

The barrens usually looked empty, to Uxten. Sure, many nouls ventured out here to do their work - but the barrens covered a vast stretch of lands, compared to their little Homewood.

That wasn't the case today, though, and given that Uxten could see no blackhorns among the group of noulicorns quibbling in a circle, it seemed only prudent to greet them. She walked forward, careful to make her hooves sound in as nonthreatening a manner as possible. She wasn't sneaking, but she didn't mean to scare them, either.

Not that she thought she looked very intimidating. The head harness she wore was clearly craftily made and well-fitted to the shape of her skull. In the Homewood, that was a sign that she was skilled enough, or valued enough, that some craftsman had taken the time to design it for her specifications. She turned carefully to display said craftsman's signature, and walked closer when she saw that she'd been acknowledged.

"Noulja," one said respectfully. "How is your work going?"

Uxten inclined her head. "Well enough," she smiled. Between jobs, she ventured into the barrens to ensure that any predators would be driven away, and to help any stray, lonely nouls back, if they so desired it. As far as she could remember, today had been fairly uneventful. "And yours?"

She knew this polite little script well. Uxten didn't really consider herself a member of high society, but she interfaced with it often. A lofty healer didn't need to concern themself with something so minor as self-defense, after all, when nouls like Uxten were around to solve that problem. Still, if neither group was in crisis (and this group certainly wasn't - there were many of them, each laden with plenty of supplies), it was customary to part here.

"We have a dilemma," one of them said, though, interrupting Uxten from her planned exit. "Look, here - " they began, and then described their work with Homewood's foliage.

Uxten listened attentively. She was good enough at that, even if she didn't have the delicate hooves necessary to excel in gardening. Her first thought, though, was that they'd certainly asked the wrong noul. They seemed earnest, though, and it was incorrect to turn back without answering. She looked from the seeds to the dry sand - it couldn't even be called soil, out here - with uncertainty. "I'm just a traveler," she warned them. "But I think...we've all been told that plants each thrive in their own unique environments."

"It's admirable, to want the safety of the Homewood to spread this far." And that was what pioneers did, wasn't it? "But while these are nutritious and lovely, I think...I think, for their future health, it's best to start slowly, with hardy plants that need less water, which can live with only shallow roots." She scuffed a hoof along the floor. "With time, when there are more - nutrients, and when those shallow roots grow strong enough to guard some moisture, then you can introduce newer plants."

She turned, seeing a noul who was clearly a gardener with a variety of plants. "Or...Vykeli wasn't always so desolate, but not all of it was woods, either." She looked ponderingly through the seeds. "Surely, in a flourishing desert, there must have been some plants that still lived well." She saw the remains of them, sometimes, though they were probably barely recognizable shadows of what they'd once been. "They already know the best way to live out here, and perhaps seeding those might create a second kind of Homewood - a new oasis."