Welcome to Gaia! ::

Once the new soil hit, Pendour reached down again, running a finger across the pipeline just to be sure. It was cool, cooler than the soil, and after a moment her finger pad caught on a tiny hole, some primitive emitter, and with her eyes closed to block out the rest of the world for a moment, she felt the tiniest trickle of pure, perfect water. It was hardly the grand waterfalls that her wonder was designed for, and when she drew her hands back up, they were caked with a rather crumbly garden mud, but when Encke nudged her, the smile still reached her eyes.

The Code had been described to her as being like the Force from star wars. She wondered if it worked the same way, filling up every stone on her wonder with energy in life. She liked the visual of that, even if it wasn't true, and she took a second to stroke the marble edger next to the dirt with a clean-ish part of her hand. "Oh, I missed you, too," she said softly to the stone, and then laughed.

Then she looked between Encke and the state of the soil. "Um, this is more of an experiment than a project," she said, "So really you can't go wrong." She took a few deep handfuls of dirt and let them slowly trickle back down out of her hands to the plot. It was more play than anything practical, and her smile showed it. "In other words, I don't know," she said, voice still light at light. "I'd try to keep it mostly to the corner but I think it looks good." The potting soil was getting hard to see, which was probably a good sign.

"Do you want some seeds? Let's see," she said, picking up the packet from its resting place and glancing over the instructions. "One-half to one inch deep, up to twelve seeds per foot of row, or about an inch of growing room." She popped the packet open and offered him a few shakes.

Any double entendre went neatly over Pendour's head, and this time when she turned to Encke, her real eye was as blank as the acrylic one. She blinked. "What?"

She wasn't one to worry about teasings, though, especially from a friend, and she went back to work, making little holes in the soil with her thumb and then popping her share of the seeds in. It was something that she'd done many times, and her movements were smooth. She liked the rhythm that she settled into when she planted seeds. Afterwards, she took another handful of soil from deeper in the bed and sprinkled it over the top, to cover the seeds all cozy and snug. Then she brushed off her hands as well as she could and finally came away from the flowerbed, sitting back on her heels.

She nodded. "This is about all we can do for now," she said. The waiting process wasn't something that bothered her, although she did wish that she could come up every day and check for sprouts, the way that she did with her windowsill pots. This way it was more of a surprise to find what would be waiting for her up here, and as Encke pointed out, she wasn't exactly sure what she would find. If magic took hold, what would that even be like? Not glowing, not down here. Neptune was all ocean magic, from what she'd seen. "Maybe they'll be salty as the sea," she said, patting the soil over the seeds one last time. "Well, they'd be good for chips, then." Veggie chips were very popular among her garden friends.

Finally, she pulled her gaze off the garden, slowly and a little sad. "Are you ready to go back?"

Pendour got to her feet slowly, taking a look at her new plot from a different angle. It was nice, seeing the first real mark she'd left on her wonder's surface in the form of freshly tousled soil and new life underneath. She folded her hands at her chest and gave a deep nod, first to the soil and then to Encke.

"Thanks for the help," she said, smile as bright as her heart. "I'm not sure how long it will be until I can grow enough here for actual food, but I can bring you something homegrown from Earth once it warms up some more." Spinach and kale chips were all well and good with limited ingredients, but on Earth she could dig up her new potatoes and sprinkle them with fresh-plucked rosemary and thyme and oil. Something a little heartier for her hungry friend.

She took another look around at her wonder, but she shook her head. "No," she said. "I think Irving's in the bedroom, and anyway, I need to save something to show you next time." The sadness, while not quite gone, was covered with another toothy smile as she thought about the future. If she dreamed about bad futures, she could dream about good ones, too. The thought of letting him look at the view from upstairs would give her something to look forward too.

She held out a hand.

"Until next time," whispered Pendour, to the spinach seeds and the wonder, to Encke and even to Irving.

Then she squeezed Encke's hand tight as tight and thought of home, and the two of them vanished from the surface of Neptune.