[This rp icly takes place on January 15th 2023]

Arian had only been away for a few weeks, but it felt like he had been away for months and whilst Saffron could understand the reasoning behind her cousin's decision, she couldn't help but miss him and the tea and cake catch ups that the two of them had tentatively started resuming–

And whilst the two of them still hadn't quite reached the point of being able to talk about the elephant in the form of their powered alter-egos, things had felt less awkward between them and more like things used to be.

In a strange way that whole mess with the weird game board back during Halloween had helped, had made her realise that despite her hurt over the way that her cousin had lied to her for so many years that Arian was still her cute little cousin–

Because yes despite his quiet protestations to the contrary he was always going to be her cute little cousin.

And in truth it wasn't as if she'd been particularly forthcoming about her own powered status, although Arian hadn't called her out over it.

Saffron reached for her Iðavöllr gardening bag with a wry sigh before letting herself out into the evening, because spending a bit of time working on pruning flowers seemed like a nicer prospect than hanging around her apartment and she didn't really want to think about the fact that it was likely to be a while before she saw her cousin face outside of zoom or Skype (neither of which really counted).

The shift from Destiny City to the snow covered land that was her Wonder seemed to come more easily these days than it had on that first night back in November 2021 when Liryn had had her sit on an abandoned park bench and 'meditate'–

Although mayhaps she was just overthinking things. Either way Iðavöllr had been glad to set the bag down in the entranceway of the hall before allowing herself to fall into the somewhat rhythmic pattern of trying to carefully snip at flowers with the secateurs.

Maristela Flowers her mind supplied, as it recalled the name that Ragna had shared with her, one that was nicer than the name 'frozen snow flowers' by which she had been mentally dubbing them.

It was hard to tell how much time had passed as she worked on the flowers, occasionally breaking from the pattern of snipping to fetch manure to put around the flowers before carefully scooping snow back into place, but at some point she realised that the manure that she brought was running low, which brought an end to her amateur gardening activities.

Well at least for the day, she'd just have to bring more manure with her next time around.

Iðavöllr absently gathered the clippings into a mound, not quite ready to return to Destiny City as another part of her last conversation with Ragna slipped into her mind.

Specifically that there was more to the hall than the gardens.

It was something that she was aware of - after all her predecessor had shown her an inner courtyard on the day that she had taught her about her aspect.

In truth however, Iðavöllr knew very little about the Wonder with which she shared a name.

Perhaps.. Perhaps it's time to change that.

Perhaps.

And whatever her feelings had been about being powered, over time Iðavöllr had found that truly did want to be stronger, to be better, if only because Arian was still caught up in all of this.

Besides, she couldn't deny that she felt a bit of curiosity about the Wonder with which she shared a name.

"Well I guess there's no time like the present" Iðavöllr said quietly to the empty hall as she paused to strip the gloves from her hands and slip them in a plastic bag for the purpose, before straightening and setting off down the corridor and deeper into the hall.

-- 657 words --