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 Posted: Mon May 02, 2022 8:08 pm
The park was quiet in the twilight just after sun down. Peaceful, here away from the traffic and activity. Most people had deserted the area with night coming on, something not too uncommon in Destiny City. People seemed to know it wasn't safe to be on the streets at night, especially alone.
But that was something of a blessing for Ida, as she crouched next to the sidewalk, sorting through the canvas bag she'd brought with her. With no one about, she'd been able to make her way to this secluded spot and power up with no one seeing her, and soon, she'd be off to Ida for another visit. The supplies had come from the gardening center, as they often did, and included both some just-sprouted things and packets of seeds, which she shuffled through her fingers like cards. A few varieties of vegetables, but mostly there were flowers and non-food plants of all sorts, things she wanted to test and see how they grew in Ida's strange environment.
With her work week, she was looking forward to the relaxing activity and the chance to get away from... everything here. She was used to being alone these days, but there was a peace and serenity on Ida she couldn't find here.
Satisfied with what was in the bag, she began to tuck her things back into it, stacking what she'd pulled out so no seedlings got crushed.
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Posted: Tue May 03, 2022 2:33 pm
Not that far away, Puck was approaching the park, and for much the same reason. Laden with a backpack full of gardening supplies he'd culled from his own stash, he leapt from rooftop to rooftop as he made his way to the privacy of the park. All the while his mind was on what he'd found in the forests of his homeworld: that strange dead patch where nothing grew and everything died. In his backpack was some anti-fungal wash for plants, some soil nutrients to be mixed with the water he also carried, various gardening hand tools, and a start for a new shrub outside his chosen tree home. He figured that should be good enough to begin with. On the edge of the park's lawn, he finally noticed the aura of a fellow Eternal Senshi. So he wasn't going to be alone in the park after all. Still, rather than avoid whomever it was, he decided to find out if they had come across anything like what he had found on Puck. He hoped not – he wasn't sure what the dead patch was or what it meant, but he didn't like it. He tracked the aura and when he came upon the female Senshi sorting her own gardening supplies, he had to snicker. Seemed like a trend to go night-gardening on one's planet. Clearing his throat, he smiled at her as he spoke. "Hullo there. I'm Puck, of the Woods. You seem to be setting off to do the same thing I'm planning on doing," he said, jerking a thumb at his backpack and eyeing the large canvas bag the other Senshi was loading. "Need a hand with that?"
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Posted: Sat May 07, 2022 11:54 am
The warmth of an order signature grew as someone approached, alerting Ida to company. She was straightening up to stand when he came into view and she greeted the stranger with a smile, her bag's handles clasped in both hands before.
"Hello!" She called, giving him a once over. Plant based sphere, it seemed, like her own, if his outfit was any indication. Much more wild than her own uniform. Closer up, he was roughly her height, thin and wiry, and possibly near her own age, as much as one could tell like this. Faintly familiar too... Had he been talking to Scylla during the altercation with the aliens? She reached to tuck hair behind her ear, smoothing her hand down the brown braid that hung out of her hood.
"Puck?" Now that was an interesting name, considering the character that shared the same name. "I'm Ida. Its nice to meet you! Are you doing some late gardening too? I was about to head to my homeworld with some new seedlings and supplies. I've got it pretty well, but I appreciate the offer. If you didn't look like you also had a place to be, I'd invite you to come along. Its always nice to have visitors."
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Posted: Sat May 07, 2022 5:06 pm
Puck grinned as Ida introduced herself. She was pretty, and clearly flowery in her uniform; another gardener too, like Pendour. He vaguely remembered someone like her at the whole Caedus thing while he'd been hanging out with Scylla, though he didn't recognize her for sure. "Yeah, I'm about to head to my homeworld too, to do some gardening. I'm trying to tart up the place, you know, make it more home-y like. It's all woods and underbrush, not many flowers so not much color apart from green," he chuckled. "Also got a bit of a weird problem – found a funny-looking dead patch the other day, about a meter diameter. Dunno if it's a fungus or what, but I got a pack full of fungicides and things to try and deal with it." He tilted his head and regarded her. "You… haven't seen any sort of thing like that, have you?" Maybe she had, maybe she hadn't – it couldn't hurt to ask either way.
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Posted: Wed May 18, 2022 8:29 pm
Ida couldn't help smiling at the way he called it 'tart up the place' in that accent he had. It was both charming and amusing, and she found she liked this man already. He seemed to laugh easily, and obviously didn't take himself too seriously, unlike herself.
Pursing her lips, she considered his question, and the news that he'd found a dead patch. Plants on other worlds were very, well, foreign to them, there were all the usual suspects and a host of others that just didn't exist or happen on Earth.
"Well, things like that can happen sometimes... It could be a fungus, or some other sort of plant-based infection. Fungicide is a good way to start and see if it helps. What did the plants look like? Dried out and yellow? Did they have a sort of sickly color to them? Or... like a sort of dust over them?" There were probably other things she could suggest, if she had more information. It would be hard though... even if she thought she knew a solution, the alien biology throw all that right out the door.
"There are so many strange plants and animals on our worlds... it would make sense, I guess, that as they came back to life, diseases and things came back with them."
Not a pleasant thought, really, but a logical one.
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Posted: Thu May 19, 2022 10:51 am
"That's a good point, but… it seemed weirder than that," Puck said, his expression growing grim. "The plants looked more than dead – they looked dessicated. All grey and lifeless. Not even grey like fungus on the surface, either, a flat dead grey. You touch them, and they turn to dust. There were dead bugs, too, a couple firefly things I'd seen flittin' about." Despite himself, he shuddered. "There was a really weird feeling too, like unnatural. I know, what's natural on our worlds may not be what we're used to on Earth, but this was eerie as hell. The plants were dead, bugs were dead, the air itself was dead." He jerked his thumb over his shoulder toward his backpack of gardening supplies. "Anyway, I hope the fungicide helps, even a little bit. I don't like that dead spot, not at all." It sounded to him like Ida hadn't seen anything like this on her world, so maybe she was right and it was just localized to his, just a plant infection that had reawoken with the return of life on Puck. "Hopefully nothing like this is showing up on any other worlds, though I got a bad feeling about it… it's just too weird and unnatural to me."
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Posted: Thu Jun 02, 2022 4:24 pm
Ida's face scrunched a little as she chewed her lip, feeling... uncomfortable about what he described. That was unusual, sure, but again, alien biology... Except... weird feelings didn't tend to come with mundane plant disease. Maybe it was nothing, maybe he was over thinking it, but a planet's senshi had a tie to their world that went deep. Their starseed was linked to their world... its why they kept coming back, again and again, from the Cauldron to guard that world.
"I don't like the dead bugs... that suggests something other than a fungus or disease. Stuff like that wouldn't really affect the creatures, I think. Maybe some sort of like... gas leak? Or some other harmful substance that kills living things." She considered that, pondering what that might entail. That was far more outside of her comfort zone, into areas she had very little knowledge of.
"Do you... do you want to show me?" She asked, glancing up at him. "I could give a better guess if I could see what was going on. And I could help you apply the fungicide you brought."
Now, that felt awkward. Which was odd, considering she normally wasn't bothered to bring anyone to herworld at any moment.
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Posted: Sat Jun 25, 2022 9:24 pm
Puck didn't hesitate. "Yeah, sure, I can show you. And any help would be appreciated." He'd never brought anyone to his homeworld before; that one time Kurma was there, the strange man had just… appeared there. In all honesty, there wasn't anyone he could think of that he wanted to actually take to his homeworld. Not even Eros, who pretty much had her own planet to see to. So it felt a little strange when he held out his hand to Ida and shouldered his backpack of supplies. He felt almost a sense of urgency to this. Pulling his Senshi phone out of subspace, he keyed the Home button, and in a breath were whisked to the small moon orbiting Uranus. The giant pale blue orb filled most of the sky overhead, casting the clearing where Puck and Ida found themselves in a twilight glow. A great tree-home that clearly had been tended to stood off to one side, and more massive trees and forest surrounded the clearing. "Home sweet homeworld," he grinned at the other Eternal. Whimsical Blue sorry this took so long! heart
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Posted: Mon Jul 18, 2022 7:15 pm
It soothed some of Ida's awkwardness that he was so quick to agree to a trip and she relaxed a fraction. At least he didn't seem to find it awkward.
She hefted her own bags, careful about their cargo, and took his hand when he offered it. His palm was warm against hers, and she braced for the disorientation of the teleportation. She always knew what to expect, going to her own world, but what would she see on Puck's? Would it be similar to hers, or very different? Would it feel different, teleporting further than she usually went?
The magic took them and there was a sense of movement, a flicker in her vision, and then she was somewhere else. Her eyes rose to the hovering planet in the sky and she let out her breath slowly, awed by the size of it. So that was Uranus, 'up close'. It was beautiful... The forest around them when she brought her eyes back down was just as lovely. Massive trees, heavy with age, their branches gnarled and twisted. Smaller than the trees on Ida, but only just. Still far large enough for the house that had been built into one.
"Oh, wow." She said as she turned in place, her brown eyes wide. "This place is amazing! Its so different from Ida. You've been working on it too, yeah? It looks like you've got a lot done!"
Ida's voice was appreciative, as was the bright smile she turned back on him.
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Posted: Wed Jul 20, 2022 10:05 am
Puck beamed proudly. "Thanks, yeah, I put a lot of work into getting it tidied up and in some sort of presentable shape. Still not all there yet, but I figure it's a work in progress." Setting down his backpack, he gestured to Ida to set her bags down. "It's safe to just leave s**t piled about – there's nothing here big enough to run off with anything, there's just those little firefly bug things." That he'd seen so far, at least – there were parts of his little homeworld he hadn't explored yet, and if the fireflies were any indication, something resembling life was returning to his moon. It seemed only a matter of time before those enormous pillbug creatures and huge dragonflies he'd seen in his visions started turning up again. "D'you want to see the weird patch I was talking about? It's not far from here, just through the woods a bit."
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Posted: Thu Jul 21, 2022 5:22 pm
Ida brightened when he mentioned the fireflies. She put her things down beside him and nodded eagerly, straightening and pushing back her hood to free her hair.
"That's so cool. I've started getting bugs and animals back to. Its really amazing to see. I could spend hours and hours just watching them." She said. "But yeah, lets see the patch and see if we can't figure something out for it."
She couldn't stop herself from looking around with interest as she followed him, peering around trees and under bushes. She even breathed deeply, just to get a good sense of this place. It was, really, so different from Ida and those differences fascinated her. She really wanted to see some of the bugs he mentioned, or anything else that might be hiding in the foliage. There had to be interesting things, both plant and animal, in such a verdant place.
"Have you found any neat things from the past while you were working around here?" She asked, filling up the comfortable, green-tinted quiet with gentle conversation. "Buildings, artifacts, that sort of thing?"
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Posted: Sun Jul 24, 2022 10:34 pm
"No buildings, apart from those tree-houses back in the clearing," Puck replied as he led the way through the dense forest growth. "There was an… a thing, like a stone marker, that that Kurma bloke asked me to destroy. It was like a marker for hunters tracking these dragon creatures, he said. Real grim-like, too, he was. I told him I didn't want no-one hunting on my world, so I bashed it to pieces." He said it with some of the grim tone Kurma had used, but also with a touch of pride. A firefly-like bug winked into view as they walked past a slightly less dense patch of undergrowth. "Looklooklook," he whispered excitedly and pointed, a delighted grin crossing his face as two more appeared. "That's what I'm talking about! There's probably other things like this in the undergrowth that I just ain't seen yet." He was immensely pleased that life was returning to his little world. There was a noticeable change in the air around them, a sense of foreboding washing over Puck and Ida and telling them they were approaching the weird dead patch. "There it is," he murmured to her, pointing it out. "It's gotten bigger since I was last here…"
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Posted: Sat Aug 06, 2022 6:11 pm
"Kurma? Another senshi?" Ida asked as she followed along. "I haven't met anyone by that name yet. That sounds like a story... dragons and mystical stones. I'm glad you did whatever you needed to do."
Without more context it was about all she could say about it. She wanted to ask what had happened, but there was enough going on to keep them both occupied right now. When Puck pointed out a small, glowing light, Ida almost completely forgot her questions and she leaned in to peer where he pointed, her brown eyes wide.
"Oh! Look at them... they're so pretty!" She murmured softly, lest she disturb the small insects by being too loud. They really were pretty... she'd always loved the idea of fireflies and the pictures she'd seen of wooded vales filled with the tiny lights. Being a city girl, though, the opportunity to see them had been few and far between. It there were fireflies here, of a sort, maybe Ida might have them some day too? That would be truly wonderful... laying in the tall grass, watching the lights bob about...
That sweet, pleasant thought soured though as a feeling of dread crept in, moment by moment, the further they went. Then they were there, and Puck pointed out the dead spot they had spoken about. As Ida approached, she had that same uncomfortable feeling, that sense of being watched, of something wrong. That feeling grew even worse once she saw the blackened, dead plants, some already crumbling to ash. As she stepped up to the edge, the senshi crouched down to take a closer look, tucking her skirt under her.
"Yeah, it really doesn't look good, does it?" She said as she reached out to touch some of the affected plants, pressing it between her fingers until it broke apart. "What did you say you had tried on it? And its gotten larger?"
That wasn't too surprising... sickness did tend to spread. Usually the effect was more gradual though... you'd see signs of it before the plants completely died. And it wasn't often they were this... desiccated. She didn't like it. It didn't match up with anything she'd seen or heard about and it just gave her such a weird feeling to look at it.
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