The World Laughs In Flowers (IC)

[April]

September 3, 2011 - 8:53 AM

Freedom Hall, Front Lawn

The air was cool and crisp the morning Willow stepped onto the immaculately manicured lawn of Freedom Hall, headquarters to some of Freedom City's--and the worlds--brave and bold, but Willow didn't notice the chill even dressed as lightly as she was. It was the ancient Guardian's first visit to what many would consider hallowed, or at least sainted, ground and truth be told she was a little nervous.

There were a number of reasons for this, of course. She was in the middle of a human metropolis for starters, the towering buildings of glass and steel and concrete were rather intimidating to one that spent countless millennia living under the stars. And then there was the reputation of the Freedom League; Willow did know of them, of course, her teammates on the Interceptors had given the dryad some rudimentary background information on the city, and her own clandestine observations of Freedom City's inhabitants helped round out her education.

And she was meeting one of those august personages today. How the League knew about her was still a mystery to Willow, she generally kept a low profile and operated in the more wild areas surrounding the city proper (as well as stopping the occasional mugging in one of the city's many parks) but she couldn't refuse a request for assistance.

[Electra]

Willow didn't have long to wait. Her sensitivity to nature gave her a moment's warning before one of the tree trunks nearby yawned open like a door, allowing a woman to step out. Fleur de Joie was back in uniform these days, her green tunic and trousers covered by a brown half-cowl and ringed by a belt full of pouches. She'd added a new accessory, though, in the green-haired infant snug in a sling against her chest. Fleur put back her hood to reveal her own green hair, put up in braids and pins to keep it out of the way, and looked around the lawn. She smiled as she spotted Willow.

"Hello!" she called, walking over. "You must be Willow! I've heard about you, but I've been so busy this summer, I never had a chance to look you up. I really appreciate you coming over to meet me today."

[April]

"Yes, I am Willow," the dryad acknowledged. "And you must be the Guardian Fleur de Joie," she continued, pausing for a moment as her amber eyes flicked over the small bundle strapped across the green-haired woman's chest. The smile Willow wore broadened slightly when she took notice of Amaryllis. "Mother," she said her tone thoughtful, and the way she said mother, it was like she was using a title.

"What is her name?" the ancient Guardian asked quietly, attention still focused on the baby.

[Electra]

Stesha smiled back, reaching down to lift the baby from the sling. "This is Amaryllis," she said proudly, even as the baby blinked wide blue eyes and stretched her little arms and legs. "She's three months old today." Removed from the shade of the sling and her mother's shadow, the baby's light green hair began to shift to a deeper shade, more like summertime grass. "We tend to call her Ammy, because Amaryllis is a big name for a little bit. I generally take her around with me if I don't expect trouble. It's so much nicer than finding a babysitter."

[April]

Willow gave a quiet hum of surprise at the change in Amaryllis' hair and she adopted an agreeable expression. "I have observed humans with green hair," she said after a moment. "It has been a long time since I have observed something like hers," amber eyes flicked over Fleur's own green locks, "or yours."

"The world could use more like you, Mother Fleur," the coppery skinned woman said, lightly touching her abdomen in a subconscious gesture.

[Electra]

Fleur laughed, though she caught and filed away the small motion. "I think I'm going to wait till this one a little bit older before we try for any more," she joked. "I want a big family, but I'd prefer handling nighttime feedings and diapers one child at a time. And since you're helping me out of a bind today, you should call me Stesha." She tucked the baby into the crook of her arm and extended a hand towards Willow's shoulder. "Are you ready to go?" she asked. "I just need to touch you for the teleport."

[April]

"Ah, Stesha." Willow gave a small laugh and a quick shake of her head before tucking a strand of white hair behind a pointed ear. "I forgot that most human Guardians have two names, a fact Er--Jack needs to remind me of on occasion, but.. Stesha it is." The dryad's smile flickered to a faint frown for a heartbeat, "I have no other name to offer you, I am still Willow."

But her smile recovered and she nodded at Stesha. "Ready to depart for... what task am I to help with?"

[Electra]

"Willow is a lovely name," Stesha assured her. "As for what we're doing... well, it's easier to show you." She touched Willow's shoulder, and in a moment they were elsewhere. For one stunning second the world was full of rich green and the smell of freshly cut grass, and then they popped out on the edge of a large forest. Spread in front of them was a wall of twenty and thirty foot trees, some even larger, with a carpet of grass unfolded beneath. It looked like a beautiful and unspoiled part of Earth, but for someone as tuned-in as Willow, it was immediately obvious that this was not the Earth they'd been on moments ago. Amaryllis blew a raspberry at the sensation of transit.

"This is Sanctuary," she told Willow. "It's an alternate Earth, a different timeline where the world's past happened differently. It's an evacuation site in case things with the Gorgon don't go as planned, or for future disasters."

[April]

"We're all dead here."

Willow had a distant look on her face as she made her strange pronouncement, turning slowly to examine her surroundings. She shivered slightly and her eyes regained focus as they turned to regard Stesha.

"My sisters. Myself. We're all dead here or this never would have happened." Her mouth twisted into a frown. "Or we never where." The dryad closed her eyes and took a deep breath (made all the more obvious since Stesha easily observed she didn't seem to breathe before) and exhaled slowly, visibly relaxing.

"Apologies," she said, flashing a faint smile at the green-haired heroine, "Those were unpleasant thoughts."

[Electra]

"Are you all right?" Stesha asked, obviously concerned by the strange display. It took her a moment to figure out what Willow was talking about. Despite the blasted landscapes she'd been dealing with lately, somehow Stesha found it easy to forget that this was an Earth where everything had died. Most of the time she saw it as a canvas ready for priming and creativity. "Yes, I'm afraid that this Earth didn't have a good end," she admitted. "But we're trying to give it a new beginning, starting here, with these forests and meadows and wild places. Would you like to sit down for a minute?" she asked solicitously. "I could make you a cup of tea before we get started."

[April]

"Tea would be welcome," Willow said nodding at Stesha while she sat down in the grass. The idea that she and all her sisters were either all dead or never existed bothered the ancient creature to her core. But another thought bothered her; what if she and her sisters had a hand in the devastation?

"When you live long enough, Stesha," Willow said after a moment, shivering slightly. "You grow used to it. You never consider that your life could end, and when you're as resilient as my kind are, how could we ever fathom an end to our existence?"

"I feel mortal here. It is not a pleasant feeling... but perhaps it is what I needed."

[Electra]

Stesha crouched in the grass next to Willow, wide-eyed Amaryllis nestled in the crook of her arm. "I'm sorry, I didn't realize this would be a bad experience for you," she told the guardian with concern. She reached out and touched Willow's hand, and in a moment they had moved again, this time so that they were sitting on the grass carpet of a house made entirely of plants. There was a comfortable living room set and a kitchenette that could've sat in any Freedom City apartment, but they were still far, far from the Freedom City Willow knew. "Let me make the tea, and if you like, I can take you back to Prime."

Stesha wasn't quite sure what she would do without the extra hands she'd been counting on, but Willow seemed so shaken, it would be cruel to ignore that. Seeking a distraction, she held the baby out to Willow. "Would you mind holding her while I put the kettle on?" Amaryllis, generally a calm sort of infant, looked at Willow expectantly.

[April]

Willow accepted little Amaryllis, instinctively tucking her in the crook of her arm, taking care to make sure the baby was supported and comfortable. She sat there for a few moments looking down at the baby as she collected her thoughts and composure, a task made surprisingly easy with a child in her arms.

After a time she looked up at Stesha. "No, I will not return to Prime," she said with a shake of her head. "We have work to do here. How many refugees can Sanctuary support now?"

[Electra]

Stesha put the kettle on with graceful efficiency, digging into a ceramic jar for teabags. She picked chamomile for Willow and fenugreek for herself, dropping the bags into empty mugs to wait for water. "We're hoping to hold ten to fifteen thousand refugees by the time we're at capacity. Right now we have room for about half that, and supplies to match. Other organizations and other countries have different evacuation strategies, so we aren't the only ones, but it's still difficult to think about. How if things go wrong, we could become nothing more than a scattered collection of refugees, at least until and unless someone can reverse the Gorgon's effects." She sighed, watching her teapot as trails of steam began to rise from the spout. "I tell myself it won't come to that, that this is mostly for the peace of mind of all the people who will be fighting the Gorgon, but at the same time, we have to work as though it's all for real."

[April]

"Hmm."

The Guardian thought that over for a moment; she didn't much like the idea of the Gorgon (even thinking that name tugged at Willow's memory, a disconcerting but ultimately fleeting sensation) following through with its intentions, but planning for that contingency made a great deal of sense. She traced her finger down the bridge of Amaryllis' nose and lightly tapped the tip, silently vowing that the Gorgon would not succeed in its plans.

"So our immediate priorities are water, shelter and a sustainable food source, correct? Anything else I'm missing?"

[Electra]

"All of those are priorities, yes," Stesha agreed, pouring boiling water over the teabags and carrying the mugs to the living area. "We're working on all of those simultaneously in different areas of Sanctuary. But the first priority, the biggest priority, is actually clean air and soil. Most of the land here, most of the air, is in terrible shape. Marginal even for healthy adults to live on, and totally unsuitable for the vulnerable population we'll be importing."

She set down a mug within Willow's reach, then sat crosslegged on the floor with her own. Gesturing around them, she continued, "All of this here is clean because I was able to use plants to scrub the earth and filter the air. This giant forest and all the trees does a lot more than just be pretty and provide wood, it's literally keeping everything here alive. As we expand the human-occupied territory, we change the ecological balance I achieved, and so we need to address that right away. We need more forest," she explained, "a lot more forest, with plants that are good at absorbing toxins. I was told you'd probably be able to help with that?"

[April]

"Of course," she said with a nod. She looked thoughtful for a moment, teasing Amaryllis' hair a bit. "I often reshape, or rather remake, plants for my own purposes. What I craft here though, we must be careful that it does not leave Sanctuary, which means travelers between both worlds will need to be checked to make sure we do not contaminate Prime."

The dryad made a quiet little sound, knitting her brows together. "Multiple plants," she amended.

[Electra]

"The place I'll be asking you to work is out beyond the settlements," Stesha told her, taking a sip of her tea. Amaryllis blew a raspberry at Willow and reached up to grab the fingers tousling her wispy green hair. "The air quality deteriorates significantly beyond the ring of developed land I've already created. Most of what was Freedom City is going to be very difficult to reclaim, so I'm focusing efforts to the south and west, where things aren't as badly off. Do you want me to take her back so you can drink?" she offered with a smile. "She's a bit of a handful."

[April]

Willow gave a soft chuckle as her fingers were grabbed by tiny hands and she shook her head. "I'll drink my tea in a moment," she said as the dryad glanced up at Stesha, her amber eyes holding a somewhat guarded look.

"What is it like, being a Mother?" she asked quietly, breaking eye contact with the green haired woman to look back at the child. "I must confess, for all my years I have no experience in the matter and I fear I will not know what to do."

[Electra]

Stesha chuckled a little bit. "I don't think there's any woman who doesn't feel that way before having children," she admitted. "Becoming a mother is terrifying. You go the nine months and you watch what you eat, what you do, but mostly everything is taken care of by your body. Then suddenly you've got this tiny person who needs you to do everything, and to think about doing everything. You have to make the right choices, and every time you make a decision, you wonder if that's a decision that's going to resonate through the years and fundamentally change who that child becomes."

Her smile, a bit rueful to start, suddenly warmed. "But it's wonderful as well. There's something so... so pure, I suppose, about the love you have for your own child. And when you do things for them, it's almost like doing them for yourself. And at first it's like pouring water into an opaque container, and you're just filling and filling and nothing is happening, but then there's a moment where your child looks at you and recognizes you, and that first moment when she smiles at you, and it feels like you won the lottery."

She took a sip of her tea, smiled at the baby who was now trying to grab for Willow's hair. "My mom said that having children is like taking your heart out and letting it walk around outside your body. I think maybe that's the best analogy I can come up with, too."

[April]

"I see."

Willow winced slightly as Amaryllis managed to ball up a length of white hair in her tiny fist and give a good yank but the dryad hardly seemed to notice. "I wonder if I am doing the right thing," she said, voice barely above a whisper. "At first, I thought only to bring more of my kind into this world for I have not seen any of my sisters in nearly two thousand years. I have not told the father this."

Willow sighed and tried to extract her strand of hair from the baby's fist, but it was only a half-hearted attempt and she flashed the tiny human a quick smile. "And then I got to know the Swordmaster, to truly know him for the good man that he is. I began to worry about his mortality and... and I grew to love him."

"I have not told him this either."

[Electra]

Stesha leaned in to untangle Ammy's tiny fingers from Willow's hair, but kept her full attention on the other woman's words. "Swordmaster... Jack of all Blades," she guessed, remembering where Willow's heroic connections seemed to mostly be. She let out a breath, thinking through the situation. "Just to be sure I've got the situation right," she said tentatively, "you and Jack are together, but you haven't told him yet that you love him? And you haven't told him yet that you're pregnant." Her voice was sympathetic, for all her head was crowded with the complications this could lead to. "Do you know yet when you're due?"

[April]

"Yes, Jack of All Blades," the white haired woman confirmed, nodding slightly at Stesha. "And yes, I have withheld these things from him." Her voice lost some of its quiet confidence as she added, "I do not think he or I intended for it to be lasting but my heart has become... dependent upon him. But I do not think he feels the same way as I do."

"Besides, this developed rather quickly, even by human standards." Willow sighed and seemed to be considering something. "As for when I am due... I am uncertain. This is my first, and even though I have a modicum of control over the process I still do not know how long the gestation period is for one of my kind."

[Electra]

"Mmm, that makes things more complicated," Stesha admitted thoughtfully. "But you really do need to tell him. It's the right thing to do, no matter how you feel about each other. Jack is a good man, even if he's a little wild sometimes," she said with a half-smile, "it would hurt him if you don't tell him he's going to be a father. And if you don't tell him how you feel about him," she added, "how can you know whether he feels the same about you?"

Amaryllis began to squirm in Willow's arms, her little face scrunching up as she tried to get another handful of the hair she'd been denied. Stesha kept an eye on her, but kept speaking. "As for the mechanics of it, you can probably get some help with that at ArcheTech or The Lab. Miss Americana helped us when I was pregnant, and the whole city is full of superscientists and super-physicians. They'll be able to find some answers, I'm sure."

[April]

"I will do that then, provided I can find the time upon returning to Prime." She shifted the baby in her arms slightly and held her out to her mother. "I will tell Jack what my heart has been telling me, I will also tell him about the child. And," she said, pausing slightly, "I will see what The Lab or ArcheTech can tell me."

"But we have a lot to do here on Sanctuary first, and a real deadline we must meet. The plants I will craft for you, you must warn the refugees to stay clear of them. I know that they will be for the outer fringes, but humans wander. I think I will give them some rather clear 'do not disturb' warning signs to discourage the adventurous."