ic Learning to Garden

[Darksider42]

Lilly sat just inside the Administrative Building of the Claremont Academy, anxiety slowly building up as time stretched on with the only distraction being the wi-fi on her phone. The young plant controller had been offered to take part of a mentorship program that the school had been developing for some time. The plan was to pair a student up with another superhero so they could better grasp their powers from someone with more experience. More similar the abilities, the better. It was a coincidence that Freedom City was frequented by Fleur de Joie, a legendary plant controller who had earned a place on the Freedom League and was adored by millions in the country.

 

One could see why Lillian King would be more than a bit nervous.

 

She was not sure if she was suppose to do their first meeting in costume or now. The uncertainty was enough to convince her to stay casual for today. Black jeans, black shirt, leather jacket to keep the cold out and a pair of worn boots just in case she had to do any running. And so, she waited for her arrival.

[Electra]

The front door opened and a small woman walked in, even shorter than Lilly. She wore faded blue jeans and an old Northwestern College sweatshirt under a jacket and what must have been incredibly long green hair was braided in a tight crown against her head. Next to her was a little girl, maybe preschool aged, with riotously curly green hair and a puffy pink winter coat. The little girl got a load of Lilly and hid behind the woman's leg, but the woman herself smiled kindly in the student's direction. "Hi, are you Lilly? I'm Stesha Madison, and this is my daughter Amaryllis." As Stesha approached, Lilly could feel a faint stir of well-banked power, and smell a faint whiff of flowers. 

[Darksider42]

Lilly's eyes went wide the moment Stesha announced herself, her phone vanishing into her pocket. It was apparent this is not quite what she expected. It took her a moment to realise that she might have been staring a second a longer than necessary. "Oh hey. Yes. I'm Lillian." She said a little nervously.  The young plant controller seemed to calm down a little as Stesha approached. She looked down and crouched down to Amaryllis's level. "Hi. Don't worry, I don't bite." she said with a reassuring smile and a small wave.

[Electra]

Amaryllis gave Lilly a shy smile and a finger wave, though she didn't seem quite ready to come out from behind her mother just yet. "Sorry I didn't tell you ahead of time I was bringing her," Stesha apologized with a somewhat abashed grin. "I told her this morning I was coming to meet another girl who could control plants and she insisted on getting an introduction as well. I'll be dropping her off at Nicholson in just a few minutes." Lilly had heard of Nicholson School, it was the feeder school for Claremont, where children with metahuman abilities could learn to control their powers before starting hero training at Claremont. If Amaryllis was attending so young then she almost certainly had powers, if the green hair and famous mother weren't tip-off enough. "I don't have a lot of concrete plans for today, I thought this could be more a getting-to-know-you session. Do you like coffee?" 

[Darksider42]

The Teen did not seem that surprised by that revelation. "Oh. Well I hope you have fun at school." Lilly said with one last smile before standing back up. Nicholson was something she had heard of coming here, but it was more of something on the periphery with Claremont and all the strangeness that came with it occupying most of her attention.

"They didn't give me much of a curriculum myself." Lilly herself admitted. It was obvious this program had a few kinks they were still working out. At least not showing up out of costume was not going to get her in trouble. "That sounds like a plan. I haven't had one today."

[Electra]

"Okay, great," Stesha replied, pleased. "If you don't mind coming with me to drop Ammy at school, we can go to my home on Sanctuary and have coffee and talk. You don't mind dimensional travel, do you? Just a quick hop and back, really, but if you'd rather, we can drop by Starbucks instead." She led the way back out of the building and onto the lawn, where a massive sunflower had apparently grown from nowhere and bloomed a flower six feet around. As Stesha approached, it yawned open like a door, revealing green light within. Amaryllis acted like this was nothing unusual, she hitched up her little backpack and hopped into the flower without any hesitation at all. 

[Darksider42]

Lilly hesitated the moment she heard the words 'Dimensional Travel' uttered. A frown started to show. "Can't say I've done it a lot... " She said. While she did have some experience with the Root Roads, it did leave her a bit dizzy. "...Shouldn't be too much of a problem though." The teen concluded, managing to look a bit more resolute.

 

Though once again she paused the moment she saw how she would be making the jump between worlds. The sight of Amaryllis walking in like it was nothing did give her a bit of a confidence boost. Can't embarrass myself. Lilly thought as she took her first tentative steps into the sunflower.

[Electra]

There was a quick rush of green light, the scent of crisp autumn leaves, and then all three of them were standing outside an entirely different school building, in front of a tree with a rapidly-decreasing person-sized knot in the trunk. The sign above the front door read simply "Nicholson Primary School" in the same font as a thousand other aggressively unmemorable elementary schools. A yellow school bus was just pulling up outside, discharging a handful of children, one of whom had silvery-blue skin and white hair, one of whom literally flew out the bus door. Amaryllis waved to Lilly, then pbviously decided that this was not good enough. Reaching down, she drew a circle on the ground with her small finger. In the center of the circle, a green shoot began to grow, shakily at first, then increasing in both size and speed. Very quickly, it sprouted lacy leaves, then a green stem and a fat yellow dandelion head. Plucking the flower at the base of its stem, the little girl presented it to Lilly with great pride. "It's for you!" 

[Darksider42]

Other than the bright light, it was no doubt the smoothest jump Lilly had done since gaining her powers. That did not stop her from trying to blink and rub her eyes in an attempt to get rid of the blotches in her vision quickly. Her eyes recovered fast enough for her to see the students arrive. It really does look like a miniature Claremont.

 

Lillian looked down at Ammy and smiled. "Aww, Thank you." She crouched down again and took the flower. Her hand went behind her back and she concentrated for a moment. A small sprout appeared behind her. It grew rapidly, although the jerky growth gave one the impression the teen might lose control and create something else altogether. But in the end she managed. The flower bloomed into a pink llily. She managed to pluck it from the earth and hand it to Amaryllis. "Here you go. One for you as well."

Edited December 31, 2016 by Darksider42

[Electra]

"Thank you!" Pleased with the gift, Ammy took the flower, hugged her mother, and then ran off to join her friends.

 

Stesha watched her go with a fond, slightly wistful smile. "No separation anxiety problems there," she murmured, then turned to grin at Lilly. "Right then, coffee time." A wave of her hand opened the portal again, this time with light of a slightly deeper green. "Do you spontaneously generate all your plants?" she asked curiously, in the way of shop talk. "I usually find it easier to start from seeds when I can." 

[Darksider42]

Lillian waved at Ammy just as she vanished into the crowd of students. She stood back up and smiled. "Yeah. Coffee always sounds good."

 

"So far I have. I've have a bit of a control problem...But I haven't turned the school into a jungle yet so thats a good sign." She thought about it for a moment before giving a shrug and continuing. "I haven't tried growing my plants from seeds. Not even sure where I can get Venus Fly Trap seeds" Lilly made sure this time to keep her eyes shut when she entered the light.

[Electra]

"I could get you some, they're surprisingly easy to propagate," Fleur told her as they stepped out of the green light and into a clearing in what looked like the middle of a dense forest. In the center of the clearing was a house made of live plants and what looked like faceted quartz, still green despite the season and a striking visual in the morning sunlight. "But if you don't have any trouble making them right now, there's no reason to mess with success! Everyone's powers work a little differently, that's what's so fascinating about metahumanity." 

 

She turned and led the way up a little crushed-rock path towards the house. "This is Sanctuary, the world I'm terraforming. Ammy and I live here most of the time and take care of the place. It looks a lot nicer in the spring, obviously, but it's home. Where do you come from?" 

[Darksider42]

Lillian opened her eyes and stared at the world before her. Looks like something out of a fairy tale. It even felt different in some almost imperceptible way that defied description. She wondered how the spirits here might be different from the ones around Freedom City. Does the Court of Leaves reach extend to here as well? Then of course another question came that knocked her out of her fascinated contemplation. "Terraform? What happened?"

 

Lilly paused as she thought on the question. The teenager was not sure how much about herself she was allowed to reveal. That was another thing she would no doubt need to ask the school staff about in the future. "I'm from a small town in Oregon. It was a bit overgrown. But not quite like this." She explained, gesturing to the surrounding forest with her hand. "How did you make that anyway? Aren't you worried its going to wither away during the winter?" She pointed to Stesha's house sitting in the clearing.

[Electra]

Stesha laughed. "Nah, I live here," she explained to Lilly. "If I went away for a long time, it might wither, maybe even die," she allowed, "but while I'm nearby, nothing dies." Indeed, though the bite in the air here suggested a time of year similar to Freedom City's, the grass, flowers and deciduous trees surrounding them seemed to speak of nothing later than early fall. "I built the core of it with some judicious use of trellises, but for the additions, I really just grow the plants in the shape I want. I had a friend help me with the windows. Come on in." 

 

She led the way into the house, which was cozy and warm on the inside, with a faint smell of leaves and cinnamon tea. There weren't a lot of interior walls in the main area, just one large room that had a compact kitchen, a dining area and a living area complete with a television. Walking into the kitchen, Stesha poured water from a pitcher into an electric kettle and started it going. "This is an alternate Earth," she explained. "You got some dimensional theory at school, right? This is one of those Earths where things went really, really wrong about seventy-five years ago. We still haven't figured out exactly what it was, but there's some evidence there was an arms race spurred on by the Grue and everything got wiped out. Pockets of survivors here and there, but it was mostly completely trashed and empty. Back when my powers started growing to the macro scale, I needed somewhere to practice large-scale transformations that wouldn't hurt things in Freedom City. A completely blasted landscape was pretty safe. And it sort of grew into a project." She smiled, a little ruefully. "How dark do you like your coffee?"

[Darksider42]

"So spirits don't maintain it? Huh. Most of everything I create seems to last and act like a proper plant when I grow it...Assuming it grew out of soil." A few experiments with her powers have taught Lilly that while she could grow plants out of some questionable places, they were not likely going to last unless planted somewhere they could actually survive. Still, she listened as Stesha explained everything from the house to where exactly they were.

"I haven't been at Claremont long but I do remember it being covered in science class. They only sorta covered the basics and some dimensions like the Nazi one." She frowned when she recalled that place. The idea of them winning the war was terrifying for her. Thankfully that thought along with whatever existential terror that would lead to was dislodged by a more important question. "Oh, no milk please."

[Electra]

"No, no spirits," Stesha replied, setting out a little french press and scooping coffee into it, then pouring the hot water over top. "We don't do very much with spirits here on Sanctuary, there was so much death, I'd be a little worried how someone attuned to the spirit world would deal with all of it, even as long ago as it was. My personal aura of power seems to be enough to sustain plants around me, but I haven't done a huge amount of scientific testing." There were a number of brilliantly colored flowers in pots on the counter, Stesha reached inside one in a slightly physics-defying maneuver and withdrew a white bakery bag. 

 

"Erde is a nasty place," she agreed with Lilly's unspoken opinion. "There are a few very nasty, very dangerous dimensions out there, and you don't want to go anywhere near them. This area of the dimensional sheaf is safe and quiet, very rarely disturbed. And with Gabriel and Gaian Knight here to help out, there's very little that's going to threaten us." She automatically brushed her knuckles over the counter, knocking on wood, then set the muffins from the bag out onto a plate. "It's peaceful here, and that's good. Most of the people who live here have had very hard lives and deserve some safety." With careful expertise, Stesha pushed down the press and poured coffee into two mugs. "So, are you on a superteam at Claremont?" 

[Darksider42]

Lilly's frown returned, even deeper than before. "No Spirits here at all?" That thought seemed even more troubling than the Nazi's ruling everything right then. Though it was possible something was nearby. She was a bit afraid to actually look outside and check. She nodded along with what Stesha said while the teen patiently waited for her coffee. "No. Nothing yet. I don't know how that's handled." She said, shaking her head. "Though I have met a few of the others there. They seem nice so far." There was a small pause. It looked like she was thinking on what to say next. "...Whats the Freedom League like?"

Edited January 9, 2017 by Darksider42

[Electra]

"I don't actually know about spirits," Stesha admitted. "I don't use spirits in my work and I'm not aware of their presence, so I suppose there could be tons of them around and I'd have no idea. But if there are, they haven't made much of a presence of themselves so far." She pushed Lilly's coffee mug to her, then poured milk into her own and carried it, along with the muffins, to the table. "The Freedom League is an interesting gig, I haven't been main-team for long, but you see a lot of really bizarre stuff. It can be a lot of stress, I mean, we don't usually get called out for the small potatoes, but it's rewardng, too." She laughed a little, wryly. "I wasn't really expecting how much it was going to destroy my attempts at a secret identity, but I was never very good at it anyway." A gesture at her elaborately-braided green hair explained that. "Are you looking to join up someday?"

[Darksider42]

Lilly nodded. She suspected their powers worked differently as soon as they started teleportation dimensions. There was still the question if she could do that however. "I could have a look around later on. A good mix of nature spirits might be able to help with your plans to fix this planet up." The teen offered as she grabbed her coffee and added in a few spoonfuls of sugar.

"I'm...Not sure." She answered with a frown. "Honestly I have not put that much thought into the future. Been busy just trying to get through each day. Does sound kinda exciting but I'm not sure how that might cut into my... new responsibilities." Lillian looked down at her hand, eyebrows creased like she was in deep thought. She sighed, shook her head and took a sip of her coffee.

[Electra]

"I never turn down help," Stesha agreed with easy affability. "There's more than enough to do around here, if some nature spirits want to lend a hand, that'd be great!" She took her coffee very light and very sweet, then dunked a bit of her muffin into it. "Luckily, you don't have to make any decisions about your future just yet. Claremont will help you get a good look at everything you can do, and then you can decide what's going to fit your life. It's okay if you can only hero on the weekends or in big emergencies, every little bit helps!" She grinned reminiscently. "When I got started, I was still working full time as a florist, and I could only go out in the middle of the night. No uniform, no team, barely a plan at all, I'd just go out and beautify the parks around the city. I still do, every once in awhile," she admitted with a laugh. "But there's only so many hours in the day." 

[Darksider42]

"Well I'll need to find them first." Lilly said as she drank her sugar loaded coffee. "Don't know what they will be like. I'm guessing they might like you if you are able to do all of this." She added with a wave of her hand. There was a faint pulse of something in the house. Perhaps they did continue existing on this planet. More questions for latter she guessed.

 

The teen grabbed one of the muffins and listened to Stesha, nibbling on it between caffeine sips. "Haven't even thought about what job to get either. Got a bit sidetracked by the whole Nature Spirit Guardian thing." She explained with a glance at the black depths of her mug. "Its a bit overwhelming. Plus not a lot of people with first hand experience with them."

[Electra]

That drew a laugh from Stesha. "Yeah, the whole getting-superpowers business does sort of throw a wrench into previous career plans. Though if you do have a passion besides plants, don't feel like you can't follow it just because you have powers," she advised. "The powers aren't all of what you are, or what defines you. You can still help out in a crisis or whenever the opportunity arises if you decide a life as a full-time superhero isn't for you. I know Claremont tends to be a little pushy on that, but there are plenty of metahumans who never put on a costume. It doesn't mean they don't help." She offered the girl another cookie. "Any subjects you particularly enjoy?"