revivalproject

Entry tags:

Mesh

WHO: You, your favourite person, your least favourite person, and someone you've never met. Open!
WHERE: The library garden, Temba
WHAT: Putting the plants in order, for fun and...fun. Tony's been building a hedge maze.
WHEN: A lovely summer evening.
WARNINGS: Mark it if you get nasty. This is an open invitation function, and the sheriff can't stop all of you at once.

NETWORK // un: ironman // TEXT
Come to the library. Try to find your way out.
It's better with a hand to hold.

What was supposed to be a much more gradual project had rapidly become unmanageable. After being released back into the sunlight, Tony was sure he was going to return to a yard that was parched and languishing without care. He had never been much of a botanist, if he could help it. What he found instead was a snarl of plants that were threatening to take over any progress he had made on this project, while he transformed the room in the library basement into his workshop and repurposed the gutted parts, and beating the stems and petals back was only getting him so far. The ring he had been carrying around, telling himself he needed just the right place to reveal it, might have still been missing, but this garden was not going to tolerate being tamed for long.

Even on the terrace wrapping the back of the library, the greenery broke through the flagstones in wild tufts of grass and thorny weeds that had to be hacked back. Much of it now was burning sweetly in the firepit, ringed by the last of the intact stone benches that were found here. Maybe sitting under them was more comfortable, though, like the few, cuddling mothcats that could be found there, because the benches were clearly Agrii design. The yard back here was braced in by a few tall trees along the edges of the property, obscuring most of the road beyond and sending fluttering seedpods skipping across the stones with every summer breeze.

Dominating the space now was a maze. It was imposing, particularly in low light, after the sun had set and Tony had sent his cryptic message. Not much could be seen peering into the structure from the entrance; the depths darkened rapidly, and the first path to choose came quickly. Flanking the entrance were torches, though, and with them baskets of lumpy, oily candles that could be lit on the flickering braziers to carry into the dark, and become floating points of light that whispered past each other in the soft grass and between the fragrant, lusciously flowering walls of the maze. Even now, the branches and vines that determined the structure seemed to be stretching voraciously, leaving beds of petals where they had crashed into each other, and sneaking across the paths to catch uncritical toes. Even experienced maze-solvers might find some challenges within, with some tricks of the eye and secret doors to discover, but they might also find there was no rush to the exit; the myriad blind alleys and cul-de-sacs weren't simply dead ends. In one, a set of swings, flat wooden boards hung close to each other and maybe tall enough to peek over the maze wall with an enthusiastic enough push. In another, a shallow pond, thick with small flowers that swam over the surface of the water that glowed eerily. A particularly lucky and industrious explorer might find a puzzle box, waiting patiently in a nest of purple sand, that rattled when shook. There was definitely something in there. What else might be hidden in the dark?* Around only a few corners, the whole experience might be over, breaking back into the open garden of the library from a surprising nook just a few steps away from the inviting entrance to the maze. It would probably be better not to get too impatient.

*Feel free to make up some fun, weird stuff, I'm sure we can all be cool. If you're really not sure and need me to say yes, you can dm here or @ me on discord.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

"You just had to phrase it ominously, haven't you." Jon remarks flatly, emptying another bucket of weeds into the firepit. Any of the plants have been growing like crazy ever since they were released from calibrations, which had turned the previously acceptable chore of maintaining an acceptable garden into a bit of a challenge. As for Tony's little project? Well, Jon hasn't minded it when Tony had started doing something in the garden and he doesn't mind the outcome either. "Because not enough people here already believe me to be out to- I don't know. Eat them or whatever."

He sets the bucket down on one of the nearby benches and wipes some sweat away from under his glasses, careful not to simply run soil all over his face. "The rate everything grows right now is ridiculous, though. Like the city has decided to undo what progress we have made here over the past few years." And these plants? Certainly are working a lot faster than them.

The growth wasn't something that Tony could claim to understand, and wasn't even sure if it made him nervous. Shifts like this happened in cycles, right? Rarely ones that Tony ever actually noticed. It could be the alien climate, or Jon could be closer to correct than Tony was comfortable, and the growth was a conscious effort.

It did make for enthusiastic building material, though. "It wasn't ominous," Tony argued as he plucked a clover from a vine climbing the wall of the library, releasing a scent like scorched sugar into the air. "What else was I supposed to say? It was an invitation. I don't know anyone who wouldn't be delighted to be eaten by you." He smiled like it was the nicest thing he had ever said as he tucked the vine-flower behind Jon's ear, which didn't make him look any more like a minotaur but they could work on it if Jon was developing an image for himself.

More soberly, he continued, "If Tommy shows up, we can ask him what he thinks about the plants. He said they've kind of done this before, with that stuff that he feeds the glownies, and that doesn't seem to have destroyed us." Not that Tony really knew, he realized, because he didn't think to ask if the incident had resulted in any deaths. That might explain why so many people seemed to get so attached to the animals.

The floral gift is accepted by means of Jon not removing it from where Tony placed it on him despite the words this gift is being delivered with receiving a flustered little pout along with a small scowl. "I'd hope you're the only one getting excited by that idea." He returns with the hint of a smirk tugging at the corner of his mouth.

Crossing his arms, Jon looks over to the hedge maze, his eyes tracing the height these plants have reached in incredibly little time. "The glownies have been taken care of the mint so far, yes. I dare to hope we don't need to employ more herbivores around the city to tame this outbreak as well."

His attention returns to Tony. "What did you put in that puzzle box?"

Tapping a finger to his chin thoughtfully, Tony considered the rapid growth of their yard, then looked over his shoulder like he could see through the library and toward the problem spreading over the city. "Maybe that's what's happened," he proposed. "There's more of us now, more people than have been in Temba for--well, a couple years, anyway. Maybe we've been scaring off the wildlife that would have been keeping this in check." They certainly had made their own, little impacts on some of the animals with more directly obvious consequences; one of the thousand mothcats that clearly shouldn't be claiming the library as their natural habitat darted out from under the bench just then, chasing a seed or leaf that had swirled its way down toward the fire and when sparking away like a firefly.

Tony watched it pounce on the ember, then freeze in surprise when its paws were covered in soot and there was no prize to be claimed, and was slow to look back Jon's way even as his sly smile grew. "Do you want to find out?" he proposed with an innocent batting of his lashes.

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