revivalproject | [Open] Keeper Of The Flock

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[Open] Keeper Of The Flock

WHO: Lark, Open
WHERE: The Livestock Nursery
WHAT: Caring for the Glownies
WHEN: March 7th
WARNINGS: N/A

She had seen the news this morning, when she had gone into her communicator to send a message to invite a friend to join her at a picnic and to plan when to shear the sheep. A name, and the friend is represented, gone.

It had been a sad thing, but there would be time to be sad later. Instead Lark knew there were things to be done, and so she had summoned her strength, put on the new green robe she had recently finished, and moved to gather up her things. Time had been taken to go to the greenhouse and gather bundles of fresh mint, trimmed both from the sort she liked for tea, and also the sort the glownies liked.

Then she had gone to the structure where the animals were kept. A brief time was spent gathering tools to help care for the glownies, to gather their bundles of dried food, to get bags to fill with loose wool that might seek her out.

Only then did she step into the fields, whistling to send Little Bear out. They'd been working on this, and the wolf-hound did as he was supposed to, racing off to try and get behind the glownies to herd them to her. He wasn't great at it yet, but with time...

"Hello my sweet ones. It seems I am no responsible for you until we can find another who would love to care for you."

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"There's a whole mess of it in the greenhouse. It was this that brought them here," she says with a smile.

As for the glownie, it allows the petting, even seeming to enjoy it so long as mint is there.

Link looks over towards the greenhouse. Immediately decides that he's going to have to collect some.

And then, of course, there's also that datapoint Link mentioned...

"The agricultural datapoint is in there?" he says. And although he's distracted, he doesn't stop petting the glownie - or holding out the mint.

"Yes, it is," she says as she reaches out to scratch the glownie's neck as well. Which is just as good because there's almost no mint left with how quickly the glownie had munched on it.

Link looks at the glasshouse building. He could go get that datapoint.

He could go get it right now.

So the glownie is given one final pat, his remaining mint is pressed back into Lark's hands, and Link just...runs off towards the glasshouse.

Some time later, he emerges having collected not only the datapoint, but a sack full of various foods. Including one in particular.

"I have more mint," he declares, after running right back towards Lark and the glownies. As if he hadn't just disappeared on her without a word earlier.

What? Lark stares as the young man runs off. How strange of him. Still, she keeps up her care for the herd, running her hands over them, gathering all the loose wool and transferring it to bags.

What she wasn't expecting is his return, running back with a sack and more mint. The glownie she's working on immediately starts toward him.

"You've returned?" she asks in shock.

"Nope," Link says. Just for his own contrary amusement. Because obviously, he has returned. He's right here, after all.

He holds out some of his mind for this glownie. A different one from before, he thinks.

"I know all the plants now!" he adds, because this. This was exciting. He didn't even need a Compendium, he just knew. And, even better, he knew how to cook with them.

Edited 2023-03-11 02:25 (UTC)

How interesting. He's got energy, something she had known before and was even more certain of now. Still, the glownies are happy, because they are being spoiled by even more mint.

"That is very useful, yes. I took the communications one so I would understand these devices they gave us. They are quite useful. I know many do not use them, I think they see the magic as wrong."

But as a mage, especially one who could work and pass on higher level pattern spells, having things pressed into her mind isn't that weird.

It can be hard to tell sometimes, with Link's quiet demeanor and tendency to not emote very much. But, he does have energy. Lots of it.

But the excitement over suddenly acquiring the knowledge of so many new recipes is put to the backburner a little, a least for now.

"The datapoints?" he says, head cocked to one side. "Or the devices?" He wasn't sure which was the one Lark was talking about. In either case, Link was surprised to find that people thought them dark magic.

"The datapoints," Lark clarified, because yes, she should have been more clear. "They don't like the idea that things are put in their minds."

Though she knows it's not that simple. It is just not culturally acceptable to them.

Link makes a soft noise of acknowledgement. He supposes that makes sense. The datapoints are strange. Having information put into your head was...odd.

But Link had also known all sorts of things without knowing how, when he woke up. He knew how to fight. How to cook. How to climb. Without any memory of learning it in the first place. The datapoints didn't seem all that different. Besides...

"They aren't evil," he says, firm and solid in that fact. "The Sword the Seals the Darkness would know, if they were."

And so far, the Sword hadn't glowed even once while Link was here.

Sword that what? She looks to his blade and wishes she had some of Rosethorn's cream for seeing magic. Alas, she was not so skilled with its preparation as her lover had been, and the tools here weren't even around.

"Is that it's name?"

If she were able to see the Sword, she'd find that its magical light would burn bright.

Link nods. "One of them." The Sword seemed to have a lot of names, depending on who was talking. But the Sword that Seals the Darkness was the one Link had heard most.

Yes, it might even be blinding. She didn't need to be blinded right now.

"How interesting. I do not know many weapons myself."

"They don't all have names." If she doesn't know much about weapons, maybe she might not realise that.

Certainly Link doesn't go around naming all his weapons. They're not horses, after all.

She had assumed that most all of them didn't. A weapon with a name seems stranger.

"One would run out of names I suppose."

Link blinks.

"...You can run out of names?"

This was not something Link had ever thought could happen. Surely names should be an infinite resource, thanks to the ability to just...make new ones up.

"I don't see why not. Language is finite," she answered with a shrug.

Is it?

Link had never thought of language as being a resource, that one might use up. But perhaps that was because it was a resource that Link himself used sparingly.

"You can't...make more words up?" He says.

Perhaps, but would they make any sense then?

"Language comes from mutual understanding though."

"But...names?" You didn't have to understand them. You just had to be told what they were, and there you go.

And really, that's what happened with his name. He just woke up, heard Zelda's voice calling him 'Link', and there you go. Did he know why he was named Link? No. Did he know what it meant? No. He just knew that it was him.

"Are like all language, and while mercurial, they end with time. Are we likely to reach that point? No. But it can happen."

And that's just something that she mostly saw as an inherent truth of the world.

Link just...hums. A mostly silent response, with no real words or language. Perhaps an apt one, considering Link's largely quiet demeanour.

The idea of words or names running out still feels strange, to him. But who is Link, of all people, to argue otherwise?

"Do they have names?" He asks instead, looking at the glownies. Surely they should have names. Link would have named the all, if given the opportunity.

"I never asked anyone if they gave the flock names," Lark admitted. "I did not serve as their primary tender, so I did not think to offer them on my own."

They should have names, and some means to mark them all separately too, if they had them.

Right. Link's not the flock tender - and he's not offering to become one - but this is something he can help with.

Link has horses. He knows what to do.

He straightens up, and looks at the nearest glownie. "Pumpkin," he declares. Then, he looks to the next one. "Watermelon." Then another, and another.

Soon, there is also 'Nutmeg', 'Fudge', 'Waffles' and 'Omelet'.

Oh my, that was prompt work. Were she a less well composed woman, she might even have chuckled at his choices for names. As it was she was reaching into her pouch to pull out lengths of thread she had worked earlier, little colored hanks she had been intending for testing durability of new dyes against exposure to sunlight.

Instead she rises and moves among the glownies as he names them, quickly tying different colored threads into their manes. It will mark them in her mind.

"Might I ask you slow down just a little? I need to get these in so I can mark which is which for making some more permanent name tags later."

[Open] Keeper Of The Flock

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