Covent Garden Flowers, Tuesday

[shiroi_tiger]

It was a completely normal day today at the flower shop. There were arrangement orders to be filled, plants to be watered...

Nathan didn't trust it.

Which really didn't make it any less normal, no. It just meant that he was giving speculative looks at every possible corner of the shop while putting together bouquets in shades of orange and purple.

Nope. Still normal. This place just had Nathan paranoid, now.

[OOC: Work SP here too, but open!]

Comments

[okteiviakom]

"So, I work here now," Octavia announced from the door. "And I was a raccoon for about a month."

She'd never figured out small talk, and she wasn't going to start trying now.

[shiroi_tiger]

"That'll happen sometimes," Nathan said, glancing up from the arrangement he was working on. "Almost a month, though? That's... impressive?"

Probably inconvenient was a better word for it, come to think of it.

"Welcome back to your usual shape, then. And to the shop."

[okteiviakom]

'Inconvenient' was Octavia's main choice. That and 'upsetting', but she'd never own up to that one.

She was just glad it was over.

"Thanks, on both counts," she said, moving into the shop proper. Then she asked, dryly, "Does it mean I've acclimated to the island, the raccoon thing?"

[shiroi_tiger]

"Do you feel acclimated?" Nathan gave Octavia a wry smile at that. "I don't think animal transformations are so much a symptom of being used to the place as they are a decent test for it. Most people who haven't run screaming after it are either as used to Fandom as they're ever going to get, or stuck here."

... He suspected she was stuck here.

[okteiviakom]

"My brother and I are stuck here." So, yep. But they'd also lived through some messed up things even before the island, so they were relatively okay with weathering its whims, apparently.

"But we're also stubborn and not easily shaken."

[shiroi_tiger]

"Then you might not be acclimated, but you'll survive," Nathan decided. "Stubbornness isn't a bad trait to have around here. Gets most of us through the worst of it, at any rate."

Nathan himself had plenty of stubbornness. It was one of the reasons he was still alive. He was too damn stubborn to admit when he ought to just roll over and die already.

[okteiviakom]

"Bellamy could stand to be a little less stubborn about making connections, though," Octavia replied, rolling her eyes before examining a nearby flower. "He's been here for over a year, but he's not interested in allies."

Not that Octavia herself was the most social person, either. And using 'allies' over all the other possible words said a thing or two as well.

[shiroi_tiger]

"That might make things more difficult for him the next time something more serious than a shark storm rolls through," Nathan noted, glancing at the flower she was looking at. "Though I'm guessing he's got you, and he figures that's worth plenty already?"

[okteiviakom]

It was a pretty flower.

Of course, she was wondering whether it could help someone stay healthy or anything of that sort.

"Probably," she said. "I don't think that's enough."

[shiroi_tiger]

Around here, it was just as likely to give you temporary superpowers or something. The joy of a flower shop on Fandom Island.

"Well, then with any luck, hopefully you're making enough allies to cover for the both of you," Nathan offered. "Or maybe he'll warm up to the idea of going outside now and again with time. I find it difficult to think that someone could spend too much time here without eventually giving in, in that regard."

[okteiviakom]

"I don't, because I know my brother," Octavia scoffed. "He's... I think we grew up in circumstances that didn't exactly make him less stubborn than he would've otherwise been."

[shiroi_tiger]

"Ah," Nathan said, nodding faintly. He couldn't possibly understand the exact circumstances, perhaps, but he knew situations like that in general. "So he'd sooner try to tough out the dangers than ask for help?"

[okteiviakom]

It would've been a complicated thing to explain, anyway. Octavia was a lawbreaker by birth.

"Pretty much," she said, and her judgment was a little on the laughable side when you considered how willing she also was to go at it alone. "I don't know if there's even a point to trying to turn his head."

[shiroi_tiger]

"Well, I guess so long as you're willing to be sensible enough for the both of you. People will look out for you even if you're looking out for him."

Well, he would, anyway. He wasn't sure how many other people Octavia even knew.

[okteiviakom]

Not many. And she preferred it that way.

Like brother, like sister.

"I guess so," she said with a little noncommittal shrug. There was a pause, like she almost said something else, while looking at the flower - but no, guess that topic was done. "So, any tips on working here?" she asked instead, looking up. "Apart from how people are less likely to want things that might heal their wounds quicker, and more likely to want pretty things that might help them get laid. Because that was already covered."

Thanks, Bel.

[shiroi_tiger]

Nathan blinked a few times at that one, yes.

"Huh. Sounds like someone already gave you quite the interesting run-through," he noted. "Most of my tips would be about how the plants here seem to have minds of their own, lately. Like..."

He cast around for a moment until he found one of the few remaining tiny potted piranha plants, and pulled it from where it was sitting. It had been muzzled, to keep it from spitting fire around the room.

"This one is a biter. And it throws fireballs."

Because of course it did.

[okteiviakom]

Well, of course.

And of course Octavia looked intrigued. "Can it do that on command? Or, I mean... Towards a target?"

She wore warrior leathers all around a generally peaceful town. Of course she was thinking about weaponizing a plant.

[shiroi_tiger]

Nathan blinked and looked at the plant thoughtfully.

"I mean, I guess if you were to train it properly," he mused.