Covent Garden Flowers, Thursday

[okteiviakom]

Octavia couldn't remember the last time she'd done as much resting as she had this week. Guess last week had been a lot, both physically as well as emotionally. But today was Thursday, and so she was at the flower shop, and actually in a good mood for once.

She'd say it was because the Valentine's Day crap was all gone, and that was part of it. Just wasn't all of it.

She was putting some new stock on display - some weird but pretty purple flowers from who knows where - and occasionally humming softly to herself.

Covent Garden Flowers was open.

Comments

[firstofitskind]

After a few weeks of pointedly avoiding just about everyone, and then, you know, last week, Liam was making something of a point to go out and see people outside of his class and the station.

(There was also something else he needed to take care of this week, that actually pertained to being in a flower shop. But he'd get to that.)

"Hey," he greeted. The humming was... new.

[okteiviakom]

It was. It also, naturally, stopped now that he was there.

Because she said, "Hey, Liam." Complete with a little nod and a tiny uptick on one side of her mouth. Good mood, see? "Been a while."

[firstofitskind]

“Yeah,” he acknowledged with a shrug of one shoulder. He figured Octavia, of all people, would understand not wanting to be around others for a while. “Didn’t leave the house much last week.”

Or the weeks previous, for that matter.

[okteiviakom]

Octavia, with her habit of straight-up vanishing into the woods, understanding not wanting to be around people? Nonsense.

She snorted. "Yeah, I think that was going around."

[firstofitskind]

“Verity and I took our class off-island to kill some particularly annoying plants,” Liam shared.

[okteiviakom]

Octavia glanced around the shop, her head just ever so slightly tilted.

"Not sure you should be saying that in place that sells nothing but plants."

Yes, it was a joke.

[firstofitskind]

“I don’t think the kind of plants you sell here would be all that fond of swamp bromeliads either,” Liam said. “And if you’re selling those here, well. I’m going to have to have a word with Seivarden.”

Screaming yams were not the only flora Fandom Island could do without.

[okteiviakom]

"I don't know what those are, so..."

She shrugged. And then pointed at the purple flowers she'd set on display earlier.

"Unless those are them, I think it's safe to say we don't have any, no. I try to stay on top of what all the stock is."

[firstofitskind]

“Swamp bromeliads are carnivorous,” Liam informed her. “And their pollen doesn’t make people want to have sex, it just makes them high.” Go on, ask him how he knew that.

[okteiviakom]

For some reason, she didn't think she needed to.

"So... Was everyone high while fighting them?"

[firstofitskind]

“Of course not,” Liam scoffed. “We brought gas masks.”

[okteiviakom]

"Smart," Octavia deadpanned. "I don't know much about how school works here, but I'm pretty sure drugging the students is not okay."

A beat.

"Even though subjecting them to terror birds apparently is."

[firstofitskind]

“... Terror birds?” Liam gave her a confused look, having no idea where those came from.

[okteiviakom]

Yeah, neither did anyone else, actually!

"Giant, meat-eating birds from a very long time ago," Octavia drawled. "Duke's teaching a class on making hats for birds." She still thought it should have involved more than just hats. "Doesn't seem like he gets to choose which birds."

[firstofitskind]

“Sounds kind of like my class last semester,” Liam said, rolling his eyes. “The not getting to choose more than the birds part, I mean.”

[okteiviakom]

"What was the class, again?"

Octavia tried to pay attention to what her friends did at the school, but it all got kind of muddled together.

[firstofitskind]

“Physical Education. In theory. In practice it was... whatever the Danger Shop wanted us to do that day.”

Yes, the Danger Shop. Despite there being at least two gyms on the island plus, you know, the entire outdoors, they’d somehow repeatedly ended up back there.

[okteiviakom]

"The Danger Shop...?" Octavia asked slowly. It took her a few seconds, but eventually she remembered on her own. "Wait, that's the simulation thing at the school, right?"

She only knew because she'd heard Duke grumble about some programming fails during his previous class.

"Why not just use a gym?"

[firstofitskind]

“Why not just use a gym?” Liam echoed philosophically. “Well, for starters... did you know the school itself doesn’t actually have one? The dorms does, though. And there’s the one in town. Both of which were always somehow unavailable whenever we tried to use them.”

[okteiviakom]

"Okay, that's starting to sound like the school again," Octavia decided, vaguely unimpressed. "But I guess that means maybe Duke's issues aren't all from the moose having a grudge against him."

[firstofitskind]

"Yeah," Liam agreed. "I think it's likely that this school is also just deeply weird and likes screwing with everyone. Not that I have anything to compare it to," nor did Octavia, for that matter, "but it's pretty obvious."

[okteiviakom]

"About what I've gathered," Octavia agreed. "And it's making me extra glad it hasn't decided to start picking on me."

Look, Duke had been assigned to teach at random. That was clearly the school picking on people.

[firstofitskind]

"You put that thought out into the world and it just might happen," Liam pointed out dryly.

[okteiviakom]

"You don't think Duke's already done that for me?"

She'd maybe taunted him about submitting to the will of a moose, before.

[firstofitskind]

Liam snickered. "Yeah, well. The more you bring it up, the higher the chances something'll overhear and decide you need to teach a class on, I don't know, Introduction to Beekeeping."