fandomtownies | Tuesday: Plant Parenthood

Liliana really should have kept one of the carpets around for trips about town, but a rickshaw would have to do. Pulling out a list she'd compiled before she'd left her shop, she stepped into Plant Parenthood and looked about for a shopkeep or some such.

It smelled of green in here. It almost reminded her of the Caligo For--it almost reminded her of another place and time.

Nell made her way over quickly, with a smile. "Hi, welcome. Hospitality and safety to you while you're here. Is there anything I can help you with?"

Liliana looked at Nell curiously a moment and then snapped her fingers. "You! The little woodswitch! You were interested in my adventurer's bag at the...flea...market." She still wasn't sure why the market was called that and was vaguely uncomfortable with the term. "I'm sorry, darling, I have no memory of your name, but you were very interested in my saproling seeds. Mentioned that you had a magical wood somewhere or the like."

"Oh yes," Nell said with a smile, "Though no one has ever called me a wood witch before. And my mother would tell you that I'm absolutely not a witch - she had me tested. I do remember those. The bag, the seeds, they were wonderful."

She couldn't help but remember the fire that ended the market, followed closely by her first real time spent with Gladio, when he found her and brought her home, so her smile turned particularly fond and faraway for a moment. "I'm Nell. Nell Ingram. And I'm sorry, but I'm afraid I don't remember your name either."

Liliana extended a coolly elegant hand for Nell to take, nails long and purple, skin pale as cream. "Liliana Vess," she replied. "I own the Infinite Consortium over..." She vaguely waved in what was probably the direction of her stop in comparison to where they were now. "...There. I think."

She was, as per usual, dressed in a long purple gown - made of layers of whisper-thin gossamer, today - with a pair of tall black boots boosting her height to six feet easily - more than, if one counted the golden headdress that rested on the crown of her head. At her hip hung something that sparkled and caught the light like metal, but moved smooth as silk along with her.

Nell took her hand. "Lovely to meet you again," she said, looking up way up at her. "I don't think I've ever been there, but I'll have to stop by and see."

Nell was in her usual relatively plain skirty-pants - wide enough that it was hard enough to know they weren't an actual skirt - and a plain green tunic top with three quarter sleeves and a very modest neckline. Her flat shoes certainly didn't add any significant amount of height.

"Liliana?" she said after a moment. "Ignis' friend?" Now that she thought about it, she did seem to remember this woman with Iggy at the dance - though Nell had been very distracted by her own date.

Liliana's neckline had seen modest across the street once, maybe.

She raised a flawlessly arched eyebrow at that descriptor. "The Planeswalker, the necromancer, the terror of angels, more like," she said, before relenting, "...but yes, also Ignis' friend. Or close enough."

Liliana wasn't particularly great at the concept of 'friends' even when the rest of it was straightforward.

"And how would you describe yourself, if not a woods witch?"

"Oh my," Nell said with a smile (and she was not looking at Liliana's neckline. "I can see I'll have to mind my p's and q's around you, then, what with all that."

She had to consider that for a moment. "I just kind of think of myself as being really good with plants. But a friend from home," though friend was a stretch with Jane Yellowrock, "she thinks I might be like a Cherokee yinehi - sort of a wood nymph - and I can't say that she might not be right."

"More like you should never define yourself by relationships with men, darling," Liliana assured her. "Or anybody else for that matter. You're always someone before you're anyone's something."

You hear that, demons? Liliana was her own long before she was anything of yours, no matter what her skin said.

"A nymph? Like a dryad...?" The necromancer gave her an approving smile. "Your world has non-humans, then? That must be a relief."

Edited 2023-09-19 23:27 (UTC)

"Oh, I learned that lesson," Nell said. "Even if other people think they've defined you by your relationship to a man, you have to still be who you are inside. But sometimes it's easier to sort of figure out who people are by who they know."

Nell nodded. "Something like that maybe. And we do have a lot of non-humans - though most of them were human originally. Vampires, weres, all sorts. Not that I've had much to do with any of them. But why do you say that must be a relief?"

"...I don't suppose you're from Innistrad, then, are you?" Liliana asks. It was highly doubtful, but she couldn't help but ask. Vampires, werewolves...it was the closest anyone had come to talking about people she found familiar.

"Because this place is distressingly human," Liliana said. "It must be nice to return to a place where it's not all...the same, you know?"

"Not sure where that is," Nell admitted, "but I'm from just outside Knoxville, Tennessee."

She tilted her head. "I suppose there are a lot of humans here, but many of them are a lot more than they may appear on the surface."

From the absolute blankness, it can be guessed that Liliana had no idea what a 'Knoxville' or a 'Tennessee' was.

"...I'm not doubting that," she said, brow furrowing. "This isn't a slight against your people here. Even if the rest of you were all pre-Mending Planeswalkers, the point would remain the same. No owlin. No aven. No goblins, or elves or vedalkin or luxodon."

No angels, but she was fine with that.

"It's like...stripping away all the other notes from a beautiful song. The remaining melody might remain lovely, but you keep listening for the harmonies and the chords to give it that depth and richness..."

Somewhere, Ignis was sad Lili had gone for a music analogy instead of a cooking one. She was a little surprised she hadn't gone for something about a garden with a single kind of flower, considering their surroundings.

Nell nodded. "I can understand that," she said. "It would be like having a forest of beautiful oaks and no other trees or plants. You need the rest to make it... full? But yes. I can see that."

Liliana nodded. "Precisely," she said, pleased Nell understood - and with a regal nod at Nell's own, very excellent analogy. "I grew up in a forest like that," she said. "Ancient oaks. Like a cathedral arcing towards the sky."

She gave a small sigh. "Though a forest full of other things as well. Of course." And then chuckled and looked around. "This store must be making me nostalgic."

"Must've been gorgeous," Nell said witha wistful smile. "Sounds like my Soulwood. I gotta get back and visit it soon. But I'm glad you like my store. There's Soulwood planks in parts of the floor and soil under it and in many of the plant beds. Let's me stay somewhat connected to it back home."

Let her knew where people were and a bit about their intentions if they were on it and hs was focusing too.

Rude to Lilis to not make that known. Granted, she would keep that behind her teeth, too, but still. Rude to Lilis.

"Do you sell herbs?" she asked, changing the topic. "Healing herbs. I have a list, though I don't know how much of the names I know them by will cross over to this plane."

Nell honestly didn't think of it much and mostly saw it as a way not to be startled, sorry, Liliana.

"I do," Nell said. "And if I don't have them and they exist in a world we have access to I can probably get them or get seeds from them and grow them myself." And if she did they'd have that little extra oomph from Nell.

That was perfectly fair! Liliana would absolutely just keep it to herself for secrecy's sake. That didn't mean she couldn't be a hypocrite about it.

And the magic Nell could do certainly wasn't a type of magic Liliana could. Cause them to wither, die, and decay? Liliana was your girl. Cause them to flourish and grow? Not even a little bit. "That would be lovely," she said, setting down the list and sliding it to Nell; the hand it was written in was elegant and graceful, like calligraphy. "I'm only barely a healer anymore, but I like to have my stash available just in case."

Oh, Nell could do the wither and die bit, too, or draw energy out of the plants to heal herself - and someday others - double-edged sword - but she didn't like to.

She looked over the list. "I have about half of these here and I know I can get some of the others, but these couple? I might need to do some research or see if maybe I know them by a different name or if they might only exist in your plane."

Before she went to the back to get the ones she had, she remembered mo of her manners. "If you'd like to sit and have a cup of tea, I'd be pleased to have you do so. I have a selection of my own blends on the counter there as well as a few scones and muffins that you're welcome to try if you'd like."

Oooooh??? Is that a little bit of black mana in with your green, little woods witch?

Okay, technically, that could still be done in mono-green, but black makes it better.

"I'll be happy to explain what some of the others do and look like, in case you know them by other names," Liliana said, taking a seat. "And...do you have a sweet fruit tea by chance? With honey?"

She could feed people to the land, Liliana. Break them into their component molecules so no trace of them could ever be found. And the bloodlust that came up in her when she was terrified and someone bled on her land, calling for her to feed the land? It was hard to fight.

"That would be very helpful," Nell said. "And worst case, I might be able to substitute others that do similar things."

She smiled over at her. "I've been experimenting with an apple and pear blend," she said, and I have several other sweet fruit teas there - they are all labeled. And I happen to have some honey from my very own hives in the container on the counter."

Oh, what a clever little woods witch you were, Nell! Black and green was an excellent combination. It was a circle of life and death, a circle of feeding and being fed. It was the color combination of Liliana's own beloved House Witherbloom, at Strixhaven University.

While Nell looked over her herbs, Liliana helped herself to a cup of tea, staying carefully away from any of the herbal blends that might remind her of...bad dreams. She added the honey, licking the spoon like she had since she was a girl, and smiled.

"Nell, you didn't, by chance, give some of this honey to Ignis recently, did you?"

Nell looked over at her. "I did, yes. He asked me if I could spare some for a special dish he wanted to make. I won't have a lot of honey til the end of next summer, but I had enough to spare for a friend "

"I knew I'd had this flavor on my tongue before," she said with a warm, slightly wicked laugh. "He made a fruit salad for our dessert and drizzled the honey over it."

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