Work Text:
Elim Garak. I grow things.
Edosian orchids. Body counts. Thickets of lies fertilized with truths. Business from bits of cloth. Red leaf tea. Friendships, remarkably. Shrines from ruins. Gardens in beds of ash and dust.
I'm in the business of confessions, though I've recently changed employers. At the start of my career, confessions were the end product. Now they're the arbor upon which I grow fruit far more lovely than fear and control. I twist my people's confessions, even my own, into a sturdy trellis. It's polished by the dusty wind, aired out by open eyes. Then the red rain comes, and guilt, washed clean, turns to resolve. Now strong vines can grow, heavy with fruit, heavy with hope.
I grow all sorts of things.
Like Families. My garden grows in my father's bones, a garden of stone and shroud and memory. And then there's Her. Her orchids grow wherever I go, along with her paintings and her conscience. But I grow other families, bigger ones, living ones. Families with no fear and full bellies and mingled blood from across the stars. May I be the last son raised in shadow.
I grow friendships, as I said. Perhaps my greatest feat to date. I've never had the knack for this sort of horticulture. Tailors only listen and spies never stay. But now, behold my little orchard! There's my cactus, who's far less prickly than he lets on. And there, my spirited juniper! We had a rocky start, she and I, but we survivors find a way. Speaking of rough beginnings, my kind old oak. I had nearly chopped him down for want of wood, look closely and you can see the scar. But he somehow forgave me. And there, at the center of it all, my dear, thin sapling, who grasped for an apple and found a serpent. He'll always be my favorite.
I grow trust from dismal, arid land drained dry. We squandered those fields, farmed it too often and too aggressively. We gobbled good faith like locusts. But we didn't salt the ground. Thank heavens, we didn't salt the ground.
I grow closer to the Way. I grow berries and herbs for pigment to paint our masks. And beat back the shadows of night I once called home, so other followers can find their Way, should they choose. I grow the Song of Morning by adding my voice. By opening the skies so any dweller in the darkness may find the strength to sing along.
I grow new, open pathways. Thoughts for sharing and roads for journeying. I grow libraries out of locked boxes, rows and rows of books from across the stars. Words to fall on new, ravenous ears. And on ears sated on emptiness, ears that need to listen, even if they've forgotten how.
I grow older. I grow impatient, worried I haven't enough time to finish all that's left to do. I grow weary of planting seed after seed and angry at the pests that try to dig them up. But I don't grow fearful, for I grow more and more confident that I'm not the only one armed with boots and a watering can. I'm not alone.
I grow everything I can, but there are some things beyond my skill. I can't grow flesh from bone, solace from grief. But I can grow orchids in the desert. I will grow redemption in the dust.
I swear this, by orchid and apple, by tea leaf and vine. You'll never see a prouder gardener.