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The majority of the garden, save for a few greenhouses that were tacked onto the complex as an afterthought, was built into the dilapidated remains of a building that was probably used as a place of worship some 50 years ago. Couldn't tell what religion it was meant to represent exactly, since the interior had been entirely stripped of valuables and decorations alike, even before the cult took over it. The domed rooftop on one end lent itself well to the glass paneling that it was repaired with, letting some much needed light into the otherwise low-lit environment. A few giant stained glass windows lined the outer wall, some with the original floral motif left intact, some replaced by the likeness of the twin gods. The building stood like an oasis in the desert wasteland, anyone who was privy to entering the compound could immediately feel the disconnect from the rest of the scenery.
Tyreen had her own corner within the giant maze of plant life, the same corner Mishka furnished with a bunch of stuff that looked nice and smelled even better; roses, lavender, jasmine, all imported from various corners of the galaxy. It was a wonder she even managed to cultivate them, much less make them thrive in an environment as inhospitable as Pandora. She even let Tyreen do most of the work around it, since Tyreen insisted on it. Once she trusted her enough not to kill everything off, anyway, whether by way of leeching it or just plain bad gardening practices. Troy guessed it was kinda therapeutic to his sister, managing to keep something alive for once that wasn't him. He chuckled thinking back to one of their past interactions, where he witnessed Mishka telling Tyreen to squeeze some lavender between her fingers and take a whiff to relax, maybe she'd be less of a bitch if she did. Ty wasn't exactly pleased, but Troy slipped into such a laughing fit that he could barely breathe for the next 15 minutes. That’s usually how Mishka avoided getting murdered, Troy thought she was hilarious. They did eventually come around to tolerating each other's company. Or even enjoying it in rare cases. The weed probably helped.
Mishka's lips are considerably less loose than one would think when she's high, probably because of practice alone, but she did explain her feelings about his sister to Troy at one point.
"My body thinks she's hot, but when she opens her mouth it makes my brain angry."
Troy found himself mentally agreeing with the sentiment, but only giggled in response. Mishka elbowed him. Joints were off the table since his first experience with weed. Smoke proved to aggravate his airways, so the option wasn't preferred. Great thing marijuana is even more potent when ingested. He didn't always know you could eat weed, so the first time he just stared at the half of the chocolate chip cookie she had presented him with, thinking it was just a treat before the actual show. Troy shoved the whole thing in his mouth, eliciting a yell in response. Even managed to swallow before she could explain herself.
"Dude! You said you've never had an edible before, you're not supposed to just scarf the whole thing down!" The look of genuine distress on her face had him a little worried. It was a stark contrast to the otherworldly amount of calm she usually presented herself with.
"Oh. I'm not gonna die, am I?" He briefly had that sinking, anxious feeling in the pit of his stomach. This wasn’t exactly a good mindset to go in with when doing drugs.
"Well, I wanted to tell you to eat a little and see how you feel, since you can always eat more. But you can't un-eat the weed. So you might just be fine due to your fucking size, or you might feel like the devil's trying to rip your soul out of you kneecaps. Can't say for sure." She said everything so matter-of-factly. Not entirely unexpected, given how many hours she apparently spent pouring over books about horticulture and pharmacology. Maybe she had terrible depth perception but you couldn't fault her on her nerd shit.
And she was right. That edible fucked him up for like 8 hours. Wasn't a bad trip, thank god, but by hour 5 he was wishing he could get off this roller coaster. He distinctly does not remember shit about what went down for the rest of that day. Mishka assures him it was pretty uneventful, really. Troy isn't sure he believes her entirely. But he wasn't getting the impression that she's lying to him either. Guess whatever he spouted was uneventful to her personally. She does give off the vibe that she’s more interested in breeding plants than any human relations. He learned to pace himself during subsequent attempts, and the weed didn’t do a bad job at relaxing him and alleviating his chronic pain problems. His body was so used to hard painkillers that they were beginning to have less and less of an effect on him. The alternative took the edge off at least. He was considerably more useless when high, not like the editing team couldn't pick up the slack while he was temporarily out of commission. Tyreen didn’t bitch either if he shared.
Letting his mind phase back into the present, he arrived at the gated section of the garden complex. Fenced off, secured with barbed wire, needed a key card to access. That was the part where she kept her more deadly pet projects, anything poisonous, volatile or particularly dangerous. The damn things even had a neat little name card each. Like everywhere else that woman staked her claim on there were some skulls of various sizes strewn around. Some were used as pots for the plants. Oddly fitting for once. Some of the stuff pretty much only gave you a rash, as Troy got to experience the one time he leaned against a tree in there, others were more nasty. Even if the pretty flowering plants looked out of place amidst the stuff you shouldn’t touch and the carnivorous foliage, Mishka assured him that it had horrible side effects if ingested. Everything from arrhythmia, breathing problems and gastrointestinal distress to hallucinations. Not the good kind.
He briefly wondered if those really needed to be fenced off at all, people wouldn’t be stupid enough to eat flowers, would they? Then he remembered that yes, people are absolutely that stupid. Anyone on this planet really can't be trusted to not eat them, it was probably for the better. The shiny berries on the nightshade plants didn’t help. And to some bandit lowlife from Pandora, who’s used to plants that quite literally explode, tempted by the harmless appearance? Like candy. And the oleander smelled like coconut pie for some reason. Mishka’s opinion was generally that if anyone was stupid enough to get acess to the murder garden and then fuck with the contents they probably deserved to die. Some classic Darwinism and all. She didn’t like people touching her shit.
There was a little shack at the end of the gravel path that cut through the greenery, in which she liked to hang out and work on her concoctions. He asked her why she hasn't tried making normal drugs before, painkillers or something. Her answer was that anything you can aquire legally, or even with a forged prescription, isn’t really worth reinventing the wheel for. The supply was more than abundant, mass production drove the price down. Wouldn’t even break even. And it lacked the same sort of creativity you needed for designer drugs. She wanted to see exactly how hard you could fuck up a human body with the stuff she had at her disposal. The twins made sure to bring her some new specimens every once in a while.
The shack was adjacent to the room she used to grow her weed. It’s not that the plants were too delicate to be grown outside of it, but the conditions were far from ideal for maximizing yields. Lots of care went into making those things thrive, light conditions, temperature, humidity, air flow even. With how proud she was of her personal strains, quality was naturally much more important than quantity. Was still more profitable than the run off the mill stuff, could get away with charging more per gram if it had some funky side effects and a fancy name. One of them was crossed with strawberries for some reason.
Troy made sure to hammer on the door as loudly as he could without damaging it. Mishka could neither see nor hear anything on her right side, so it was more akin to regular knocking to her if she was facing the wrong side by chance. He didn’t wait for an answer before opening the door, the knocking being more of a courtesy than anything. Mishka blended in with the surroundings from her position at the center desk, almost too well, her teal hair resembling just another potted plant. He never saw her dye it a different colour, or even her roots being in need of a touch up. Apparently because the shade of green was natural . Like many others, she wasn’t actually native to Pandora, but came here in search of opportunity. Used to study biology, she claimed. Keyword used to. The THC strawberries were pretty suspect in that. Gene editing was widely available on the planet she was from, the residents used it quite liberally. The kind that was available to the general public had some restrictions though, it couldn’t be hereditary. Unnatural hair colors were just fancy, didn’t pose any risk of introducing some stupid genetic flaw into future populations.
Troy raised his hand at her in a “hello” gesture. While she didn’t actually look up from whatever she was busy grinding in the mortar, she did mirror it briefly just to let him know she acknowledged him. He didn’t ask any questions since she was quite prone to mumbling when her focus was on something else. He looked around briefly while she finished up, depositing the powder into a little glass bottle and capping it up firmly.
“I could swear the succulents have multiplied since the last time I’ve been here.”
“They probably have. Didn’t you know you can pirate plants?” She smirked. Maybe that’s why the things kept appearing everywhere like a plague. Tyreen thought they were really cute, cooing over the really tiny ones in particular.
“How does that even work?” Troy observed her as she rearranged the desks cupboard to make space for the new vial, taking a moment to label it before depositing it among the rest.
“The clippings form roots. You can probably clone a single plant hundreds of times that way during its lifetime. Well, some are easier than others. I swear, anything you actually want to reproduce is so touchy . Like, oh no , too much water, not enough water, don’t like the soil pH, not gonna grow just to spite you. Weeds, on the other hand, find a crack in the concrete and think it’s free real estate.” Her eye twitched out of annoyance as she combed her fingers through her hairline. She did love her plants but that didn’t mean they didn’t drive her up the wall sometimes.
“So, what’re you here for? Got your ass sunburnt again?”
“Come on, that was one time. ” Thinking back to the incident, he’s not even sure himself how he managed that. Mishka just handed Tyreen some giant aloe leaves and told her to slap Troy's ass with the contents. Applying sunburn lotion to his ass wasn’t Mishka’s idea of a good time.
“But no, quite the contrary.” He produced a few pill bottles from his pockets. “Your samples. Don’t know what’s got you so busy in here but the lab said you’ve been holed up for a while. Thought I’d bring ‘em over.” Not that he was also out of weed or anything.
“Aw, you’re such a sweetheart . Tyreen told you I was baking again, didn’t she.” Hard to miss the smell. Even from a hundred feet away. Then again, the shack always kinda smells like baked goods and drugs.
“Can’t miss that. You got the best chocolate chip cookie recipe around, after all.”
“Your sister already made off with half of ‘em. Saved you some though.” She vaguely pointed at the kitchenette in the next room over.
“Knew you wouldn’t leave me hanging.”
“More like high and dry.” Troy groaned at the pun.
He lightly chucked one of the bottles at her, only to have her miss the grab, the plastic container hitting her hand and subsequently clattering to the ground. She just stared at him with a deadpan expression.
“Oh, right. Depth perception.” Troy had the decency to look a little embarrassed. Mishka picked the bottle off the ground, examining the label to remember which one of the compounds they were currently testing this even was.
“Well, I’m glad you remembered I’m half blind, God-King .”
“You don’t give off the impression that you are. If I didn’t know better I’d just think you have terrible hand-eye coordination.” He gingerly set the other one down on the table, smiling awkwardly. He dragged the second chair that was adjacent to the wall into position on her left side, sitting down before continuing the conversation.
“You should know better than anyone that people will exploit your every weakness in the borderlands. They’re like sharks, intent on eating you alive as soon as they smell a drop of blood in the water.”
She subtly nodded towards his own right side. Even if it was adorned by the giant amalgam of steel, wire and carbon that meant to resemble an arm, the prosthetic was compensating for his lack of limb. They weren’t missing the same parts, but he still thought Mishka understood him a little better than most people in the twins inner circle. In a rare moment of emotional vulnerability she once told him that her greatest fear was going completely blind. Death was irrelevant. Troy couldn’t say he didn’t understand the fear, it was probably exacerbated by the fact she already lost vision in one eye. He’d hate to go blind himself, but he never really, well, thought about it.
“Any reason you don’t just get a new eye put in?”
“Probably the same one you have for not getting a proper prosthetic. One of those high tech ones with, I don’t know, fake skin and everything. I don’t need one. It’s not like I’m broken without it. And neither are you.”
“...” He could have probably guessed that one. It was kinda… Nice? To hear someone whose opinion he generally valued reassure him that he wasn’t worth any less just because there was a piece of him missing. But he didn’t expect it, finding it hard to find the right words for a retort.
“... And besides, the whole reason I can’t see isn’t the eye itself, but some pretty severe nerve damage. Not sure how much can actually be done about that.” Troy contemplated that thought for a moment.
“Not too hot on the idea of someone poking around in your brain, huh?”
“Now you’re getting it.” She pointed a finger gun gesture at him while popping the cap off the pill bottle with the other hand, shaking out a few onto the table.
“You’re not seriously gonna try that stuff, are you?” He raised an eyebrow.
“Why not? Wanna see what the high is like.” She popped one of the little blue pills into her mouth, washing it down with whatever leftover liquid she had in the coffee cup sitting on her desk. She pointed the container at him in a wordless offer to participate, but Troy waved her off.
“I’m not gonna babysit you, in case you expected something like that. Are you sure you’re not gonna get addicted to that stuff? Wasn’t that the whole point of it?” He genuinely sounded concerned for a second there.
“Wasn’t expecting you to babysit me. Ain’t my first rodeo. I’ll try anything once, provided it won't kill me. And we already ironed out any major side effects like three iterations ago.” Major as in, won’t kill you, won’t make any of your body parts shut down or your teeth fall out or whatever. She was probably still hung up on it causing headaches or something.
“Addiction can be psychological as well as physiological. Usually both. The only thing I can say I’m addicted to is my hot sauce.” Ah, the hot sauce. Her damn hot peppers were worse than sucking on the devils toenails. If he didn’t see her eating that stuff quite frequently he’d have though she attempted to murder him that one time she had him try it. It damn well nearly blew his head off. Tyreen took one whiff of it and had the common sense not to do herself like that. The only way he could really explain it is that Mishka burnt her taste buds off years ago.
“What’s even the point of getting rid of the side effects? It’s not like the idiots won’t buy it either way.” He was getting curious at this point. He usually didn’t really think about the cult's drug trade past telling someone to make sure his supply of painkillers didn’t run dry.
“Market share. Can’t have repeat customers if they’re all dead. And the pretentious rich crowd is gonna be more into it. They already snort so much shit, imagine how much they’re gonna pay for something that gets you about as off your tits as regular meth, but without the nasty consequences. At the rate stuff comes out these days they’re just about foaming at the mouth for something new and shiny to blow their money on. I’m sure marketing can tell you all about it.” She leaned back in her chair.
“How long’s it take to kick in anyway?”
“About 20 minutes. What, did you need to talk about something else? Might still manage to get some emotional wank in.” She accompanied the sentence with some rather vulgar hand gestures.
“Not really, guess it’s just nice to get out once in a while. Smell some flowers.” It’s like she was fine tuned on picking up any hint of emotional turmoil. Or remembered the flower thing was bullshit, he’s allergic to pollen.
“You two have another fight again?” She’s really not going to let him avoid this, is she?
“...How’d you guess?” Yeah, he’s not getting out of this. Not for another 20 minutes at least. Admittedly, he and Tyreen did have a pretty bad argument last night. He did love Tyreen, he really did. But she was a nightmare to put up with sometimes.
“Well, there’s at least a 50% chance that it’s another case of “the God-Queen is being a bitch again”, so I took my chances. Not like you’re completely innocent, but as far as I’m aware she usually instigates.” She lifted the mug again, inspecting if there was any more left in it, but quickly set it down again after finding nothing more than leftover black gunk. Probably thinking it’d be cool if it magically refilled itself.
They always did this. They fight, they spend a few days pissed off at each other in solitary, they make up. Out of necessity, more often than not. Maybe they’d like to, but they can’t function without each other. Maybe they were even sorry sometimes. It wasn’t like Ty didn’t give a shit about Troy, you could see it clear as day any time he seemed like he was dying. She would tear half the universe apart if it meant saving him. You don't do that for someone you don’t care about. Or even for whatever use he was to the cult. Skills were replaceable, he did what he did because he enjoyed doing it, not because he couldn’t outsource the work. So why was she so bad at showing that she genuinely appreciated him?
Tyreen's fuse was seemingly getting shorter and shorter every day, and Troy couldn’t quite put his finger on the pulse of it. He could look at the logical side of it, study social norms, dissect the psychology behind it. But in the heat of the moment emotions were hard to digest, Tyreen was much better at that than he was. Not that it helped when she was angry, there was no room for reason in her rage, she kinda forgot about trying not to hurt his feelings when it got to that point.
Ty had a hard time opening up to anyone else. The whole leech thing really put a damper on her intense craving for emotional intimacy. Troy couldn’t really help her with that past a certain point. He could hug her and pet her hair while he let her mope about the fact that she can't get laid. But any more than that would probably make their relationship even more awkward than it already is.
“I don’t know what to do with her lately. She’s making me question if I even know what to do with myself .” Troy rubbed his temples in frustration. That already told her more than she needed to know.
“You two are the most emotionally constipated pair of people I’ve ever had the displeasure of meeting.”
“Do you have to be so blunt about it?” Troy squinted at her in annoyance.
“Yes. Now, it’d be so nice if “talking it out like adults” was an option for you, but you’d probably just end up yelling at each other again.” She kicked her feet up on the table, slinking even further down her chair. The position hardly looked comfortable, even for Troy’s standards.
“Bingo. Got any suggestions?”
“Ecstasy.”
“Any serious suggestions?”
“That is a serious suggestion.”
“Let’s try that again, a suggestion that doesn’t involve me doing any hard drugs.” His body was a fragile ecosystem and foreign substances were to be introduced carefully, if at all.
“Booze then.”
“I’m starting to think you aren’t taking this seriously.”
“I’m about 10 minutes into a hallucinogen. Maybe you should have thought about admitting to having an emotional crisis before you let me take pills. And those are real nice suggestions! You could use a little more emotional warmth in your relationship, even if it's artificially injected.”
“Maybe I should come back tomorrow.”
“Yeah, I’m probably gonna make more sense if you do that. Send me a text so I don’t forget to show up sober.” Troy stood up from his chair. “Don’t forget your excuse for brief emotional vulnerability on the way out.” She pointed to the kitchen again.
“Real funny.”
He retrieved the little Tupperware container before making his way to the exit, turning back towards Mishka on his way out the door. She was swaying slightly, chance is she’d lean too far back in her chair at any time.
“I’ll try talking to her. You know. Like a reasonable adult.”
“You do that. Now fuck off so I can look at the pretty colours in peace.”