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Dating means compromise! This is a topic Nepeta had been very firm on, from the very first, and all of you had been quick to agree. Dating meant finding a balance between yours, mine, and ours, and trying new things, and, on some certain specific occasions, discovering that you might like a thing you thought you didn't like all along.
Like gardening, for instance.
On Alternia, gardening was often considered an extreme sport, or something reserved for the most crafty and careful of trolls. Dedicated herbhorrentologists, for example, or those who made use of the medicinal properties of plants. True, centuries of sweeps had made it possible for some...less terrifying strains of plants to be propagated through the land, but that was casual shit! Lawnring stuff! If someone talked about gardening, specifically, trolls usually assumed they were a daredevil to end all daredevils, and, on occasion, ran the other way.
In your opinion, it makes perfect sense that you and Nepeta, knowing what little you knew about Earth's biology and plant life, would show up as kitted out as you did!
In Jade's opinion, apparently, your getups are enough to warrant her literally rolling around on the ground laughing, her tail thwacking madly against your foothinges as she chortles and chuckles her way across the dirt.
"You two look like you're about to play hockey! Goalie!! Goalie fight!"
Nepeta huffs, and you nudge her with your elbow—harder than usual, but that's probably the only way she'll feel it through the padding. "I wanted to go watch the fight," you tell her, the traditional opening to an Old Alternian Joke.
She grins, elbowing you back even harder. You barely do not stumble, and it's totally not because you cheated with your psionics. "Can't bemeweve a dang hockey game broke out!"
Jade's laughter cuts off abruptly when she jerks herself from lying-on-ground-rolling to upright in 0.32 seconds flat. "Wait, you guys have hockey on Alternia?"
You roll your eyes! Humans, so silly. "What makes more sense, Jade? That humans would come up with the idea of strapping knife blades to their feet and swinging around wooden sticks to smack a hard rubber puck directly at some guy's face so he'll duck first, or that trolls would?"
"Blood fur the hockey gods," Nepeta intones solemnly. You can tell she's just barely hiding her own laughter under the Serious Nod she gives an increasingly incredulous Jade.
"Okay, wellllll. That makes sense! But you won't need that much protective gear to meet my plants." She pauses, looking you guys over. "I mean, if you want to keep it on, you should be fine, it won't hurt! I mean, if it gives you as much movability as your average NHL goalie. Those guys are pretty flexible, right? Uh, anyway! You should be good. I'd mostly worry about you overheating in all of that padding!"
"We'll take it off once your plants have proven trustworthy," you tell her, and Nepeta, who's been eyeing a monstera particularly closely, scoots right up next to you in tacit agreement. "Until then, lead on!"
Jade has done a really impressive job with the gardens! You're feeling very impressed, but that might also be from the indents left by the helmet you've just shed. After her wetland taro plants had completely failed to suck Jade down into their muddy depths and drown her—after they'd completely missed several opportunities to even make an attempt—you'd allowed her to senderificate a single piece of gear back to her house. Between her detailed explanation about the merits of cultivating upland taro versus wetland taro (apparently, she had both, and the heart of the matter was that they both needed copious amounts of water to grow, and anyway, she usually turned upland taro into chips or candy and wetland was used for things that needed the taro flavour), you'd noticed her giving certain leaves surreptitious pats.
Nepeta nudges you again. "Do you meowbye think she's checking fur if any of them have turned on her?"
"Nnnnno," you say, lingering on the word with a concentrated frown. "It looks more...comradely? Camaraderie? Friendly? That's the word, right?"
"Huh," Nepeta says, and the two of you return to your favourite shared hobby of Jade-watching.
Somewhere between taro and cacao, Jade's explanations start to get a little less formal, and a little more...personal. "And this is Stephanos," Jade says, gesturing broadly towards one of her many cacao plants, "but we call him Steve when he's being a little bitch, which he almost always is."
"Mhm," you say, trying to sound as natural as possible without shrieking in delight over how adorable this all is. You think you succeed in "mildly strained" over "actually cause for worry", because the look Jade gives you is only slightly concerned.
"Are you doing okay? Here, have some water—" She hands it over, and you immediately drink two gulps. Then you pass the bottle to Nepeta, because you're well aware of your girlfriends' views on hydration, and also because you get it! You're an archaeologist, you know what lack of water does to shit. "Cacao take like ten years to fruit, so I ended up staggering mine a LOT. I've got about thirty plants now, but I started with five, it was tough! Anyway—"
"This is so cute," Nepeta whispers to you, when there's a lull as Jade stops for her own water. "This is too cute."
"I know, right? Now shhh, she'll notice!"
By the time she leads you to the lotus pools, you and Nepeta are having to actively work to keep yourselves from losing your shit! "So I don't want them getting too homesick, right? I'm not great, but I've been studying some Chinese and—mine are a variety from China, I checked Grandpa's logs to figure out what language to learn from them—and I've been making playlists with songs I found on a couple of C-Drama wikias! I've got a few different types of rhizome lotus, seed lotus, and flower lotus, and different playlists for each one."
"Uh huh," you manage, and Nepeta steps up to the plate, beaming. "I'd love to hear some of your playlists later, Jade! Do you have them fur each plant?"
"Nnnno, not each, unless I've spent a lot of time with them and gotten to know their personalities, but I do split them up by species of plant and cultivars—oh, I should make you some lotus stem salad or lotus root soup—"
You and Nepeta clutch hands and internally squeal at a pitch only discernible to woofbeasts.
The trouble starts when you hit the hibiscus flowers: You're both excited for it—you, because you're a fan of varieties and species and hybrids and cultivars, Nepeta, because...you're not sure why just yet—and when you both arrive to a beautiful spread of colourful flowers, Nepeta squeals in delight. "This one smells EXCATLY like one of the teas I had on LOLCAT!"
"Hibiscus tea is really well known!" Jade looks reassured and delighted by Nepeta's excitement and interest, and you beam at her, gesturing to encourage her to go on. "So the species I have—"
And oh, it's a wonderful fifteen minutes of her detailing out every flower she has and what she uses them for, the inks and paints she'll make, the teas she prefers, stories and lore and all kinds of things and—
Jade freezes up, her face going pale, then flushed. "I, uh," she says, her shoulders hunching up as her gaze darts away from you, away from Nepeta, away from from the flowers she'd been so proud of moments ago. "Sorry, uh—I didn't mean to go on so long—"
"Jade," Nepeta says, and your girlfriend is immediately next to your other girlfriend, scooping up her hands and holding them tight. "Jade, no! It was purrfect, that was amazing!"
You're not on Nepeta's level when it comes to dexterity, but that's okay! This is what you have psionics for, and this is why you scoop the both of them up and float them into arm's reach for a SERIOUS hug. "Cuddle buddies!" Jade stutter-stops out a laugh and presses her face into your shoulder while Nepeta nuzzles her hair. "I think we should do this again. But with a speaker, so you can blast your playlists! And maybe this time you can actually tell us all of their names?"
Another laugh, and it's much better, much more real, and relief soars and sings in your heart. Gardening! Who'd've thought!
winter:
On this island, even the cold seasons are warm, and you settle in amongst the sandalwood trees as Jade talks about their history and each usage, as Nepeta clambers carefully over each tree, dropping down fruit for you to catch with your psionics, to split and peel apart into fruit meat, nuts, kernels of seeds—the taste spreads over your tongue in a way that tickles your nose, and you catch Nepeta when she leaps down, curl into Jade's side, enjoying the sounds as you let yourself drift in not-quite-sleep.
spring:
This spring rolls around with brilliance bright, flowers painting the sky and scents hanging sweet in the air. Jade teaches you how to make gardenia lei, and Nepeta bats hers around, switching to catching at the end of Jade's when your girlfriend climbs up a tree to add even more onto the garland she's making. The petals scatter everywhere, and Jade tells you that the fruit makes a wonderful yellow die, that traditional Chinese medicine uses it for clearing, calming, cooling properties.
A breeze sweeps over you, sending the flowers and petals flying into a pretty little windstorm all around you.
summer:
"Consider the coconut," Jade says, and you know by now (you know from hours spent in the garden, hours spent trading reigning topics and holding court on your own, from compromise after compromise that comprised all your promises) that the gleam in her eyes is not a lecturing one so much as one inviting you in on the joke.
So you and Nepeta joyfully chorus back, "The what?", and Jade picks up the refrain, and then afterwards you all sit in the warm summer sun (so much softer than Alternia's) sipping from coconuts cracked open just for you and Jade tells you about braiding rope from the husks she didn't use as brushes or sponges, using its shell as a bowl until it broke and then turning it into buttons, turning the roots into dye and weaving baskets from the leaves, and so many more things, until the sunset streaks the sky brilliant.
fall:
Gourds, apparently, are pretty easy for Jade to grow. All sorts, of course, and she's gotten into the habit of showing off as the two of you got more and more intrigued by the garden, as you two became accustomed to wandering out and off on your own, as you learned how to enjoy what she did and do it with her. Jade, of course, responds in kind—lighting up with delight each time you both praise her, each time you ask further questions, each time one of you is the first to suggest time in the garden.
Basically...it ends up going in a very specific direction. For instance! Jade enjoying showing off a bit. Jade hoisting up giant pumpkins to show off the muscles in her arms.
Jade........planting a massive field of pumpkins under the assumption that not all of them would make it, only to have her yield increase by a magnitude of three.
The three of you (who helped care for the damn things, so probably it's on all of your heads) stare out across the field of orange, vines everywhere, and wonder if maybe Feferi actually did pop by to "help out" the way she'd once joke-threatened to.
"So...what are we going to do with all of these pumpkins?"
"You know, I've got an idea for that!"