Work Text:
Spring 2076
T'Soni Estate, Armali, Thessia
The conservatory was Benezia's place to unwind.
Amid the maze of trees and vine-curtains, the waterfalls of hanging plants and explosive bursts of flowering shrubs, she took her contemplative midday strolls — losing herself in a cursory but methodical examination of her favorite flora, following paths of flagstone and gravel and lush carpets of moss.
That she favored this particular garden was obvious. It was here that she could pause to appreciate that the care and attentiveness required to keep something alive, flourishing, was effort never wasted. To nurture was her lifelong calling, the garden around her a thriving and tangible testament to years spent perfecting the art of tending to the most temperamental of plants, then subsequently passing on this knowledge to her groundskeepers.
She often found herself here, in this oasis just outside her office and conference rooms, and not only because of its proximity. The fragrance, so strongly green and alive, helped to overpower the stress she couldn't leave at the door.
The meeting had been rushed, disorganized. If she wasn't due to leave tomorrow, it wouldn't have bothered her as much.
But as a rule, those thoughts couldn't prevail here; the humidity was cloying but familiar and hugged the tension from her shoulders. She paused at a support column and palmed its inset environmental indicator, bringing up sensor data describing an ecosystem in delicate equilibrium: statistics on humidity, temperature, ventilation, light. The output and structure/integrity of the irrigation system. The chemical balance of the soil. Everything looked more than adequate; she hid the display, continuing her walk.
Noontime light spilled in through sea foam–tinted windows cloudy with centuries of rain and ocean spray, a tessellation of bright translucent triangles and quaint joining patina sweeping upward, curvilinear, culminating in a lofty cupola, its framing supports time-worn, its windows smeared and spattered interiorly with mud and twigs, generations of seabirds having taken up residence. To her, they weren't a nuisance — neither their nests nor song vexed her — quite the contrary, in actuality — and her groundskeepers understood the conservatory's birds and their nests were to remain untouched, their numbers allowed to reside here (without threat of eviction) and thrive (without interference) as long as they proved themselves nondestructive, which they always had.
The plants here required special care, but the birds did not; she doted on them just the same.
Beneath her shoes, the gravel's damp crunch transitioned to the gentle spring of cushiony moss. She stopped at the edge of a shallow pool.
Spindly-legged insects glided across the water's surface as a group of fish, curious about the newcomer and hoping for an offering of snacks, gathered close to Benezia's feet, flashing their scales. She chucked and gave them a silent apology; she had no food for them, but their nutrition and overall well-being was in trusted hands. The birds fended for themselves, but Benezia ensured there was a veterinarian employed and active on the premises. Aside from wildlife, plenty of acolytes and staff who lived here full time had beloved pets. Loving and nurturing the animals that lived here meant knowing they were safer being cared for by an expert; her focus was the plants.
Like the astheneia flowers, in their delicate display — the small shelter built around them to protect them even in the conservatory's glass confines: a greenhouse within a greenhouse. The endangered specimens were a frequent topic of poetic works due to their beauty and fragility. Speaking ill of them, as the legends stated, was enough to cause them to wither and die. In reality they required specific nutrients — extremely high eezo content in the soil, for one — and shelter from the wind and other elements in order to survive. But at night, their luminescence was incredible.
And the pitcher plants, which were her other favorite — unpredictable growth patterns outdoors, even in Armali's tropical climes. But here they were wholly successful given pure water and perfect soil, a balance she developed by her own centuries of trial and error. They burst before her in vibrant color, like a crowded mob of variegated blue-and-green-and-magenta flutes.
She looked up, surprised by the sudden shrill wide-mouthed needy screeching of impatient hatchlings in the nests high above. Suncatchers flashed as they swayed radiantly from horizontal beams. Windchimes sang along with the birds as ventilation automatically adjusted. A different, distinctive type of blue spark at her vision's periphery she noted, with a fond smile, was Mother hard at work; with rapidly beating wings she zipped upward, ephemeral wisp of biotics dissipating behind her in a capricious curl, a plump wriggling worm clasped securely in her small talons.
Perhaps if the meeting had gone better, she wouldn't still be fussing, eager for distraction. Maybe if she weren't leaving tomorrow, she could fully enjoy this noontime respite.
At least she wouldn't be unreachable — the house was adequately equipped, communications-wise — but she would be occupied from dawn till dusk, and all enquiries and all work for the upcoming summit would have to wait until after hours, time further encroached upon by necessary meetings with her two additional instructors, the peer mentors, the camp guard, and all additional non-attendee personnel. Limited vid-call availability, for twenty-four days, was her worry at the moment. The meeting hadn't gone smoothly, the Armali summit would begin promptly after her return from this trip, and her new speechwriter still needed training — a bit too much training.
Tomorrow Benezia'd depart for an off-the-grid retreat for troubled youth — a sort of pocket-computers-in-a-lockbox-at-the-front-door–, the-single-public-terminal-on-the-premises-is-for-emergency-correspondences-only–, all-your-bags-will-be-rigorously-searched–type retreat — twenty-four days to spend with these troubled maidens, to take them under her wing, so to speak, and show them kindness and patience when others had shunned and abandoned them, provide emotional shelter when the world had been hard and harsh. To, most importantly, caress their spirits in ways others' empathy had failed (or never made attempts) to reach, and show them they were a part of this universe, all as one, even if it seemed they were alone and unwanted.
The program's success as a preemptive measure against reeducation, incarceration, or exile for at-risk youth meant popularity; its popularity — especially this chapter's, specifically, which usually convened at the foothills of the Galas Peaks, the lakeside accommodations comfortable and modern but deliberately rustic — meant plenty of funding; and continuous funding meant retreats of varying lengths taking place at least biannually. Four of her staff for this trip were graduates of the program themselves, one of whom, Benezia noted with a small smile, was the instigating source of a sudden burst of loud lively guffawing within the apiary adjacent to the conservatory's main structure. Kalla'rei Epombros, once a troubled maiden herself, would surely have ended up dead or been sent off alone to a monastery if not for Benezia's influence, however indirect and coincidental at first.
Kalla's laughter continued along with the confident instructions she issued her assistants while lifting a hive's roof; Kalla wore gloves up to her biceps, but not for her own protection from stings — her barrier was impeccable, textbook. No one required her to hide her wrists or forearms, here at the estate; her reasons seemed to be personal or traditional, or to appease the superstitious or prejudiced, or perhaps for intentional visibility: she hoped her character would speak for itself. Her eager apprentices didn't seem to view her any differently, hard at work and in her element, tending to the bees.
She'd come so far.
Dumped as a newborn swaddled in dirty rags in a planter along Armali City Center Promenade, her introduction to the world was a dead of night downpour so torrential that she would have drowned, submerged within the planter's confines given several more minutes unnoticed. The raindrops were so massive, she recalled via secondhand retelling of her origin story, they'd flattened the kallareia flowers she'd been cradled in, petals all pelted and bruised, smashed into the waterlogged soil.
And so thus she'd gotten her name — Kalla'rei — her writhing and wrinkled newborn body picked up, gurgling and keening and cold, held reverentially in her rescuer's spindly bare-and-bruised arms, before being swept into the night, destined for a life at polite society's outskirts, suckling at the teats of the destitute.
She grew up gangly and dirty, skinned-kneed and rough — an invisible child among invisible "mothers." At ten years old, the only home she'd ever known was a cave tucked within rural Armali's rugged bluffs, where the ocean's roar lulled her to sleep when the crabs stopped snipping at her toes. Then ever on, nightly, the routine: waking at sundown to her adoptive mothers nursing a crackling fire, taciturn and scowling, and the ocean's spray having crusted her eyes shut with salt; then, peeling mildewed pillows from her cheek, she was sent into the night to sneak and pilfer for survival.
By thirty, she'd been convicted of three counts of manslaughter — she had no idea those three farmers had died after her deceitful infomelds, or why (just a kid kept in the dark, an unwitting tool wielded by a ring of wanted criminals) — and ushered promptly from court to a place where the light and smells were so sharply clinical she couldn't stop knuckling her weepy nose and itchy eyes, as her hands grew numb upon her lap in their cuffs, as a prissy nurse pried her mouth open and jabbed a swab against her left cheek's inside, the collected DNA spelling out in unequivocal nucleotide sequence what she'd already grown to understand, thrust into this new harsh reality: Ardat-Yakshi syndrome, moderate. Then subsequent meetings in stuffy, thickly curtained rooms, diplomas with their inscrutable script leering at her from ornate frames, a psychiatrist cooing condemnations over steepled fingers and cups of strong tea: illiterate, sharply intelligent and intuitive, mild antisocial and narcissistic tendencies, nonpsychopathic; recommended transfer to Promontory Orphanage School, high-dependency wing.
The school, perched upon one of Armali's ocean overlooks, was a turning point for Kalla. Kalla would say, however, that the day one of its premier donors came to give a moving speech was what changed her: she'd never seen a person so captivating. From then on, inspired by the matriarch — erudite and powerful, elegant and compelling — she marched herself to the headmistress's office every afternoon until her application to a certain quasi-religious lakeside retreat had been finalized, her nomination approved, and her place on the wait-list secured.
Matriarch Benezia, standing at the fish pond's tiled edge, still studied the bustling activity in the apiary adjacent to the greenhouse, where Kalla'rei, now seventy-four — schooled and housed and gainfully employed at the T'Soni estate, long since a graduate of Promontory Orphanage and the lakeside retreats, and also now a lakeside peer-mentor four years consecutively — was hard at work with her apprentices, teaching them the language of the conservatory's bees.
Her introduction to beekeeping had occurred at her first retreat. She said their humming and buzzing filled her mind and the empty space within it — filled the void in her mind where another's consciousness could never harmoniously thrum. And her biotic technique to calm the bees was one she'd proudly perfected herself — some uncanny intuition she had for them, the bees: in her own words they were her calling, the song of her universe, her sweetly amber-gleaming apotheosis.
"Your preoccupation's like a smokescreen, Nezzy. I could smell it around the corner. It's making me cough."
Benezia turned. Aethyta, standing before a vine-tangled trellis, coughed unenthusiastically into her elbow and proffered a tall glass, ornate handle out.
"And I came to tell you you forgot your tea."
"So I did." Benezia caught herself in a moment of unnecessary formality, and she sighed. "Thank you," she said, her tone less stilted.
Aethyta stared back as if Benezia were transparent, then hummed neutrally. The fish approached again, congregating at the pond's tiled edge, kissing the air and begging the newcomer for treats.
"You're spreading yourself thin," Aethyta admonished quietly. She seemed distracted by the burbling fish, hands on her hips, making exaggerated fish lips by sucking her cheeks between her molars.
"That's why I come here — to unwind." She gestured with her glass. "I have everything under control; you caught me at an inopportune moment, is all."
Aethyta clucked her tongue in disapproval as Benezia blew on her tea. "You're still fussing. Ruminating."
"Then perhaps the upcoming retreat will help."
Aethyta scoffed. "Bullshit. It's not a vacation. You always return exhausted, and with that Lauris girl there again this year, you know it's not going to be easy. Kid's a mess."
"I'm not worried. It's a delicate balance, but the guard has always been a stabilizing presence rather than a threatening one. Laur has built a rapport with T'Irai; I think we have her on a promising path." She hummed contemplatively. "And disturbance is truly rare. They're present to protect and employ force only in theory. It's never been necessary."
Benezia took a few steps over to the astheneias' miniature greenhouse and tapped the controls to view the feeble flowers' microenvironmental data.
"See, even here, you're still stewing." There was an eye-roll in Aethyta's voice.
"I shouldn't have to remind you I'm leaving tomorrow, and I'm still not settled here." She frowned at one drooping flower before turning to address Aethyta directly. "Nor have I finished planning the students' evening itinerary —"
"You have time," Aethyta drawled.
"— or finalized the lectures I'm giving for the retreat's final five days —"
"Go for extemporaneous. And heartfelt."
"— oh, and, I need to remind T'Sarrah to check —"
A vertical blur passed before Aethyta's sharp narrow-eyed squint and sounded with a small thump on the ground. Following the line of descent, Benezia dropped her gaze and stared, mouth slightly agape, at the tiny bird screaming at her feet, featherless and blind.
She ushered Aethyta aside, making room for a parent to make a rescue. But when she squinted upward — no birds in sight, even though their chirping filled the indoor garden. Only the hot light pouring in, flashing through the suncatchers.
"Yeah, and after that?" Aethyta pressed, practicing her best hangdog expression.
"I haven't forgotten, Love," Benezia soothed, and she took Aethyta by the forearm, rubbing a thumb gently over her skin. "I promise I'm planning something for us." Aethyta seemed unconvinced, so Benezia elaborated, "Three days to celebrate our centennial."
Benezia met Aethyta's tight smile with a warm one of her own, though the tension slid from her cheeks when Aethyta shook her head.
"A hundred damn years and the pilot light at least's still burning," Aethyta said, voice low. Sighing, she reached out to squeeze Benezia's upper arm. "At least I still feel it," she added softly, but she met Benezia's eyes with renewed intensity. "You have to let yourself feed the flame, Nezzy."
"Nurture it," Benezia agreed serenely, trying to find her smile again. The bird beeped and rocked, tiny legs and naked wings jerking uselessly.
"And actually take the time to do so." Aethyta's tone had turned bitter. "That means setting aside time. For more than just anniversaries. You're not even looking at me."
Benezia returned her glare. "A bird fell," she said evenly.
Scoffing, Aethyta threw up a hand, then used it to rub her face. "I know you love them," she said distantly, "but do they really need to be here? Indoors? They're noisy and their nests fucking reek."
Benezia pressed her lips taut, attention divided between Aethyta and the helpless bird on the ground, shrieking and frail, its mother unaware of its plight.
Both tugged at her: the needy hatchling, her bondmate — irritated and feeling neglected.
Benezia set her tea aside as she skirted past Aethyta. "I really don't want to argue right now. This can wait."
The birds always took care of themselves. They didn't all survive; that's how life worked. But as she cupped the baby bird in her hands, carefully rising from her crouch, she took a moment to ask herself why she'd interfered when she'd always promised not to — her thought cut short at Aethyta's low incredulous muttering of Seriously? as she stormed off, shaking her head, not bothering to look back.
Benezia stood motionless, bird wiggling in hand. She'd made her decision.
Rising, her biotics hummed within her core as she drifted to the roof's apex, the air within the cupola hot and smelling of baked earth and guano. The hatchlings screamed piercingly.
"There you go, Little Wing." She gently tipped the bird out of her palm and into the nest beside its screeching siblings.
Below her, a map of her nurturing successes expanded — a quilt of technicolor splendor — as she began her slow descent. Kalla'rei chattered in the apiary, her voice muffled but airy beyond the glass. And Benezia's bondmate of one hundred years ambled over moss and stepping stones, shoulders slumped and hands shoved in her pockets, following the path winding through trellises and fountains and aisles of rare plants to the main building's entrance, opening the door with a flick of her hand, disappearing inside.
Benezia's feet met the mossy ground.
There was wisdom in understanding when to step back, let nature run its course without her interference. A finite influence to her deft healing touch; a limit to how many things she could nurture at once.
Flowers or fish, troubled maidens or bees.
An interpersonal spark, left to fade or flourish, come what may — like the birds nesting in the cupola.