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Why was he doing this again, why the fuck was he doing this—
The Mor Dhona wastelands were a proverbial warzone of the bullshit Eorzea endured in the past ten turns around the sun and all Her fuckin' glory. From the crystallized aether that sprawled like a virus from the heart of Silvertear, jutting, rebellious landmarks seen as far as the Fogfens, to the ever-present spear of the unearthed Crystal Tower impaling the horizon in a shadowy silhouette behind the foul gloom alongside the imposing shadow of remnants of the Agrius and the great wyrm that felled it. To the steel fortress of Castrum Centri and the prowling shitstains of imperial occupation running rounds outside the perimeter, the way you could never unhear the constant drip, drip, drip of ceruleum waste feed out onto the Tangle, driving the beasts there into a constant state of aethersick frenzy. Fuckin' assholes ain't worth the bullet of their inevitable future, if he had anything to say about it.
Still. He much rather run into another bootlicking, cocksucking black and red clad bastard than yet another fuckin' morbol.
And, you could probably fuckin' figure, the wastes out this far weren't much no more for bein' hospitable-like— aetherrot and rancid gloom as far as you could see (not that the damn fog offered much visibility to begin with), but plant life? Yeah, fat fuckin' luck there.
You might find the stubborn few back at Revenant's Toll, houseplants, indoor gardens babied and hand-raised, but out here? Your best bet was the hellish mess of growth that was the Tangle; overgrowth of vines, bramble, roots feeding off twelve knows what, morbols and tainted water sprites aplenty, driven mad by ceruleum corruption. A complete an utter shitshow that left him wondering how much gil there is in bodyguard work escorting pilgrimages up to Thaliak's mark by the Rathefrost.
But, he's learned by now that plants were the tenacious, relentless, death-courting, maddening, infuriating, clearly-don't-know-what's-good-for-them type. If anything could find a way to thrive in this taint, this pool of poison, it'd be them.
"... I ain't gonna fuckin' take care o' yer shit when ye ain't here, kit."
If Shai's bark deters him any he's sure as shit good at not showing it, settling another potted plant down on the warehouse floor, finding the perfect spots where the slightest bit of light filtered in from the slats in the vent above.
"You don't have to. Plants are hardier than you might think."
The light-hearted upbeat cadence to his voice wilts none the slightest, no matter how much Shai tries to dissuade him otherwise, push him away. He's humming a soft tune under his breath as he thumbs gently at the deep green leaves of the plants Shai has no name for.
Shai, for his part, stares at the back of Sun's head with restrained curiosity, trying for indifference, albeit the raised brow. One hand fiddling, fidgeting with a screwdriver, a mess of scrap laid out on the table before him that he's since shifted his attention away from. He pinches the tip of his tongue between fangs, looking as if he could satiate his curiosity if he just stared at Sun hard enough.
"Why the hells ye keep bringin' those here anyway?"
"They liven up the place, don't they? They're good for you and, besides,"
Sun's turning then, enough to look over his shoulder towards Shai's way, a smile that's bright but tips mischievous by the glint in his eyes that glow all the brighter in the lowlight.
"They'll keep you company when I'm not here. Can't have you getting too lonely without me."
The scoff that leaves Shai is immediate, rolling his eyes and attempting to make it seem like focusing back on the tinker work before him is effortless, but his hands make no real progress beyond their idle meandering. Something along the lines of 'keep dreamin' leaves him in a quiet huff, something that only draws a soft laugh from Sun in return, something that gets Shai gnawing on the inside of his cheek, a tickling sort of warmth rolling in his stomach. Fuck.
There's a lull, long enough for Shai to wrestle mentally with himself to impotent fruition, and it's not uncomfortable as far as silence goes, but he's never been one to leave well enough alone.
"Do they... make ye feel less lonely when I ain' here?"
As soon as the words leave him he regrets it. Shit. He tried for something similarly teasing, something bordering banter and 'yer-an-absolute-loon' disbelief, but his mouth betrays himself in the quiet, dark, isolated space of the abandoned warehouse, the only life in the nearest malm their own beating hearts. And now the plants that litter the floor and unused, dilapidated shelves. It comes out noticeably quiet all-things-Shai considered; quiet, wondering, sincere. He wishes he could bite off his own tongue.
"Sometimes,"
But, bless his heart, Sun meets sincerity with sincerity, his own voice gone a bit softer, though Shai can still hear the stretch of a smile in it.
"They can be nice to talk to."
And there's something there that makes Shai's eyes narrow; he could just chalk it up as another one of Sun's idiosyncrasies, talking to plants didn't seem much out of the norm for him, as much as Shai was aware of his norm. But the way his voice drops the slightest in volume, the way it edges soft in a way around those words; translucent and pliable, like a frosted pane you could see through only if you focused, like the edges of a shore lapping your ankles, beckoning you forward. How you knew there was something more even when you couldn't see beyond a fulm deep in the water. A softness to his words that Shai wants to chew through, get to the heart of.
So here he was, dirtying the leather of his boots in the sludge water of the Tangle, scavenging— fuckin' foraging, for any and all signs of plant life that he was reasonably sure wouldn't grow a maw of jagged fangs.
He wasn't even entirely sure if he was doing this right, likely not, if he should pull them uprooted or cut them away with a sharpened knife. He's harvested basic, familiar herbs before for consumption, wild garlic was always a hell of a treat to go with fresh game, he's foraged wood for shelters and traps, he's picked flowers as a kit to bring home to mama, but never this. Never foraging with the intent to bring back something that could continue living.
The longer it goes on the more he berates and doubts himself, cursing under his breath everytime a stubborn root refuses to give, everytime the bite of thorns cuts through the leather of his glove, but, if anything, it only spurs him forward to dig all the more. Piling sorry excuses for soil in vaguely bowl-shaped pieces of metal scrap, the odd upturned, dented imperial helm (that may or may not have also served as a soup pot in the past), and transplanting anything vaguely green, blooming, that didn't stink something too offensive, into the soil with dirtied hands. Most of them didn't look too pleased about the surprised move, sagging and bending awkwardly in their new homes, but, hey, if you could grow out here of all places then you could handle a fuckin' not-pot of dirt.
It's not until the sun is beginning to set far over the hills on Silvertear's horizon and he can't stomach the stench of morbol bile any longer that he's haphazardly piling up the days spoils onto his bike hidden in underbrush away from the corroding lap of the water, where ill-gotten gains of pilfered tech and freshly salvaged scrap would usually sit are now replaced with sorry attempts of repotted wild flora, balanced precariously as he rides his way through the wastes, away from the Tangle, and down a narrow, dusty forgotten road to an abandoned imperial warehouse once in use by Castrum Centri, before they were able to push forward and move more inland and erect the eyesore of a hold they had today.
"Hey Om, y'think this poisonous? Eat it if it ain'."
The chocobo that had been left waiting in the makeshift shanty stable outside the warehouse let out a wark of anticipation watching Shai roll in underneath the shroud of the encroaching darkness and gloom. Now he pecks at the tossed, unidentified herb curiously, giving it a stomp for good measure before peering down closer at it, blinking big brown eyes once, twice, then letting out a happy little trill and downing the greens eagerly.
If it was good enough Omelette then it was probably safe to have inside the warehouse. Probably.
"Thatta boy."
Shai pats the bird's beak before starting to unload the plants into the building, only to be met with another wave of self-digust. Fuck, his plants looked fuckin' stupid as shit next to the ones Sun had brought over time— in nice, not chipped claypots grew strong, verdant greenery of various shapes and sizes, all thriving beneath the minimal light and bit of filtered water they were fed a day. Next to them, Shai's scrap-homed crooked wildflowers of indeterminate nature and well-being just looked fuckin' sad.
By the time they're all moved in he's run his hand through his hair in frustration so many times his fringe is sticking out wayward, streaked with dirt, maybe this was fuckin' dumb, what was he even doing, the hells did he even know about plants, this was Sun's stupid shit, he didn't— he should just feed these to Om, at least then the day wouldn't have been wasted— the hells was he thinking—
"Y'shai? You in here?"
Oh fuck. His breath catches, stopping on a gil coin, his tail going rigid and fluffing out in instinctive response, uncharacteristically caught unawares. He can hear the mingling kwehs and birdsong just outside, he didn't hear Sun come in, let alone approach with his own bird, now here he was, getting caught in the act like a goddamn kit.
He turns, looking into those familiar bright eyes in the lowlight, the smile that blooms to life as he spots him, as Sun makes his way into his— their little hideout.
"I, uh. Yeah. Aye, aye, 'm here. Hey."
It's not much, certainly not the nicest— but, then again, neither was he, and Sun seemed to have little qualms in talking to him, coming back time and time again. To this unwelcoming wasteland.