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There was something invigorating about gardening in the human realm, Willow decided.
Her plants in the demon realm were sown into soil imbued with the power of the Titan, alive with the magic that flowed through the Isles.
But they were familiar.
And while she’d come across a handful of plants identical to those she’d seen back home, Willow found a number of plants that were similar enough on first glance, but differed from their demon realm variant, and even more that seemed to only exist in the human realm.
It was exciting.
It was this excitement that was responsible for the small part of her that was glad they’d been stranded in the human realm, the part of her that had desperately sought after some sort of bright side to the situation she and her friends had found themselves in. Especially since it had become apparent early on that returning to the demon realm wouldn’t be a matter of a couple of days.
Diving into human botany at that point seemed a natural distraction; Willow’s garden in the Noceda’s backyard quickly became a sanctuary for her, an integral part of her routine as she adjusted to life in the human realm. It was her constant, waiting for her each morning without fail.
And on the rare days where Willow found herself beginning to spiral, it gave her a pseudo-home; hiding among her plants, she could almost imagine that she was home, that the Day of Unity was still weeks away, that her dads were just within reach, busying themselves somewhere in the house.
She didn’t often have help in her garden, content to tend to her plants on her own each morning. But they had recently returned from a trip, chasing rumors that gave them even an inkling of how to construct a new portal, and her garden had been neglected. The mid summer sun had taken its toll in the few days they’d been gone, and Willow knew she’d had her work cut out for her, especially with her insistence that she try to maintain her garden the human way, at least for a little while.
“Captain!”
When Hunter had offered to help her catch up on her plant chores, Willow had jumped at the opportunity. Even the one extra set of hands would make a difference.
She turned away from her garden, watching as Hunter approached, a light pink flush stretching from the tip of his notched ear, across his cheeks, to the other. Flapjack flitted around his head, chirping happily. “Flap and I are ready to help!”
“Glad to have you both,” Willow said, lifting her hand for Flapjack to perch on. The palisman greeted her with an enthusiastic trill, preening as she gently scratched the top of his head. “It would’ve been nice if it had rained while we were gone, but Camila said it’s getting to the dryer part of the season, so it’s nice to have some help catching up!”
Flapjack chirped at her once more before flying back toward Hunter, nestling onto his shoulder. A fond smile found its way onto Hunter’s face.
With a content sigh, she kneeled down to rummage through the gardening bag Camila had given to her early into their stay: a sage green tote filled to the brim with tools to match — trowels, pruners, a weeder, gardening gloves in a myriad of sizes and patterns. Whatever she might need to maintain her garden, there was a good chance that she would be able to find it tucked into the bag.
It was times like this where it came in handy. While Willow much preferred to work without gloves, the feeling of soil on her skin providing both a familiar comfort and a heightened connection to her plants, she had a feeling Hunter might not be as partial to the dirt.
“Heads up!” she called as she pulled out one of her larger pairs, a pale yellow set of gloves dotted with floral designs. Hunter’s eyes met hers right as she tossed the gloves his way, and he fumbled only briefly to catch the pair that had separated in the air. He let out a triumphant laugh, trading his usual brown gloves for the yellow pair.
“Well, what do you think? Do I look like a gardener?” Hunter tugged at the hem of the gloves, flexing his hands in an attempt to break in the rubbery fabric.
“Hmm,” Willow pursed her lips, scanning the area of the backyard that she claimed as her own, her eyes catching on a small wooden lamppost that she’d been using as a marker for where her garden began. Hooked onto the post, swaying with the gentle breeze, was a wide-brimmed straw sunhat. Camila had mentioned it was a relic from her own unsuccessful attempts at maintaining a garden.
Perfect.
“There we go.” She placed the sunhat atop Hunter’s head, ignoring his indignant “hey!” as she did. Willow stepped back to appreciate her work — he looked cute, all decked out in his gardening gear. “Now you look the part!” she said with a wink.
His face flushed an even deeper shade of pink as he looked away, crossing his arms over his chest. Flapjack tugged sharply at his forelock, earning another yelp from Hunter, who allowed his gaze to wander back towards Willow. “What do you need me to do, Captain?”
Surveying the garden before her, Willow took a mental inventory of the things that they would need to accomplish — the heat and lack of rain hadn’t completely destroyed her garden, something she found herself grateful for, but pretty much every plant would need watering, and a large portion probably needed to be pruned.
“You okay with being on watering duty?” Willow drew a small spell circle over her watering can, filling it almost to the brim with water. The spell would allow the can to stay full for as long as they needed it, a small luxury considering how much watering they had ahead. “It’s pretty easy, and considering how dried out everything is… I don’t think you’ll have to worry about overwatering.”
“Sounds good,” Hunter said dutifully, adjusting the way the sunhat sat on his head, but not removing it. Willow laughed, her stomach fluttering.
“For the master gardener,” she said, a playful lilt to her voice, before nodding toward the far corner of the garden where Clover had been basking in the afternoon sun. “If you want to start over there and work your way around, that would be great! I’m going to start getting rid of some of these dead bits.”
The two worked in silence for only a few moments, Willow humming as she snipped at any plants that needed it. There was a faint buzzing sound — which she assumed meant Clover was awake and hanging around Hunter and Flapjack — interrupted every few seconds by the sound of water trickling out of the watering can.
“I don’t recognize a lot of these plants,” Hunter mused, breaking the comfortable silence. Willow glanced back to see him standing in front of a drooping trio of large, heart-shaped leaves. She sucked in a breath of air through her teeth, wincing at the sad appearance of the plant.
“A lot of them are only native to the human realm,” she explained as she made her way over to Hunter, plastic spray bottle in hand. “I picked up a few of my favorites from back home that I saw, but I wanted to learn about human botany while I had the chance.”
“Makes sense.”
“This one’s a colocasia.” Willow began misting the plant, hoping the temporary increase of humidity, combined with the watering, would be enough to perk it back up. “The human botany book Camila gave me said they’re pretty dramatic, and they apparently like a lot of humidity.” She hummed, glancing up at Hunter.
He was listening with rapt attention, nodding along as she spoke, a smile on his face.
“I really think these guys would like the Boiling Isles if — when,” Willow corrected, briefly fumbling over her words, “we go back. The Boiling Sea can make it pretty hot and humid sometimes, so…”
“You’re going to try growing human plants back home?” Hunter’s eyes widened, his ears twitching upwards. “Do you think they’d actually make it?”
“I can’t say for sure, but I’d like to try,” she said. “It’s… hard to say without knowing—”
“—if everything’s okay there?” Hunter finished, a slight shakiness to his voice.
“Yeah.”
Once more, a silence settled between the two of them, though this time, the fear of the unknown was almost suffocating. It was hard to hold out hope with each day that passed in the human realm.
Dwelling on that thought would only hurt them, though.
“Do you want to know what else I learned about these?” Willow asked, and if Hunter noticed the way her voice cracked, he didn’t say anything. Instead, he only nodded, curiosity once again piqued. “Humans call these elephant ears because of how they look! Apparently, they keep elephants in the same place they keep giraffes — at least, that’s what Gus said — but I’ve never actually seen one.”
Hunter’s ears twitched once again at the new information, a smile lighting up his face. “We’ll have to go with Gus to one of those… human zoos so he can show us what an elephant is.”
“Sounds like fun!” Willow beamed at Hunter, moving to tuck a stray strand of hair that had fallen out of her braids behind her ear.
“...what about this one?”
Willow followed Hunter around the garden as he watered, listing off what information she could about each plant as they worked their way around. Hunter was hooked on her every word, nodding and smiling whenever she told him a particularly interesting fact.
(She wasn’t sure if the heat that spread across her face was because of the summer heat, or if it was because of how intently he listened to her as she rambled about her plants, like it was the most interesting thing he’d ever heard.)
“This one,” Willow paused in front of a tall, vivid patch of red flowers, “is one of my favorites. The book says it’s a type of wildflower called a cardinal flower.” She exchanged a glance with Hunter before looking toward where Clover and Flapjack were dancing around each other, engaged in some type of game. “It reminded me so much of Flapjack the first time I saw it, I knew I had to try and grow it!”
Hunter’s eyes widened, a deep flush taking over his features. He let out a small laugh, reaching out to poke at one of the petals. “Huh. Hey, I can kinda see it.”
As Willow watched him admire the plant, an idea popped into her head. Her fingers trailed across the soft petals as she scanned the plant. Being later in the season, it was almost entirely in bloom, each stem adorned by a beautiful red flower. It took a moment, but her eyes landed on a hidden cluster of unopened flowers, and a soft smile stretched across her face. In quick succession, she snipped at the stems, and held one out to Hunter.
“Uhm… thanks?” Uncertainty clear in his voice, he stared at the stem in her hand, eyebrows knitted together. “It’s, uh… nice?”
As grateful as he tried to appear, the silent question hung in the air: what is this and why are you giving it to me? Willow laughed, holding up her own pair of flowerless stems.
“It’s how humans clone their plants. I read about it in my book — you can plant cuttings and grow a whole new plant! Isn’t that cool?”
Whatever reaction Willow had thought she’d get from that tidbit of information, she hadn’t expected to see Hunter tense up, a flicker of fear in his eyes as his breathing hitched. It was subtle — so subtle, in fact, that she doubted she’d even seen it, the unease gone as soon as it had appeared.
“Hunter…?” Placing her hand gently on his shoulder, Willow felt her heart constrict.
While she might not know exactly what had caused the flicker of panic in Hunter, she had an idea of who the cause might be. A flicker of anger toward the fallen emperor flashed through her mind.
“I’m fine! I’m fine, it’s fine. Just… thought of something, but it’s no big deal. Really.” Hunter cleared his throat as he tugged at his glove with his free hand.
It hurt, being so helpless. But the last thing Willow wanted to do was push and possibly make things worse. She could wait until he was ready.
So, she settled for a simple, “if you need to talk, you know I’ll always listen.” His ears twitched as a soft but genuine smile made its way across his face. “Now, why don’t we finish up out here and I’ll teach you how to pot up that cutting?”