Work Text:
Constant motion makes it easier to ignore things and highlights others. Motion isn’t something totally unfamiliar to the Garden, although it prefers its steady inexorable motions – phototaxis, the curling of vines, and of course, growth. Always, always growth. If things aren’t growing, something is off in the garden.
For example, Zelda Highway could feel the steady pushing of the parasitic plant through her body. It didn’t hurt, or anything, but root hairs don’t last very long and like any plant it needed water from her body to live. So she kept working, to distract herself. Even though the rhythmic alternation of pounding and tapping from her hammer, the sizzle of sweat dripping on hot metal as she shaped the pancake of metal in her tongs all made it uncomfortable. She could feel it (metaphorically) eyeing the heat of the forge, even covered as she kept it, with a hint of unease. It couldn’t help it any more than she could help watching a ball hit in her direction or watching the umpires by the base-paths.
Every crew made her uncomfortable, to be honest. Some people said they didn’t mind the Knights or the Mages, but after the last 23 seasons, taking them at face value seemed like an obvious mistake to her. Alternations had destroyed lives and careers before, and she doubted Quests were more likely to be kind to their bearers-
She arrested that train of thought.
Focus, now, Zelda: curl just-so. She shaped the steel into a delicate curve, worrying the edges to emulate a rose’s ever-so-slightly uneven growth and then brushing it clean. She left it to cool, but it’d go in a basket with all the other petals she’d been working on (inside to out), eventually to weld together once that class’s wait-list ended.
She let her preoccupations go as she got into cleaning up, shutting down her equipment, and padding through the thin ground-covering shrubbery to shower before deciding on dinner.
“Hey, Epi.” She asked in the shower, itching the back of her throat with her tongue. In spite of everything, her allergies still niggled at her in the garden, especially after a few hours of relative dehydration. “Do you think we’ll win this season? It’d an amazing story if all it took was one blessing to push us up.”
The parasite answered: You shouldn’t get your hopes up.
“I know.” She carefully lathered her hair around the heavy purple blossoms near the base of her neck. “It’d be nice, though.”
It would. It would also be nice to watch a sunset or read a good book.
“Why are you feeling contrary today?”
Because you are ignoring that you miss them.
Zelda elected to rinse off her hair a little less delicately. “I won’t have to miss them if we win the Internet Series.” She tried to sound confident.
You shouldn’t get your hopes up.
We could do this work in the Greenhouse tea shop, you know.
The whirr-pftpftpft of the sewing machine slowed to a halt, Zelda paused her podcast. Neurochemical cross-talk was even harder to parse than purely auditory cross-talk. At least that happened at roughly the same speed. It also gave her a little time to think.
“...We could. But I don’t want to infringe on its space. I’m not exactly in the shadows right now anyway.” She picked her way through her words carefully. It would also hurt seeing the space empty.
It would help anyway, they are not only a physical being like us.
“It would still be rude to enter without asking though.”
You cannot exactly call it instead.
“We swept the Shoe Thieves,” she pointed out, “We can totally take the Beams.”
You are changing the subject.
“Maybe I want to focus on work?”
The parasite rolled its metaphorical eyes at her and let her get on with finishing her hem.
A few hours later she sighed, took up a (thankfully clean) wheelbarrow, and very carefully transported her current project (well, her most recent project), sewing machine, and select supplies to the lit-but-unoccupied interior of the Greenhouse tea shop. Disappointment welled in her stomach, even though she’d known her friend wouldn’t be there.
“This was a stupid idea.”
I do not control you.
“Hmph.” Zelda set down the wheelbarrow, away from where any nosy teammates could easily spot it, and went back to her room.
When she came back the next morning, Zelda’s heart skipped a beat and she rushed to the counter, the parasite’s vines trailing behind her lightly in the rush of air. On the counter, her project lay neatly sorted, not a piece missing.
“Hello?” She called, glancing around. After a few moments of silence, she lifted the divider and slipped behind the counter, peeking around in the back. As usual, everything was lit, lush, and organized, but she could see nobody. Who had gone to this trouble for her? She prepared herself some tea, taking her time with the matcha, breathing out. She would ask her teammates later.
“I do hope I’m not intruding, Miss Zelda?” The voice was soft, she almost thought she imagined it even as she spun to see the shadowy, indistinct, barely-present figure behind her. “I had been hoping to catch you sooner. I am… sorry I couldn’t join you in the playoffs.”
“Holy shit, Jenkins, it’s- sorry.” She nearly dropped the whisk going to set it down, realizing she had used his equipment without asking. Not that she could have really, but still. “You’re not intruding, how did you get here? It’s not like you’re in any shadows, let alone our shadows.”
“This place is a part of me, Miss Zelda.” The holes in its form that passed for eyes seemed to soften a little. “How have you been.”
“Oh, you know. Keeping busy.”
Jenkins didn’t say anything for a minute.
“No, really. I’m holding up. Maybe when the season ends you can introduce me to the Core Shadows?”
“I’m glad to hear you’re ‘holding up’, but please remember to breathe.” It gave a whisper of a sigh. “Only you can take care of yourself right now, Miss Zelda.”
Zelda nodded. She wanted to change the subject again. “How about you? Are you enjoying party time?”
“I am. But I miss the quietest parts of the Garden. Nothing here is ever truly quiet.”
She nodded again. “We should compare notes on culture shock.” She followed it with a wry smile.
“We ex-Shadows have to stick together. Miss Short has been excellent at getting me situated.” Their form wavered for a moment, then they added, “In some cases there is a language barrier. Unlike her I cannot cast a spell to understand languages. And do not get me started on the fish pipes...”
Zelda could feel her shoulders relaxing. She went back to preparing her tea, listening to it talk with a smile on her face.
Told you so. Murmured the parasite.
She did not deny that this was helping.