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“You guys are so lazy,” Lavinia complained, trying to wipe sweat off her forehead, and inadvertently rubbing dirt on it instead.
Eucalyptus and Ornamental Cherry both shrugged before disappearing into the trees. She rolled her eyes. “Guess I’ll plant these trees, and then tell them all about how annoying you are later.
“Hey!” Eucalyptus appeared back out. “Don’t tell them how annoying we are before we can annoy them. They’re our new neighbours.”
“Fine,” Ornamental Cherry burst back into existence in a flurry of pink blossoms. “We’ll help. Give me a trowel.”
Thank you," she handed one to each of them. “These are bay laurel seedlings,” she brought up the tray. “They’re native to the area.”
“We know which trees are native to the area,” Eucalyptus huffed.
“Great!” She clapped her hands, “I’ll go get the others!”
“Verres? Quin?”
The fauns popped their heads out of the garbage pick up they’d been rifling through. “What?”
“Do you want to do something more rewarding than that today?”
“Define rewarding?”
“It will not involve having to pick chewing gum off your fur.”
Quin swore and started trying to pull it off his side. Verres huffed, “Will there be money?”
“Food? And a chance to do something for nature. You can brag about it to Grover later.”
Quin perked up but Verres sighed, “Satyrs always think they’re better than fauns.”
“I don’t think Grover thinks he’s better than you,” Lavinia said, technically lying since she didn’t really know the guy, but no one ever shut up about him. He seemed chill at least.
“I’ll do it for food,” Verres said.
“I’ll do it for Grover… and also food. I like food!”
She tried not to roll her eyes. “So do I, we’re planting trees.”
They trotted beside her as she led them over to where they’d marked out an area to be planted, which was still recovering from Tarquin and the ghouls. “Why?” Verres asked.
She touched her Magen David very briefly, “It’s important to do. The new year for trees. So we’re planting trees.”
“New year just for trees?” Quin asked.
“How does this involve food?” Verres cut in before she could answer Quin.
“There’s a seder after,” and then to Quin. “Like a birthday for all trees? There’s rules in Leviticus about how old a tree needs to be before you can harvest fruit from it, but it’s like a way to record it, and now more for all trees.”
She almost tripped over an uneven cobblestone, but caught herself against a building wall instead. “Once I get all the others, you know? There’s only a few of us in the legion, but it’s nice to have other people to do it with. Before the wolves came, I did it all with my shul but there’s fewer Jewish Roman demigods, so if I have to organise everything, so be it. Laia and Hadassa are coming later, they have legion duties right now, I think. And Aaron and Arran said they’d be round soon. I’m not sure. It’s not like we can text, unfortunately, and we’re a little too close for eagles.”
“Is Poison Oak coming?”
Lavina’s face turned the same colour as her hair, “She said she’d try and make it. Whatever. Come on.”
“It looks nice,” said Poison Oak. Lavinia nearly tripped up on an empty bag which had had compost in it before.
“Hi Poison Oak, thanks for coming.”
“‘Course,” she smiled, a tendril of viney hair coming up and brushing Lavinia’s cheek, leaving a frisson of either a reaction to the poison, or stupid teenage hormones. “Trees are nice, and bay laurel is a good choice.”
“Well I didn’t want to pick anything invasive, you know? And the bay laurel that was here before really thrived before…”
“Yeah,” she said sadly. “They were funny. Very fast too. And their leaves were so good for sending messages, even for normal demigods, if they were neat enough. I’ll miss them.”
“I’m sorry,” she said, and touched her girlfriend’s cheek.
“Yeah, me too,” her face twisted. “Red in tooth and claw is nonsense really, but… death fuels life in nature. Bay laurel gave their life to help save the others, and its important to honour that. Even though their roots were destroyed, their ground is still fertile and strong. I’ll always miss them, but I will be happy to talk to and guide her successors,” she took Lavinia’s hand.
“I think I should develop immunity one of these days, but not yet,” she joked.
“Maybe one day. But it’s a good defence mechanism so I’m afraid I can’t give it up.”
“It’s a part of you.”
“That too.” She sighed, and Lavinia could tell she was feeling lighter already. “New Rome, the dryads, and the fauns have lost a lot,” she looked vaguely in the direction of a larger laurel, a year old sapling, and Lavinia blinked a couple of times.
“We’re doing this for Don,” she said. “For all of them. This is about rebirth, and growth.”
“Pruning a tree can make the fruit stronger in years to come,” Poison Oak said. “Obviously, I’d… rather it not have happened. But we can’t bring them back. We can only make it better from now on.”
“We will,” Lavinia promised.
“Where did you get all of these?” Aaron shoved an entire bunch of grapes down his throat, and Lavinia couldn’t help but glance at the symbol of Bacchus on his arm, next to his SPQR and yearly stripes.
“The nymphs are good if you ask nicely enough.” And bribe them a little. Normally campers would try and get more contraband things, like cigarettes or edibles, so she thought they might just be glad that they wouldn’t be breaking legion rules for once.
She sat down on the grass next to a plate of food, and bit into an olive. “Don’t throw away the pit,” Poison Oak said. “These are fresh, so you can still plant them.”
“Can you just tell that?”
She shook her head from side to side, “It’s difficult to explain, but I suppose? There’s no nymph for it yet, but I can see that there could be.” She pressed her knuckle into the dirt, doing something to it - some dryad magic Lavinia couldn’t really understand - changing it around until the soil changed, “There you go.”
She pressed the pit in, and Poison Oak said a blessing in Latin before they continued on with their food. “Wait, if you could do that, why did I bother getting all that compost?”
“I’ll do it for you next year, babe,” she promised, and left another rash on her cheek
Three days later, the tip of an olive seedling emerged from the dirt.