strangetrip | [EP] hands in the dirt, head in the sun

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[EP] hands in the dirt, head in the sun

After Vax'ildan caught her giving some of the plants a little nudge, Joanna was being more careful and not using magic as she tended the plantings. Getting her hands in the dirt and around growing things was grounding in ways she needed, with or without magic.

"No. Thank you. I have all the towels I need." The staff's obsession with offering towels was beyond Joanna's understanding, but was easier to ignore than the lack of aura and their general vagueness. "The fuchsias could use some attention, though. I was going to get to them after I finished here, but you could take care of them." The groundskeeper looked at Joanna with confusion. "The fuchsias. Bushes... small, carmine-" With no signs the woman knew what Joanna was talking about, she shook her head. "I'm going to clean up this bed today. Maybe you could find another part of the grounds to tend?"

The groundskeeper toddled off to do... whatever it was she was going to do, and Joanna let out a sigh of disbelief before catching the eye of someone passing by. "I had middle school students who were easier to talk to."

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River was in a tree. So it was possible Joanna wasn't talking to her, as she may or may not be visible from where she was perched on a branch about ten feet off the ground. But she answered her anyway.

"Nothing there..." She frowned and watched the caretaker walk away. As she saw it the people from here were all ego. No id or super ego. Just rational executive function.

And towels.

"It's a bit disorienting," Joanna answered, as though the one she was speaking to wasn't up in a tree. Or maybe like a mother who'd had similar conversations with daughters doing the same.

"Can you see what she's doing now, from your perch?"

She couldn't, not quite, so she popped up onto her feet on the branch and up on her toes one hand wrapped around a branch as she leaned out to look.

Precarious but she was obviously at ease doing it.

"Hedges." Where had the clippers come from she mused. Had the woman HAD clippers?

"Then we may have a reprieve on towel offers for awhile." Trimming hedges could occupy the gardener for a long time, leaving Joanna free to focus on other parts of the landscaping.

Aware of the girl in the tree, Joanna went back to clearing leaves and random bits of trash mostly from a bed of Bee's Bliss, a faint scent of sage rising up where her hands brushed over the plants. "It's been a long time since I gardened with a young woman watching from a tree branch," she mused after a little while.

River had a number of towels in her room. Stacks of them. They just kept being offered so she took them.

She watched for another moment, still half dangling before she slid gracefully off the branch and swung for a moment like a monkey before landing on the damp ground with a soft thump.

"My intent was not to observe you," she said after a brief pause to check that all her parts remained cohesive. "You were not here when I arrived."

The words were a little rude, but the tone was not, it was somewhat apologetic and explanatory.

"And my intent was not to be observed," Joanna countered before looking up at the girl who'd landed near her, the corners of her eyes crinkled slightly with amusement. "The things we didn't intend sometimes make life more interesting."

She cleared away some dead leaves from around the base of a plant. "Then it's a question what we intend to do with the interesting bits that come up. For instance, I could decide to introduce myself to the young woman who intended to come down from a tree. I'm Joanna."

She blinked, this woman sort of reminded her of Inara. The calmness of body and mind.

"River." Not a non-sequiter. Her name. "What if the plant prefers the blanket?"

If Joanna was surprised by the question or how it was phrased, she recovered quickly. River obviously didn't see the world the way most people did. Neither had Ingrid and Freya, either when she raised them as witches or when she hid their powers from them. "Blankets can be nice," she said, gesturing toward other parts of the bed where the earth was lightly covered. But as cozy as a warm blanket can be, if it was so heavy I didn't get enough to eat, I'd start wasting away eventually. I can push that kind of blanket off, a plant can't."

"Suffocating," River understood that feeling, and nodded as she crouched and plucked dead leaves from around the base of another plant.

"Suffocating," Joanna agreed. "These are fairly hardy plants. They can survive a lot, and will once summer comes, but a little help can make a big difference, same as it does for people. They'll be beautiful in a month or two, when the whole bed is purple with blooms, with hummingbirds, butterflies, and bees flitting around."

"Survivors." She stroked one of the plants leaves with a gentle finger and nodded. "Just need a helping hand."

She considered that, face blank, eyes distant.

"Tell me how to help."

Going with her gut was more Wendy's strength, but something made Joanna look at the girl more closely for a breath before asking, "Plants or people?" Plants were usually easier, but from what she'd seen, most of the people here were survivors of one kind or another, and could use a gentle touch as well.

And sometimes being the one to help was help they needed.

"Plants first." she said after a long moment where she looked back. "People are more complicated. They give me a headache."

Joanna nodded, wondering how literal River meant that. In past lives, Freya had gotten headaches sometimes as a girl, just from being around too many people feeling too much. But they didn't know each other well enough for Joanna to ask. Not yet.

So she began telling River about the plants around the inn and what they needed as they worked, starting with the bee's bliss in front of them.

River listened intently about the plants, Joanna was restful, and she liked to learn.

Eventually she said, "You aren't as loud as everyone else." Quiet. Or, quieter. On any given day the headache was literal, but not right now.

Joanna liked to think she didn't yell all that much, and she hadn't today around River, obviously. But quiet could mean more than that, and her mouth curved into an understanding smile. "I've had a lot of practice.

"What's loud – thoughts or feelings? Or both?"

"They aren't separate. Feelings and thoughts go together." She frowned, that wasn't quite what she wanted to say. She pulled a little weed and patted the soil then held it up so the top leaves and the stringy white of the roots were visible.

"Feelings are deep down, and they grow into thoughts." Like the weed.

Okay it might not be a weed.

Separating plants into weeds and flowers was more arbitrary than some people realized. No, the green shoot River had pulled wasn't the same as the rest of the flowers in this part of the grounds, but it wouldn't have done any harm there either.

Weeds and flowers, feelings and thoughts. Not so different.

"True, but some people are more sensitive to one than the other. I count myself lucky I don't sense thoughts."

"Not a sense. Not like seeing where I can close my eyes." But she knew, not as clearly as she might, she knew and she poked a little hole in the dirt and replanted the weed. The not a weed.

"Like a wave," she tipped her head back, and opened her arms to the sky, eyes closed now. "Have to learn to float. Or you drown."

You could still get caught in the undertow, get pulled into the depths, but she knew she might not come back up if that happened.

"You can't close your ears," Joanna suggested, a softness to her eyes as she watched River replant the young plant. "But you can cover them sometimes. Sound's a wave too."

She stopped herself before gentling a lock of hair behind River's shoulder the way she would've Freya or Ingrid. "If floating gets to be hard, and the headache's bad, come find me. I have a," potion, "remedy that used to help my daughter."

"No needles." She doesn't need to be told this woman isn't a doctor. But she's obviously wary of any remedies or medications. "Simon says, no more needles."

"No needles," Joanna assured her solemnly. "More like a tisane. I'll need to make sure we have everything I need to make it, but I don't think that's a problem." Most of the components she'd seen already either in the kitchens or growing on the grounds.

"Tisane: dried herb infusion." That got consideration before she nodded. Some of the things Simon had given her had been extracts, the Chinese after al had perfect the art of herbal and homeopathic treatments centuries before human's had abandoned Earth That Was.

"Shìyìng jíbìng de bǔjiù cuòshī."

[ooc: Chinese proverb. Translation - Adapt the remedy to the disease.]

"My Chinese is a little rusty, sorry. Practically non-existent. But I used to run an apothecary," she explained. "Herbal remedies are something of a family tradition."

"Simon is a Doctor," she didn't bother to translate, it wasn't really that important. Simon had given her all sorts of things, and rules: no caffeine, not a lot of sugar. She tried to follow the rules but none of the drugs he'd been giving her were readily available.

And she liked cocoa.

"But he isn't here."

[EP] hands in the dirt, head in the sun

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