[OTA] Bloom in Snow

[uncutclarity.livejournal.com]

The gardens at Diamoond Castle are a bit of a mess.

Nothing unrecoverable, but the head gardener - old Arnifrid, who'd taken over again after Desiree had gone off to the Outside for...whatever - had been wringing his hands, so Avery changed into her rubber boots and followed him out, making soothing noises.

Admittedly her gardening skills were only casual from helping her mother when she was growing up, but other than a few frozen plants - unfortunate, but as consequences of the storm go, relatively minor - the garden should make it through intact. What needed to be replaced will be. It's what they have the greenhouses for, after all, and despite the power outage, those were just fine.

Once she managed to give Arnifrid some shoulder pats and sent him back in for tea, Avery crouched down next to one of the aster shrubs, and smiles.

"You've made it through alright, haven't you?"

Comments

[so-complicit.livejournal.com]

For his part, Davin is looking extra-Spadely (http://www.contactmusic.com/pics/le/burberry_body_fragrance_launch_271011/luke-evans-burberry-body-fragrance-launch-hosted_3578135.jpg) today, but he'll be smiling at Avery when she ends up turning around.

"Nice boots, know where I can get some?"

[uncutclarity.livejournal.com]

"Oh, there's a shop or two in Town." She grins back at him as she pushes back her hair. "I think pink might be more your color, though."

[so-complicit.livejournal.com]

"Pink?" he looks down at his shoes and raises a foot thoughtfully. "They would be a hit in Milan, don't you think?"

Okay, mostly Davin is imagining any of his nephews' faces if he started walking around in pink rubber boots.

[uncutclarity.livejournal.com]

"You'd be on all the fashion blogs," Avery assures him. "And the look on Hadyn's face would be the very best. Not that he can talk much about interesting fashion choices."

She sticks her hands in her pockets. "What brings you this way?"

[so-complicit.livejournal.com]

"Oh, I needed to speak to the Ace of Diamonds about business so I thought I would drop by while I was in the neighborhood."

Since the snow had kept them both rather busy and in their own respective Castles for the past few days.

[uncutclarity.livejournal.com]

"Well, she's a very busy woman," Avery tells him as she moves down one of the paths towards the Castle. "She's probably buried under paperwork as we speak."

Well, she would be, but that's what she has an assistant for.

[so-complicit.livejournal.com]

He'll fall into step beside her, of course, it's something he's good at. "You think? Maybe I should just come bother her another time."

[uncutclarity.livejournal.com]

They've fallen into the habit of this kind of thing, over the last few months, without meaning to. "Oh, I don't know. I heard she makes time, especially if it's business."

[so-complicit.livejournal.com]

He slides his hand over her lower back as he slips his arm around her. "Well. We could call it business."

[mnm-gamer.livejournal.com]

Mitchell was walking by the gardens on the way to the Diamond castle to visit his gamer friend. He was munching on an apple, which was scary, because hey, apples are healthy.

When he caught the ace talking to a shrub, he stopped, crunching loudly, as he said to her "Talking to plants makes you look crazy, you know that right?"

[uncutclarity.livejournal.com]

Avery raises an eyebrow as she turns away from the flowers, and it's a little bit of the cool, superior Diamond stare that the Deck knows the Diamonds by. But then she shrugs.

"Well, that's not something I've ever heard before," she says dryly. "Certainly no one has ever in my life looked at me like I was nuts." You know. In opposite-land.

[mnm-gamer.livejournal.com]

He grins, chewing loudly, and not at all phased by the stare. He's a heart, these things don't really matter.

"Haven't you only been Ace for like a week now? Maybe you should be more careful? If you talk to them in the greenhouse no one will see you." He leans on the wall around the garden, and takes another bite, half muffled by apple "Ah meen, isfh ah wash toking to a plant, everywan alrady finks ahm weird, or whatever. But ahm only a forh."

He managed to swallow, before he went one, waving the half eaten apple around. "Why are you talking to it anyway? It doesn't have an INT score, it can't talk back to you." Ever the gamer nerd.

[uncutclarity.livejournal.com]

"If Silas and Säde want to remove me as Ace for talking to a plant, they're certainly welcome to do so." Though she doubted they would, considering how many changes in the Face Card ranks had weathered in the Diamonds this year. "In any case, I'm not going to pretend to be prim and proper - or not talk to plants if I feel like it - just to be Ace."

They could deal with her as she was, frankly. But she smiled.

"There have been scientific studies that have shown that talking to plants does actually have a positive effect on their growth. Besides," she added. "Do you ask your queen why she talks to Tristan? He's less than a year old. He can't talk back either."

[mnm-gamer.livejournal.com]

"That would be a stupid reason to take away your title, don't you think?" He leaned on his hand, and thought about it "It would have to be something much more dramatic, probably. Something more exciting."

"Aren't diamonds all about being prim and proper, though?" he smiled back. His jaw dropped just a little "What, really? That's so Sci Fi... coool! Do they get, like, special properties or something?"

He snorted "I don't hang around with royals much, Ace-very. And Tristan is human and a baby. Women get all googly when there's babies around."

[uncutclarity.livejournal.com]

"You're the one who said I should be careful," she pointed out. As for the reputation of the Diamonds, she shrugged. That's certainly what people seemed to think about the Diamonds, but she'd always been an odd duck.

And for all of their shining reputation, there were a lot of quirky Diamonds. It wasn't just she and Tally. "I'm not," was all she said, though. "And no, they just grow faster. Sometimes a little bigger." She raised a brow then, though, because technically she counted as sort of a Royal, and Mitch didn't seem to have a problem being blunt with her.

"The point remains that right now? He's about as capable of talking back as the flowers are. So asking a plant a rhetorical question shouldn't really make me look any more crazy than Judith going coochie-coo at the baby."

[mnm-gamer.livejournal.com]

"Take it from me, one weirdo to another. If people see you doing stuff they think is weird, it kind of inhibits on your social outlets. Thats all Im saying."

Crunching on the apple again, he smacked his teeth and chewed. He didn't hang around with royals - much. And she was new, and pretty and young and not a heart. So he could talk to her right?

"But don't babies learn words by being exposed to them? Plants never learn words. I think it's a little different." He grinned "If we treated babies like people treat parrots, can you imagine the first words babies would have?"

[uncutclarity.livejournal.com]

"Well, I've managed so far." She was, after all, the most social of Diamonds. Enough that it made the Queen's face turn into a line on a regular basis during Avery's tenure as Jack. When the Queen had been Ace.

Avery leaned against the wall, crossing her arms. "And plants grow faster and bigger," she pointed out. "Forget that, though. I just think that if we're all prim and proper all the time, life is really boring. And I'd hate to live in a boring Castle."

[somuchheart.livejournal.com]

"We all have."

Blythe smiles brightly at Avery, shifting from one foot to the other. Even with a thick jacket, earmuffs, and gloves, she can't completely stop the chill from seeping through. "How are you, Avery?"

[uncutclarity.livejournal.com]

"Oh, not too bad." There'd been some grumbling - quiet, mostly - about the timing of Isaac's memorial, but she thought she could probably keep it tamped down. "Glad the snow's melting, even if Arnifrid's wringing his hands over the marigolds."

She doesn't even have a coat on, snd she stuffs her hands in her pockets. "What about you? Are things settling down at the Hearts?"

[somuchheart.livejournal.com]

"Things are..." Blythe pauses. They're not settling down, not yet. Though they might have pulled through the snowstorm, it's obvious to Blythe where they're lacking - and not just in the context of supplies It's difficult to admit that, though, so she says nonchalantly, "Things are getting there. That has to be a good thing, right?"

[uncutclarity.livejournal.com]

Avery smiles sympathetically. Getting there...that had been the Diamonds for a lot of the year, honestly, including most of her tenure as Jack. "It is, and you'll get there eventually. Things can't be crazy forever." One hopes, at least.

[somuchheart.livejournal.com]

"Even if they can't be crazy forever, the whole Deck does a pretty good job of being as crazy as it can for as long as it can." She grins, shrugging a shoulder. "Things will get done. Keep moving forward. It's all you can do, yeah?"

[uncutclarity.livejournal.com]

"Pretty much," Avery says with a laugh. "Which is what I told the gardener a few minutes ago, really, I'm not sure he believed me."

[somuchheart.livejournal.com]

"Has much of it been hurt, Avery? I mean, personally, we're going to have a slight difficulty with getting fresh ingredients for the Festival now thanks to the snow."

[uncutclarity.livejournal.com]

"Some of the flowers, here." Avery sticks her hands in her pockets and look contemplative. "The farms have been hit a little harder, but most of the crops had been brought in in September. Still, the apple crop is kind of blighted, and the raspberries..." She makes a see-sawing motion with her hands.

"It could be worse, though. A lot."