demonicbeauty | Deer Country Inbox

Sabé was already getting ready by the time Ariadne had confirmed she should come over- she was probably going to make the trip regardless of what the other woman said. It didn't take her long to find her way to Airy's garden, but that's where she hesitated as she glanced from shop to orchard.

She made her way into the orchard first and took a deep breath in, enjoying the green air that reminded her of home.

"Airy?"

"Up here."

One of the boundary trees was a surprisingly sturdy oak. Perhaps it was a function of whatever magic that sustained Ariadne's fruit trees. Somehow, the oak had managed to reach almost to the second floor of the shop. There was a V-shape formed where one of the branches met with the trunk.

Ariadne was curled up in that bend.

She wasn't exactly surprised to see Sabé. After all, Sabé said she would come. More, she was surprised by her admission about being lonely. And over the network, of all things! Ariadne still didn't even know how to wrap her mind around being lonely. Her entire life, she'd been with some kind of family or other. It was only very recently that...well...

Ariadne's Omen, Windy, was out, flying in low circles around the tree, as if she would protect Ariadne. When Sabé arrived, Windy flew down to her, jabbing her lightly in the back with her little head, as if to shove Sabé closer to the tree. Windy was worried about Ariadne.

For good reason, maybe.

It only took her a moment to locate Airy as soon as she heard her voice. She pressed her lips together thoughtfully as she looked at the tree- and she was only brought out of her thoughts by Airy's omen nudging her closer with its head in her back.

"Alright- I'm coming up," she called out again, this time both for her friend and her omen to know. Sabé tried to push back the memory that the last time she was climbing a tree was when the plants in the jungle were trying to murder them... at least she was sure that these plants wouldn't do the same.

As soon as she was close, she found a spot where she could perch and let the silence hang in the air for a moment.

"Do you want to talk about it?" she finally asked quietly.

"All I've been doing is talking about it," Ariadne said, grabbing the branch with one hand and swinging her entire weight over the side.

It was a little harder for her to resent the jungle than most of the others. It had been almost like going home. And being able to flow through the trees like water around rocks and stones had been nice. It was something she could do. Almost without thinking. And it was a way for her to help others.

Back in Trench, she felt kind of useless. She certainly hadn't done Dean any good.

She landed on a lower branch, so she could sit closer to Sabé, meeting her eyes. With a stern click of her tongue, she held her hand out for Windy. "Bad girl," she admonished the Omen, as it came to land on her palm. "You need to stop pushing people around. It's not nice."

That was the difference between them, perhaps. Ariadne talked about her feelings and what was bothering her, whereas Sabé has hardly spoken of Padmé's death out loud... and when she has, she was always quick to push the subject aside.

"She was only looking out for you... I understand."

She's certain her own omen would be just as pushy if she allowed her to be.

"Do you want to talk about something else to take your mind off it?"

Ariadne nodded, as Windy hopped from her hand to her shoulder, settling there, nestled in the bend of her shoulder. Like Ariadne, she too craved touch and connection. She just was a bit more forward about going out and getting it.

Actually, Windy was a bit more forward about everything.

She was, perhaps, a manifestation of Ariadne's id. Still sweet, but more demanding than the woman herself.

"What should we talk about?"

Unfortunately for Airy right now, Sabé doesn't like to be touched or to touch others... it's not something she's easily comfortable with. It's probably why she's never been the greatest at comforting others or accepting comfort herself.

So it's not in her instinct to reach out to the other woman- instead she just hums a little under her breath.

"Hmmmm... well, I'd love to hear about your garden and orchard. The greenery reminds me a little of the gardens back home."

She hadn't heard much about Naboo. But everything she had heard made it sound kind of wonderful. Especially the part about the Humans sharing their planet with others, peacefully.

If the orchard reminded Sabé of Naboo, then it just sounded that much better.

With half a shrug, Ariadne pointed to the pear tree, dead center of all of the activity. "That's Sophia," she said. "She was my first tree in Deerington. Everything kind of starts with her, I suppose."

Sabé looked over at the tree, then back at Ariadne. "You were able to bring her with you from the other place?"

She'd heard a little about Deerington, though not much. Several people were there for a while before finding themselves here.

"I didn't know that was possible..."

"I don't know how it happened," Ariadne admitted. "Of course, if I had a choice, I would have brought her--all of them." She didn't want to make her other trees jealous. She did love them all, although it was obvious she had a special connection to Sophia, as the first.

Perhaps that was why inheritance was always passed to the firstborn.

She hadn't thought of that before...

Shaking the thought away, she gave Sabé a one-shouldered shrug, not wanting to disrupt Windy. "All I know is that when I arrived here, they were waiting for me. As if they wanted me to make this garden."

Sabé watched Ariadne as she explained- to the best of her ability at least. Just like there was already so much about this place that wasn't explained or didn't make sense, this just seemed to be another piece to that puzzle pile.

"I'm glad that at least one of them was brought here to you."

She smiled a little.

"And how lucky are we that you're sharing your gifts with us in the form of this beautiful space?"

"I'm not sure about gifts," she said, although it made her smile and flush slightly purple. There were so few things Ariadne felt any kind of pride about.

But her garden? It was definitely one thing.

She shrugged. "Anyway, I'm not sure people value it as much as I wish they could. Except for you, and Ezra, I suppose."

Her gift for gardening and creating this space- Sabé would certainly call it that. But she's also not one to push on the subject. Still- seeing Ariadne smile is something she's counting as a win right now.

"I think so many people here are stuck in survival mode," she mused. "We get used to routines and then they're disrupted by the chaos this place throws our way... and then we desperately try to get back into our routine. That can keep people from experiencing new or new-to-them places."

"Would you believe me if I told you that Trench was actually much better than the place that came before?" It was funny to think that Sabé and many of Ariadne's other friends didn't know Deerington. Perhaps that was an effect of the multiverse, but Ariadne found herself attaching to people quickly, integrating them into the fabric of her life.

Maybe she needed to stop doing that.

Losing Dean had ripped her apart.

On the other hand, Alastrians were pack animals. She needed that connection. She needed others...

It was all a great big contradiction!

"Deerington was...much harder. Especially Octobers. Those were the absolute worst."

"I want to believe you- but I'm having a hard time imagining it."

It was an honest answer. This place was... well, it was a lot. And Sabé was already overwhelmed by it. So at the suggestion that Deerington had been worse?

"What were the Octobers like?" she asked, genuinely curious. "I mean- only if you're comfortable sharing that."

Ariadne waved off Sabé's concern. She'd never encountered anything so terrible she couldn't talk about it.

Even if losing Dean felt close.

"There was no water. All of the water in the pipes, in the rivers, in the lakes...all of it was gone. Turned to blood. People would try to prepare ahead of time, bottling as much water as possible. But it sometimes didn't work. Also, the sun didn't rise. It was night for the entire month."

"Every October?"

Sabé didn't quite whisper it, but her voice was a little quieter. The water scarcity on Tatooine was bad, but it wasn't 'everything is now blood' bad.

"How did people survive? I mean, if preparing enough bottled water ahead of time sometimes wasn't enough?"

Was it like here, where death was only temporary? Even still, what a horrible way to go.

"There were also monsters." Which was to say, not everyone had to worry about surviving the month.

Ariadne's relationship with the temporary nature of death in the multiverse was complicated now. It had always been complicated. But doubly so now that Dean had failed to return.

Death was serious. It was always serious. And she felt guilty that, somehow, Deerington had let her view it with varying shades of seriousness.

Shaking her head, she looked out at her trees. "Fruit helped. There's a lot of water in things like lemons and pears."

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