After the great dividing ravine that hindered many travellers who weren't on horseback had passed, Jet lightened Stybba's load graciously and walked beside the mare as they moved, relieving her of his extra weight. He carefully held the reins with his guard-gloved hand and shoved the other one in his pocket, watching the dew-slicked grass underneath his feel evaporate it's moisture as the temperature increased. Virginia was quietly nodding in the saddle, and every so often the silver-haired boy would quickly flick his gaze to her and then sharply look away, hating himself for being so abashed as he was.
He had wisely decided to go around the forest between the crevasse and his destination, not wanting to wander through the area that he had only recently camped at before. Who knew, maybe Clive's and that wolf's blood still stained the ground there? He didn't want to find out. Jet guided Stybba and Virginia around the woods, the path was longer but clearer, and after a lot of walking through an expectant silence, he turned a corner and saw the quaint little roof of Florina's cottage just around the bend.
The trees were dropping their leaves and the clearing was bathed in the faded hue of autumn, a million different shades of brown, orange and red. Jet scuffed his feet through the carpet of dead foliage and led the other two with him, small spade-shaped leaves settling in his hair. The android held back a yawn, deprived of most of his night's sleep.
Damn it, Clive! You'd better be fucking grateful for this!
He didn't see any flowers out the front, the fragile blossoms seeming to have died during the change of season. It was a small shame, after having tried so tenaciously to cling to life for such a long time, they had finally given up. Something crumbled underneath his shoes and Jet paused and lifted one to see what was wrong, his stoic face expressionless. One of the withered flowers was stuck to the bottom of his shoe, clearly dead. Jet honestly hoped that it wasn't the flower he was supposed to be looking for, or else he was screwed.
Scuffing it off, Jet went around to the side of the horse and shook Virginia awake with added care, the girl making several attempts to bat him away with a misguided hand. "Yo! Hey, brat… wake up!" Jet shook her more vigorously, and this time he got her to open her eyes, the drifter leader tiredly blinking her sleep away. Leaning back and stretching, Virginia let loose a huge yawn and looked at him, the mind behind those eyes clearly not quite alert yet.
The android decided to leave her alone for a while. Letting go of Stybba's reins, Jet strode up to the small cottage and rapped on the wooden door with his knuckles, waiting twenty seconds, and then repeating himself after no response was made on the other side. Impatiently, the boy put pressure on the door and was not very surprised when it swung open to allow ingress, making a slight creaking noise. He peered in, seeing no little girl inside. There were a whole bunch of pots and containers, probably stuffed with herbs and things, crates, and a comfortable looking hammock. The room was a little dusty, which suggested that it was hardly ever inhabited. Florina must not be in today.
Jet leant out of the threshold and closed the door, looking back on the way they had came. Did he waste an entire night's journey in order to stand outside a vacant looking like an idiot? He snorted, it seemed like it. Virginia slowly climbed off her horse and wandered over to the boy in a thin haze, her hands ineptly knocking away the falling leaves that descended around her. As she stopped at Jet's side, he rolled his eyes. "Not a mornin' person, are ya?" It was an understatement, and she nodded sleepily. Jet had seen her like this before many other times, and knew that it took her at least an hour in the mornings to wake up properly. She was almost as bad as Gallows, sometimes.
"Um, hello?"
The youth turned slightly at the noise, and nearly jumped as he saw Florina suddenly standing right next to him, when she hadn't been there only a minute before. Did the girl take pleasure in startling him like that? Luckily, Virginia was too drowsy to notice his reaction and make fun of it. Jet scowled, then realised that only a lowlife bastard would scowl at such a little girl and he modified his expression to a guarded one, folding his arms haughtily. Florina held a hand in front of her mouth, ever shy and timid.
She had an empty watering can in her other hand, the moisture in the container phasing through the metal and coating the entire tool in a wet sort of sheen. Jet concluded that she must have just been tending to her flowers, though he couldn't see any in sight. What was she watering, dead weeds? Setting the instrument on the ground, Florina removed the hand from her mouth and smiled, dusting some dirt and soil off her clothing. "Hello Mister Jet. Did you come for some supplies today?"
Virginia answered for him, coming out of her stupor. "We're looking for a certain plant, have you seen this before?" Stretching, she nodded, reaching into her pocket and pulled out a piece of yellowed paper. It had been torn out of a book in the Baskar storeroom by Shane, who had told her that the book itself was far too heavy and it would be better to take just the page instead. Unlike the other books from Baskar, this one had been acquired through trade from Claiborne and was written in English, which made it much easier for Virginia to read. She passed it to Jet, who held it out for Florina to read.
On the page, a particularly competent artist had drawn an illustration of the plant with a skilled hand, the colours vibrant and well done. The herb looked weedy and grew vertically tall, it's thin leaves a dark green with a whitish underside, looking to be frail to the touch. It had purple flowers along each different branch of the stem, the petals cupped to the core within. The plant looked fragile and delicate, unsuited for Filgaia's harsh climate.
Florina read the words underneath. "Wolfsbane… you want some wolfsbane, is that right?" She looked uncertain. "I usually only grow plants for healing purposes, not poisons…" She gently took the sheet of paper from Jet, scanning the written text underneath it's picture. "Aconitum napellus, more commonly known as Aconite, Wolfsbane, or Monkshood. It can be synthesized into a poison called aconitine, which is deadly." Florina looked up at them. "You're not planning to do anything like that, are you?"
Shaking her head in a negative motion, Virginia vehemently pleaded her case. "Oh, no. That's not why we need it, we need the plant to help make a cure for our sick friend. Florina, if you have any of the herb left in your stores or anything, it'd mean the world to us if you lend us some. Please?" Virginia's eyes flickered in confusion as Florina knelt down and picked up a rather large fallen leaf from a tree nearby, turning the stem around between two fingers and rotating the piece of foliage. She smiled sadly, and then spoke.
"You've picked the wrong season to visit this garden. In the autumn," She scuffed one foot through the dead leaves, "During this space of time, the flowers are in their long and deep slumber. Not much will grow when the land is at rest." Passing the paper back to Jet, she picked up her watering can again, the water collecting on the outside evaporating in the sun. "The earth will awaken when spring comes, but until then, I tend to this garden like one would honour a grave, so that the flowers here did not grow and thrive for nothing. As long as at least someone treasures a memory, it will never be deemed pointless."
Virginia's face fell. "All the flowers are dead?" She asked, brushing a wisp of hair out of her face. Did they come here for nothing? The drifter watched Florina take her watering can to the small pond near her house and fill it, the water source never seeming to run dry. The girl's small arms trembling slightly from the heavy weight of the container, she wandered over to one of the proud sturdy trees and watered it, her eyes filled with empathy.
When the weight of the container decreased as the water was distributed, Florina decided to answer. "No," She disagreed, "The flowers here cannot die. They merely sleep after their life has ended, in await for the rebirth of the new seasons. When spring comes, they will bloom once more, and I know that their spirits will be the same as before, though their bodies may be different, and they have grown inwards as well as outwards. The cycle will continue until they wither again, and that is what makes my flowers strong, and happy. Nothing lasts forever, but nothing can ever truly die as well."
Virginia suddenly wondered if she was listening to a little girl speak at all. Florina seemed to have a hugely adult approach to mortality, even if she compared it to something as childlike as the growth of a flower. It was beautiful, like poetry. Jet just looked blank, his hands shoved sulkily in his pockets. Clasping her hands together, the drifter stared at the ground and sighed. "So, you don't have any aconite, then?"
Florina tipped the last few drops on the base of the tree trunk, wiping her hands on her dress. Turning to the other two people, she gave them a hopeful smile. "I'm not really sure, but the aconite cultivation period was about a month ago. That isn't too long, so maybe if we visit the flower fields out the back, we might be able to find some. Maybe we will be lucky?" The girl walked up to Jet again and pulled at one of his arms, trying to make him move. "Come on, Mister Jet. Let's go look." He was reluctant to move for a bit, but then gave up his silence and sighed, allowing himself to be led away by the little girl.
Stybba was happily drinking from Florina's pond and enjoying her rest, so Virginia tethered her down to the branch of a tree and left with them, trying to keep up with the little girl and the android. The drifter couldn't help but smile at how attached Florina was to Jet and his stony disposition, although the reason why had always eluded her mind. Still, it was very cute. Jet was very cute…
Virginia halted, and then had an almost uncontrollable urge to slap herself. Her stupid brain was getting out of control again. This was not the time to be thinking about stuff like that, If any time was appropriate at all. They had to get this herb and go back to Baskar as soon as possible, for Clive and Catherine and Kaitlyn's sake. They walked for a few minutes and went around the back of Florina's cottage, while the girl talked all the way there. To strangers, she was a very quiet and secretive person, but to friends, she sure could talk.
"I usually do most of the watering early in the morning so that the sun will not evaporate the water and deprive the plants of nutrients. That means I can save the water for when I really need it the most, in case of a fire or something. It does mean I have to get up extra early in the morning, but I think that the effort is worth it, don't you think so, Mister Jet?" Jet opened his mouth to say something, but Florina cut him off within a second. "One day I hope to cover the entire planet with beautiful flowers! It is what my auntie always wanted to do, but she left before she could complete that task. So, I am doing it in her place. Do you think I can do it, Mister Jet?"
"I guess so." Jet replied, shooting an imploring look at Virginia behind him that practically screamed for help. Seeing this, the drifter leader chose to ignore him and began to giggle, shaking her head. His gaze blackened, but the look was short-lived, ending up as a defeated sigh. Making a mental note, Jet decided to do something evil to Virginia later as punishment.
The land dipped slightly as they walked down into a sloping field, no longer looking as beautiful and as vivacious as it used to be. It was a mixture of pale green grass and a multitude of brown withered vegetation, with a few living flowers and herbs dotted here and there to remind people of once better times. Autumn, the season of withering, the passage unto death. Virginia tried to avoid stepping on the dead flowers as much as she could, but there were just so many of them that it blanketed the ground like a coating of dead leaves. Her boots crunched at every step, and she tried to walk on bare grass whenever possible.
Florina was relying on sheer memory to recall where she had last seen a patch of aconite growing, yet everything resembled everything else when it was dead, and she guided them to a slight hill nearby, going up the slope and dragging Jet behind. "This is a good place to picnic on when the weather is good," She explained, "Because the soft winds make it pleasant and it hardly ever rains too hard. Wolfsbane grows on the hills, so I think this'll be the best place to find some. Everybody look."
The three people got to the task of finding a purple flower amongst the dead vegetation, slightly sparser on the hilltop. Virginia and Florina searched delicately by gently pushing the dead flowers away, but not disturbing them any more than they had to. They were of a crumbly texture in Virginia's hands, and it felt saddening to know that they once coloured the fields with a dazzling variety of hues. It was nature, part of the cycle, as what Florina had said, but it was still sad. She cupped a flower in both hands and ran a finger along a dried petal, biting her lip as the petal broke off and fell into her hand, separate from the rest. It was still a faded blue, just the tiniest bit of colour still there. Yet, it was dead.
Jet was taking a more direct approach, yanking all the flowers that didn't resemble the aconite out of the ground and tossing them aside, into a little pile of refuse. He was moving rhythmically, hardly taking the time to appraise each plant. Every so often he would come across a still living one, and he would ignore it, but the others were just casually removed. He wanted to get this part over with so he could go and do something more worthwhile, not picking flowers like a stupid moron.
"Oh!"
The two drifters turned to look at Florina who has moved to the base of the hill in her search, the girl standing solemnly with her back to both of them. Her hand went to her face again, and she bowed her head, quietly upset. Virginia hauled Jet to his feet and they descended down the hill, standing behind her. Florina slumped her shoulder, and faced them. "I have found aconite." She said, pointing to the ground at her feet.
The aconite plant had crumbled in on itself, coloured an emaciated brown with the leaves and petals torn off, just another lifeless corpse lying in eternal rest upon the ground. Dead.