networkinthenight | [audio] @silver; Backdated to the fifth [open]

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[audio] @silver; Backdated to the fifth [open]

[Someone had been around the docks when...all of that happened, broken an arm, and spent the following days snugly shut up tight in her house. Not a weakness she wants on display, of course, but she's angry, and having been in no useful condition for supply-regathering isn't much of a boon to her pride. But a handful of days shut up are little better.]

Couple things, just, quick.

Couldn't stick around the ferry and people's chief concern seems to have been food, which is fine, but I'm wondering if anyone got gardening supplies, and if those made it? I've mentioned it in passing to a handful, but especially given the exact worry I had was just proven right, no excuse to not be proactive anymore. We have good gardening types here, and it's better for the town as a whole if we can set a couple plots up...immediately? Fast as possible. A couple of small greenhouses are kind of a must at this point too. I'm not really up to building and clearing condition right now, so anybody brave enough to turn soil and move rocks and handle basic construction, drop me a line. People I talked to before, uh, the same I guess? We can divvy up who goes where, five people per square foot's a bad spread of resources.

Second thing - I'm getting the impression nobody's liking those flowers very much. [She's...largely unperturbed. Distressingly accustomed, at this point. Were the month not getting off on such a broken foot she'd be amused.] If it's crippling and you're desperate for something, stop by and I can give you a little cone to breathe through. Plague doctor-style, but tiny. Cute. [Deadpan:] You'll look like little birds, and it'll smell like pine.

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Handler Misty. I have never been allowed free time. I wasn't out of cryofreeze if there wasn't a mission.

[It turns more earth.]

I have on idea what to do with myself. Even if I had an idea, I'm not sure I could give myself permission to do it.

But then what happens if I like, ordered you to keep yourself busy?

You don't need your own permission, you know. Permission doesn't really need to be a factor.

It does. I'm not a person, Misty. I'm not. Like you.

[Focusing on the task at hand. That's something it can do. Even feels kind of nice, having a task that requires it actually use some strength.]

And please don't order me to keep myself busy. I. Really don't know what I'd do.

Please don't say you're not a person. I don't believe it, and I don't think I could pretend otherwise.

[She's grown...comfortable enough with whatever 'Handler' fully, properly entails for her role in their relationship, but it's more his benefit than hers. This is the line in the sand.]

That's coming from someplace raw and I'm not gonna force it, but it ain't true.

[There's not much it can say to that. It's an order, even if it's couched with a "please", even if it's from someone who is only a handler on technicality and the Soldier's own silence about knowing of where the status came from. So it keeps its gaze down at the garden earth and says,]

I won't say it, then, if it bothers you.

[In front of her, anyway. It'll try.]

I care about you, you know.

[In case there's been some confusion, there.]

I don't want to press something that's not ready to be pressed, but you're - I don't know. Important. I don't have a lot of people, and I want the ones I have to be as comfortable as they can be.

[She wouldn't be the first handler to say that, that she cared. Somewhere in the back of its brain, the Soldier knows it's heard those words from people that held its leash, and known they were a lie.

It doesn't seem quite as much like a lie, this time. Like with Scarlett. Crowley. It isn't sure it can say it cares for people in particular, back. That seems like a person thing. (You are a fucking idiot. Shut up, Sergeant.) And it just said it'd try not to talk about not being a person. But it can say:]

You're important. You're. Safe.

[That's probably the biggest thing it can think of to call a person. They're safe. It means that it doesn't expect them to cause it pain or make it do things it doesn't actually want to. That it might actually kind of trust them a little. So far all of three people even come close to that, and Misty's one of them.]

[It's nicer to hear than it rightly should be, but her bar is woefully low. No source of specific pride, but something to be held fondly and appreciated for what she can infer it to mean. There's a quite defined smile, there.]

I plan on staying that way, I hope you know. Only get safer with time, if anything.

That sounds nice. Safe is. A good thing to be.

[And it's nice to make her smile. Like Scarlett's little smirks and Crowley's speechlessness sometimes. It wants to collect all of those and save them somewhere, somehow.

It's running out of garden to turn, though. Maybe it's time to see if she'll change the subject to something a little less stressful than personhood and relationships with a murder machine.]

Should we try to plant anything today?

Mm...If you're feeling up to it we could try a test batch, sure. We'll need to keep space for the greenhouse, but we'll sneak a couple in on the side just to test the seeds.

[An approving nod.]

Should probably be beets, but they're gross.

[Why wouldn't it feel up to planting something? It doesn't sound like it would be very labor-intensive. New and different, maybe, but it's seeds and ground and maybe water.

Besides, the thought has occurred to him that seeds still might not grow. It offers,]

We should test something to make sure it grows. Before putting in too much time and materials on the greenhouse. Just in case.

[She nods once, needing little by way of convincing.]

Just a couple, for a trial run. Won't kill very much time, but I guess a couple minutes a day can go to checking in on them.

[She's moving back around front - having wisely resisted the urge to keep seeds on her, they're tucked in a cabinet.]

Any kinds jumping out at you?

[This is a tactical question, of a sort. This is something it can weigh in on, so it does, following her to the door but staying just outside so it doesn't get dirt in her house.]

It should be something that would be high in calories and that could potentially eaten right out of the ground without cooking, if necessary. Something that might result in multiple edibles rather than just one per seed.

[It doesn't know enough about how fruits and vegetables are grown to know what kind of plant that might be, sadly.]

Leeks, daikons, cabbage, kale...

[Only one of which is really available for eating raw, but the timing unfortunately leaves most of his astute points out of reach. Winter growin': if only they'd been one boat earlier.]

We'll try daikons and kale, see how they do.

[The Soldier doesn't even know what a daikon or a leek is. This will be a learning experience. Though then it thinks:]

We should plant potatoes, too. They just. Sprout, right?

[It has the mental image of a sprouted potato, like it's seen that before. And potatoes are good. Filling.]

Mmm...we're gambling on how cold it might get here, but if this is fall it doesn't seem too bad. Worth a shot, yeah.

[There's old internet hearsay about a person being able to live off of cabbage, potatoes, and butter. She doesn't trust it, but it speaks to the value of them. Three small packets of seeds are deposited into his hands.]

Strong start.

[It looks at the packets for a long moment without moving, then finally days,]

I hope this works.

[At this, she has to grin.]

You sound real intense sometimes, you know that? It's gonna work fine, c'mon - start quick now, fingers crossed we'll be catching results soon. You're good luck, I decided.

[That gets her a very skeptical, dubious look, which is probably better than the broody one.]

Misty. I'm an assassin. And I crashed the ferry. I am not good luck. If anything, I'm the opposite.

[But it does follow back to the garden with the seeds, settles on its knees at the edge of the turned earth closest to Misty's house, and waits for instruction on how to plant things.]

[And this is now when her smile reveals itself to be relentless. She crouches next to him, still a pillar of cheer.]

Only a couple per packet, and they need to be spaced out differently. This one...[A moment to eyeball the space, provide a rough estimate.] Maybe six here, one even row across. Press in with a thumb and cover them back up, like, a handful of dirt.

[Instruction is good. Much better than talking about its worth in subjective measures such as "luck". It carefully does as she says, measuring the dirt to cover the little holes with by her look of approval. And discovers immediately that using its left hand for handling dirt is a bad idea, as far too much fine grit manages to slip between the plates of palm and fingers, and by the time the first seed packet has been planted, they won't close all the way.

It flexes its metal fingers and grumbles,]

That's going to take forever to clean out.

[Time to keep seeds in that hand, and use the right hand for burying them. Yep.]

[The sympathy wince is not subtle. It couldn't hurt, she's certain, but that sounds like the kind of annoyance that can snowball. There's a pang of worry about the inevitability of repairs, but it's momentarily brushed aside.]

Could ask Rastus about canned air, maybe? The little dust ones, for computers.

You're doing good so far, though.

I have tools for arm maintenance. And I'm not sure Rastus can get us anything without the ferry.

[Scooting over a little for the next kind of seed to plant.]

That could be useful, though.

[Because it does recall technicians using compressed air on the arm before. It had been... cold? The sensation is very distant but still there in its memory.]

Worth asking anyway, even if it's a long shot. Stocking up, you know? Winter's coming.

[Limited supplies to start with and hardly any control on its reliability bodes ill for stockpiling; they ought to be taking with both hands, as quick and often as possible.]

You do Thanksgiving?

What?

[The look it gives her says that no, it does not do Thanksgiving. It doesn't know what that is. Something about being grateful? Not not phrased in such a way that it can comfortably just say "sure I'm thankful" and be sure that's the right response.]

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