The Briar Patch: Ch. 12 - Borrowed Time

"Impressive, the both of you!" They laughed, and joined the two by the firelight, "And now, you will each receive your own Time."

At this, Zeal looked to Vye for an explanation, but the young Shol seemed just as lost as he was.

---

Vye tared at the husks filled with soil.

"Vye?"

At his name he looked up, "Zeal."

He spoke in low tones, not meant to carry, "What's wrong?"

"These seeds... they're alive but--"

"But what?"

Vye just shook his head with mounting perplexity.

What an oddity they were.

He could sense the seeds calling to him, but they were... empty. They didn't simply lack an aetherical signature, and neither were they lifeless for he could feel the intrinsic pull within each of them, but it was as if they were incomplete.

As if they were drawing him in.

"Come now, stop gawking and claim your prize." The Bluepine smiled, giving them a small nudge.

Sharing his companion's hesitation, it was with reservations that Zeal did so. 

But for all the buildup, the culmination of their efforts was sorely anticlimactic. Several brown beads pooled into his awaiting palm.

"... That's it?" Zeal raised them up to eye level, inspecting the smooth pearls.

"Do you even know what 'that' is?" Lockes asked even as several vines reached up to the higher levels, returning with a heavy sack and two hollowed log segments. These the vines pushed into Zeal's hands before he could respond. 

The sack contained loose, dark, and loamy soil, while the bark husks as he found, had not been thoroughly hollowed as he first presumed. Rather, the center had been carved out while still leaving a flat at one end as a seal. A container of sorts. 

It wasn't too difficult to piece two and two together, and he grabbed handfuls of soil to fill his log. As he reached to fill the other though, the Bluepine stopped him, "Not so quick now, that is Vye's log to fill."

They exchanged glances and Vye clambered off of Zeal, doing as the older Shol bid and filling the log. And so they planted their seed into their respective pots, and set about tending to it per Lockes's instruction.

"What do you think will grow?" Vye stared at the pot. Something was stirring within but oddly enough, he couldn't feel what it was.

Zeal just grunted and pulled the small Shol down beside him, "Nevermind. We'll find out on the 'morrow."

---

Some plants grew swiftly, this he knew, but never had Zeal seen one go from seed to bloody plant in less than a turn of the sun.

When he awoke at first light, raising himself off the ground to stretch, he felt a tickling prod along his neck and shoulders. Craning around, he was greeted by a startling shock of green.

Vye who had been curled up on him, tumbled off with a startled cry as his makeshift pillow abruptly sat up. The young Shol grumbled at him, discontent evident in the low rumbling from their chest--a sound produced by an irate or threatened Shol. It was a vocalization formed from deep within rather than at the vocals, to express provoked ire. That is, until his charge caught sight of the potted plants.

They stared at their individual plants. At first glance they appeared the same, an odd botanic that bore two crystalline baubles in their center, of which were filled with a seed.

"Your's is different from mine." Vye leaned against the husk, raising himself onto his toes that he may better see the dormant plant within. 

Zeal similarly knelt down to inspect it, resisting the rising temptation to tap the bubble and jostle the seed. A rather troublesome encounter with a splash of aromatic oil from an inconspicuous bottle had given him plenty cause to be wary of even the most unassuming of things. 

Vye had no such hesitation, poking and prodding the transparent baubles to his curious Heart's content.

"Vye." Zeal shook his head, laughing to himself and dragging a hand over his face. There were no words for which to describe the young Shol beside him.

The selfsame one that was now looking up at him, perplexed.

"Don't just go around poking whatever curiosity you find."

"But what's it do?"

"It's the vessel for your Time." 

Zeal started, swiveling aroung to face the Bluepine. They flashed him a grin.

Lockes had been there the entire Time, silently observing, watching the exchange with mild interest, "Pull it off."

What he could only assume to be the odd fruits of the plant came off with a tug, offering but a little resistance before popping loose. A glint caught his eye, and Zeal noted that the where it connected with the plant, there seemed to be a rather sharp needle. Like the spine of a succulent, but with a hollowed center.

Purpose fulfilled, the plant wilted, curling up until all that was left was a shriveled brown pearl.

The small Shol at his side started, throwing bewildered glances between Zeal, the remnants of their plants, and Lockes.

Lockes sidled between the both of them, pushing past to gingerly pocket the shriveled husks in the same satchel they came from. That the severed Shol tucked within the cavity of the long forgotten Enigma, still open from when they'd read it the night before.

"Come here and sit on the ground. No not you Vye, just Zeal, he's tall enough for the both of us... On second thought you too Vye. Make yourself comfortable and stay still alright?"

Lockes held up their hand expectantly and Vye almost reflexively placed his atop the awaiting palm. The dark Shol turned it over, giving the appendage a quick once-over. Without further explanation, they grasped the baubles from Vye's plant--and with unsettling precision, jabbed them into the tender flesh with one practiced, deft movement. The fibers offered sparse, if any resistance, and the needles glided under Vye's skin, piercing superficial vessels.

Vye tensed with a yelp, before falling limp and emitting a high pitched, distressed whine ceaselessly. The sensation of having his nectar forcibly drawn was unpleasant at best.

Zeal started, but several vines smacked at his alarmed hands, barring his way. A few coiled around his midsection and appendages to restrain him for good measure.

All this went on whilst the Bluepine tended to Vye. 

Lockes didn't even bother glancing up, opting instead to hold Vye still as the baubles filled with liquid gold. 

Vye's pained cries subsided into an intermittent, but still very much distressed, peeping. The crystal piece was still held in place on his wrist.

With their freed hand, the Bluepine combed the burgeoning foliage. A silent encouragement.

Just a little longer. It'll be over soon.

At last the sharp was carefully drawn out, and the half filled orbs placed on one of the large conks jutting out of the walls of the hollow. The young Shol rubbed gingerly at the needle pricks on his sore wrist before scuttling off onto a high perch to glare distastefully at the glass baubles, the golden fluid twinkling innocently back at him. That had hurt.

And then the Bluepine whirled to face him with a smile that made his skin prickle. Zeal was suddenly very much aware of the vines still restraining him.

"No."

"Yes." The curvature and sharp points of their teeth made all the more conspicuous by the Shol's widening grin.

Some Time later Zeal was rubbing at his own sore wrist.

"Come now, that wasn't so bad, was it?" The Bluepine hummed, twirling a bauble filled with a dark red fluid.

Zeal frowned and the Alpione Shol scoffed back, "Oh, don't be so dramatic. You've suffered worse."

"Didn't know Shols were into blood magick." was his disgruntled reply.

"Blood magic? Is that what you think this is, some kind of hex or hokey magick like of those of the castaways and their ilk?" Lockes chuckled, well aware of the messy tangle of blood magic in the history of fleshlings. The baubles were set down beside Vye's.

Perhaps to those who walked by Solaris's grace, such a heathen ritual would appear to be muddling with blood magic. But nay, any incantation invoked would be worked on the life giving essence, not utilizing it. 

Moreover it was nor a magick hurt, but to mend, and strengthen.

"I'll not consume it in my spell. It'll simply be your bottled Time materialized."

With that they pressed the pairs together, the sharps fitting the opposing groove with a soft pop as they sealed together into a single, piece.

A familiar, piece.

"An hourglass...?"

"Caught on have you?" Lockes pulled out what the mercenary presumed to be the dark Shol's own hourglass, and set it beside the others.

But, there were starking differences. Inside Vye and Zeal's own freshly made hourglass, the timekeep sand was still fluid, and it lacked the wooden frame that Lockes's hourglass had.

Just as Zeal noted so, a smidgeon of green squirmed into view, floating in the life essence.

From within the small seed germinated rapidly, green tendrils spreading through the crystal glass and forming the brackets of the hourglass as it soaked up the blood.

As the plant took in the fluids, the blood dried and disentegrated into fine powder that neither clung nor stuck.

And with that, it was complete.

Holding out their hourglass framed by living wood, Lockes passed the delicate piece to them, smiling as they marveled at the it, "With these, I would bestow upon the two of you your own Time."