Snippets and Stories: (BP) A Small Comfort

Vye was elsewhere with the Bluepine, yet again.

It couldn't be helped. Similar to how an umbilical cord in placental mammals would siphon nutrients to the growing young, so too did the vines nourish Vye.

Though it could be at Times disconcerting to find the various creeping vines fused so smoothly with Vye, and more so to know it wasn't merely on the superficial level of skin.

It was simply easier for the two to be close together, both to monitor Vye's recovery, and as the dark Shol had claimed, to cultivate the young Coty that he may reach his full potential.

And it was true, Zeal simply wasn't equipped with the proper facilities nor knowledge to pass on the things Vye needed to know. Travelled though he was, there were a lot of things he couldn't teach Vye. His heritage, his innate ability to harness the flora around him that while predisposed, needed guidance and fine tuning.

They two spent the days cooking, conjuring and animating, growing flowers, grinding herbs, and brewing concoctions and salves.

Everything that the young Coty should've, but hadn't the opportunity to.

The peace and quiet was a welcomed break from his troublesome and overly curious charge. But after the first week or two--the days blended into one another, he found it to be not Vye's fretting, but his own that bothered him, and oftentimes he wondered what and where Vye was, how he was doing, and whether the young Shol had minded the small of his back where he had the most trouble reaching when he groomed himself. It was important after all, to keep their foliage clean and free of collected dew, for the moisture could well breed rot.

After all these months of travel he had grown accustomed to minding the small Shol. Given his occupation, there were constantly new circumstances with which to adapt to, and this one would prove no different. Still, now that it was gone, he found that he minded the trouble less, and had in fact warmed to it.

It kept him busy, kept his mind off of the dreadfully vapid moments where there was simply too much Time. He had always kept himself busy before.

Lockes had kept the young Shol thoroughly distracted, busying him with learning the ropes of his kind.

Entire days went by with Vye barely sparing him a glance, so taken by the floral arrangement he was making, or perhaps some attempt to produce sweet pollen, sculpt a display of living wood, or the like.

"What's that you're making?" He had asked one day, as Vye mumbled something or another, and toying with a long coiled strand of what he could only assume to be the humble beginnings of a fabric to be.

Only to be brushed aside with a distracted grumble and a dismissive wave, "Not now Zeal, I'll lose my concentration." 

Lips pressed into a thin line, Vye worked at the knots, palpating and turning them this way and that in his hands--before letting out a triumphant cry. Even after a thorough once-over, Zeal could little discern the difference in the braid. But it wasn't to him that the young Shol ran to show his accomplishment, but to the Bluepine, eagerly pushing the strand into their hands and crying out gleefully, "I did it Lockes! I did it!"

"That you have! You did well, Vye." a hand reached up to comb through Vye's crown, "You did well."

And he preened under the attention, giggling, and chirping excitedly as he clamored over his work.

As it turned out, it was the cutting of a thin creeper vine. What he presumed to be knots were where the plant would coil in on itself to protect the fragile eyes, the spiraling tendril forming a tight bundle around the delicate green.

Vye had succeeded in getting the branch cutting to burgeon--a seemingly insignificant smidgen of green, but which seemed to thoroughly impress the Bluepine, "To be able to grasp the flow of Life within even a severed piece, and nurture it! Truly marvelous to have done so and in such tender years! I must have been near the end of my fledgling days when I first accomplished such a feat." Lockes mused, laughing and clapping their hands together joyfully. 

Zeal would've found this to be insignificant, and in a way it was. But such encouragements went a long way, and Vye had exactly that and more to go. He needed the Bluepine's nurture and guidance.

It was well and good that Lockes had taken him under wing, for Zeal could not have provided the same indulgence that children needed.

Had Vye come to him with the cutting, Zeal would've dismissed him with the same brusqueness as he normally would.

Yet at the light of dusk, the young Shol would invariably make his way to his protector, and upon making himself comfortable, curl up beside him. Just as he would never fail to do during their travels together. Zeal came to anticipate that moment every evening, taking no small amount of pleasure in knowing that the small Shol would return to sleep beside him at the end of the day.

This didn't seem to bother the Bluepine, whom had since moved to pile with them, though it hadn't escaped his notice that they remained ever vigilant and wary of his presence.

At least they were comfortable enough to sleep in his presence now.