open post: pollen science

[peaklordshen]

After his conversation with Sagramore, Shen Qingqiu had taken a long, hot shower, mainly for the novelty of it, and then gotten dressed again in his robes—although he wore fewer layers than were truly proper for a peak lord, and he'd forgone his guan in favor of just braiding his hair in a thick coil against his neck. He leaves the two looser loops at the front—he still can't find his fan, and it felt wrong to not have any frame to his face at all. He's not thinking about why he feels loath to fully don his Shen Qingqiu persona. He's not thinking about much, about the last few days. Instead, he's thinking about pollen.

He's in the greenhouse, carefully laying out a sample cut from every plant in the place, as well as every plant he can imagine producing pollen of any kind from the grounds. Grasses, flowers, buds, leaves, even a few species of harmless-looking mushroom. He's using a pair of tweezers he found to gentle separate them so he can examine the internal structures. Some he recognizes as entirely harmless - Earth flora; others are stranger, more alien. Some even look similar to plants from Proud Immortal Demon Way, though thankfully none are obviously aphrodisiac in nature. Shen Qingqiu is wearing his gloves and mask again anyway—he doesn't want to breathe in the wrong pollen; normal sex pollen would just increase his normal desires and make him hyper-straight, totally defeating the purpose.

He has his notebook open to a fresh page, and is making meticulous lists.

Comments

[sporesprouter]

From walking by outside the greenhouse, Tress spots Shen Qingqiu hard at work at... well, she can't quite tell exactly from the distance but the general setup doesn't appear to be too different from her spore work. Curious, she curves around the building for the door and walks inside, trying to be quiet enough not to disturb his work but not so quiet that it seems like she's trying to sneak up on him or anything.

[peaklordshen]

It takes him a minute, but he does eventually realize she's there, and look up with a smile. "Tress," he greets. "I don't think I've seen you since the first day I arrived. How have you been weathering..." he gestures in a way he hopes will encompass everything that happened in the last few days. The, like, group hang stuff - being de-aged, blood-parasites, etc - not the personal stuff.

[sporesprouter]

"It's been... interesting." She smiles a little. "The people here have been kind, though. What is it you're working on?"

[peaklordshen]

"Yes, everyone is surprisingly kind, aren't they?" Shen Qingqiu agrees, thinking of Sagramore, of Nina, of his conversation with Laertes. "And—well." How to explain, well enough that Tress can help, without offending her tender sensibilities? "I'm categorizing plants. I suspect there's one of them that's... playing tricks on us. Like the Mansion does."

[sorrowandsorrow]

Okay, maybe Janet's taking some of her conversation with Nina and Laertes to heart. Hobbies. Doing things. Sober people. Fuck it, why not? Eliot would laugh, but Eliot's not here, and Eliot not being here is the entire stupid reason she needs stupid hobbies.

Plants are calming, right? She wanders into the greenhouse and grimaces immediately at the humidity. She's still in her breeches and boots, but Shen Qingqiu will probably notice she's wearing a modern-style blouse (a stylish one, and a tailored one, but still) instead of the lace-up leather fantasy top situation she's usually got going on.

"Hey, nerd."

[peaklordshen]

"Your highness," Shen Qingqiu returns, in the same tone, giving her a sarcastic half-bow. "What brings you to the humble greenhouse?"

[sorrowandsorrow]

"Obviously I'm here to bother you. Pay attention." Janet looks at him skeptically, taking in the gloves, the mask, and the notebook. "What are you doing?"

[peaklordshen]

Shen Qingqiu sighs. "You know how I told you Lan Wangji and Wei Wuxian are, like, fictional to me? I watched them in a c-drama before I died?"<sup>1

1</sup> He absolutely did not tell her this. He's rewriting it in his brain because it's less embarrassing than what he did tell her, which is "I'm afraid Lan Wangji is disappointed in me."

[aflashbastard]

Crowley strolls into the greenhouse with purpose and seems a little surprised to find someone else there.

“Oh. Hi. I see you’re hanging out with my friends,” he says, meaningfully, leveling a gaze around the greenhouse. Shen Qingqiu may see some of the plants quaking slightly.

[peaklordshen]

"Oh," says Shen Qingqiu, surprised. "I didn't know you were personally acquainted. Um, sorry for lopping some samples off them?" Do Christian demons have an affinity for plants?? Is this some kind of Garden of Eden thing?? Why does he feel like he needs to start going to Sunday school just so he has an idea of what's going on around here?

[aflashbastard]

“No no, you’ve actually helped me. Thanks,” Crowley replies. He turns towards the plants again, tone threatening this time. “And he’ll lop off more unless you grow faster.”

[peaklordshen]

Is Crowley... extorting these plants? Why does he need them to grow faster, anyway? What's he going to use them for?

And then it strikes him, so obvious he can't believe it didn't occur to him before. A demon of temptation, right here in the mansion, cultivating plants for mysterious purpose. And homosexuality is a Christian sin! Is Crowley just... sitting here, racking up whatever the Hellish equivalent of B-points are every time an unsuspecting beautiful man kisses another unsuspecting beautiful man????

He keeps his face neutral--much more difficult, without the fan,¹ and asks, "you have a purpose for these plants?"

¹ Less successful, too--Crowley may or may not have witnessed an entire face journey.

[onthewillowsthere]

Galahad has every reason not to come back to the greenhouse -- even if he wasn't the one who made it, he takes seriously his vow not to encounter Crowley (or Claudius, who also loves plants, but he knows Claudius is more likely to be in the gardens). But he's feeling a little less scraped out after learning to play billiards, a little more like the world isn't completely pointless, and when he sees Shen Qingqiu he remembers all the times he was comforted by him. So many people here have been needlessly kind to him, in spite of how much he's been stiff and awkward or mannerless and naive; he can think of a hundred times someone taught him something or tried to console him or took care of his hurts. No one is Percival, but it's not like Camelot or the nunnery, where no one spoke to him or touched him or liked him, and he feels again as if SecUnit saved him for something, as if he owes it to someone (or all of them) to try. God has cast him away, and Claudius, but everyone else has kept trying to draw him back.

So he sees Shen Qingqiu through the glass and foliage, and he comes to the door.

"Shen Qingqiu?" He sounds different from the way he did as Damien, or Laurel; he holds himself differently. Laurel was always relaxed, openly curious. Galahad is straight-backed as a sword, and his expression is largely blank, a careful study in not making himself too easy to hurt.

[peaklordshen]

Shen Qingqiu looks up, and then stands up, crossing to him with a smile. "Damien," he greets, and then, correcting himself now that he sees the change in stance, in expression, "Sorry—it's Galahad, now. Galahad again, I suppose."

[onthewillowsthere]

He nods. "Again."

[peaklordshen]

Shen Qingqiu steps a little closer. There's something about Galahad's expression, or maybe its his posture, something—rigid and reticent; it makes him want to touch, reassure, settle him like you would a bird with its feathers protectively raised. He holds out a hand that Galahad can either take or ignore. "Are you alright?" he asks, gently.

[recognizance]

SecUnit was hoping not to encounter anyone else, actually, which is why it's taking this route out of the mansion; it's done a lot of interacting with people in the last couple of days, and it's about at capacity. It does not acknowledge Shen Qingqiu and his plant samples as it heads for the outer door.

Hey, it's worth a shot.

[peaklordshen]

It is worth a shot, and it nearly works—Shen Qingqiu is pretty absorbed in separating out a single gran from a stalk of wheat, just, you know, in case—but he looks up just as SecUnit is about to leave. "Oh!" He says. "Hey! SecUnit, right?"

[recognizance]

Dammit. It slows, then stops. "That's right."

[summerdude]

"Whoa, greenhouses," Magnus says, pushing his way inside. He's seen them from a distance but not made his way into them so far -- plants love him, but he loves being outside more, so that's where he's spent most of his non-library time since getting here. He runs his fingers over some of the glossy leaves of a plant in the doorway, breathing deeply of the loamy scent.

Maybe Valhalla should introduce some Gardening-To-The-Death classes, he's thinking, when he turns around and sees Shen Qingqiu.

[peaklordshen]

"Ah, young Magnus," says Shen Qingqiu, smiling (it might be hard to tell, behind the mask, but his eyes crinkle at the corners). "How have you been settling in? Did you find the books you were looking for?"

[summerdude]

"I found a ton of books," Magnus says. "I don't know if any of them have given me precisely the information I was looking for... mostly just more questions. As usual. What are you up to?"

[timebethine]

After a grey day, Laertes has dug up some St. John's Wort from the garden and brought it into the greenhouse to help shelter it from the cold. He's never kept plants before, and he's very anxious that his flowers should survive--he inspects the leaves to make sure they're still lush and green, then checks the soil with his fingertips. It's a relief to find the earth still very slightly damp.

Only then does he notice Shen Qingqiu on the other side of the plant rack with what appear to be dozens of samples and cuttings. "Hallo," he says, pitched low to avoid startling Shen Qingqiu. "Have you taken up alchemy?"

[peaklordshen]

"Young master Laertes," he says, with a smile, even though he should be annoyed. Everyone is coming to distract him from his very important research!! His very important, completely fruitless research. "Would that I had—I could simply transform something into what I'm looking for, rather than trying to find it."

[timebethine]

"What are you looking for?" Laertes comes around the rack, leaning over to examine the samples. He recognizes a few that he knows aren't poisonous--yarrow and wild geranium--so he reaches down to pick up a few and study them more closely.