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

[peaklordshen]

Shen Qingqiu nods. He pulls out his notebook, and the map he'd started to make with Yuri. ¹ "We were actually trying to determine whether there was any pattern to the changes," he says, "but haven't had any luck so far, except that it feels almost—" he remembers the walls seeming to laugh at him, after his disorienting almost-exorcism and return to adult form. "—malicious. In contrast to the suggestibility of the kitchens and libraries, which seem more helpful."

¹ In a thread that's still happening right now, but shhh.

[sporesprouter]

"I haven't gotten all that much malice here. Well, aside from once, and that was kind of a small thing anyway. Frustratingly unhelpful, yes."

She pulls out her own notebook. "I had also made a lot of star charts, but I've given those to Janet. I didn't really see anything particularly notable there anyway, not that I'm an expert."

[peaklordshen]

Shen Qingqiu blinks, impressed. He hadn't even thought about charting the stars. "Is the sky very different from yours?" he asks. "I suppose it must be—no big spore moons."

[sporesprouter]

The star charting was entirely Janet's idea but Tress certainly did throw herself into it with a bit more enthusiasm than warranted. "Oh, very. The sky was what made me most uneasy when I got here. Even know, it's still very strange to me."

[peaklordshen]

What was strangest to Shen Qingqiu was—and still is—the people, but they've been over that. "You're used to navigating by the sky, I'd imagine," he says. "It must be bright as daylight, with twelve moons. Can you even see the stars?"

[sporesprouter]

"Some. Not as many as you can see here, with a moon taking up a third of the sky, wherever you are." She shakes her head. "But it's not nearly as bright as daylight, they glow but not that much, and you're only ever under one at a time."

[peaklordshen]

"That's fascinating." Shen Qingqiu keeps getting distracted - from sharing his notes, from BL pollen - but learning about cool worldbuilding from the other Mansion residents is really one of his primary joys, and he's been too caught up in drama to indulge in it in days. "They—revolve, then, around your planet?"

[sporesprouter]

"Oh, no, they... well, I suppose since the world turns, they revolve around with it, but they stay in the same place¹."

¹ If she knew the term geosynchronous orbit, she'd be using it here, but she doesn't².
² No, those moons are not exactly natural. No, she does not know this.

[peaklordshen]

Shen Qingqiu has to consider this for a moment. "Wait," he says. "So—when you say you're only under one at a time, you mean because you move around the world? Each moon hangs over a specific part of the planet, all of the time?"

[sporesprouter]

She nods. "At the center of its sea. You could see the Verdant Lunagree from where I grew up."

[peaklordshen]

Shen Qingqiu flips to Tress' entry in his notebook and writes this down. "And the moons release - constants streams of spores, into the seas? Or is it intermittent, like tides?"

[sporesprouter]

"It's constant. The sea level actually rises a bit when you get closer. It's almost like sailing uphill, a little."

[peaklordshen]

Sailing uphill sounds like a metaphor for the absurd to Shen Qingqiu. "Do you have a favorite moon?" he asks. "Is that a strange question?"

[sporesprouter]

"The Verdant. I grew up there. Even though I've seen so much more since then, it still reminds me of home."

[peaklordshen]

Shen Qingqiu smiles at her. She sounds so sincerely fond. "What's your home like?"

[sporesprouter]

"Well, home's more my ship now, but that said... it's a little saltrock island in the middle of the Verdant, just big enough for a little town and the duke's mansion."

[peaklordshen]

"The duke?" Shen Qingqiu asks. "Is he in charge of the Verdant?"

[sporesprouter]

"The duke's in charge of the island. There's a king in charge of the Verdant." She frowns. "I'm not really very fond of either of them."

[peaklordshen]

Shen Qingqiu wishes he'd brought some tea to the greenhouse - this is settling into being quite the juicy lore session. "Why not?"

[sporesprouter]

"Because they thought sending Charlie to die was an acceptable idea to try to placate the Sorceress. It's one thing for the king, because that's politics, but the duke is his father. Just because he didn't want to marry some princess..."

[peaklordshen]

Ah. Shen Qingqiu nods. Politics, and marriage trouble on top of that. "I imagine we prefer Charlie alive," he says, with a smile.

[sporesprouter]

Tress nods emphatically. "We prefer Charlie alive, and also not turned into a rat."

[peaklordshen]

"Was rat the next step possible punishment? After death, I mean." Tress has mentioned a Sorceress a few times now, and Shen Qingqiu will definitely be circling back to that, but Charlie is the first person he's heard he mention by name rather than by title, so his desire for gossip is overtaking his desire for lore for the moment.

[sporesprouter]

"They sent him to the Sorceress expecting him to get killed. She cursed him instead and turned him into a rat."

[peaklordshen]

"That sucks," says Shen Qingqiu. The casualness with which Tress brought this up makes him think Charlie's probably okay, now, but still. "Did you turn him back? With your spores?"