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.

[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]

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.

[peaklordshen]

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

[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."

[sporesprouter]

"Oh." She looks thoughtful. "Do you need help? What kind of tricks are you thinking of?"

[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]

"I would love some help," says Shen Qingqiu. "On your world you work with... spores, in some way, is that correct?" He's saying on your world, he realizes, instead of in, as if it's a separate planet, rather than one of an increasing number of fictional dimensions, even though, as far as he can tell, SecUnit is the only one from a sci-fi setting. "Are you familiar with any that change human behavior, or... preference? Desire?"

[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?

[sporesprouter]

"Yes, spores." Tress frowns thoughtfully. "I... haven't visited every sea yet, and so I'm only really familiar with the spores most used on a ship, plus the midnight, but none of the ones I know do anything like that. Is that what you think a plant is doing?"

Tress's tender sensibilities seem unoffended.

[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 nods. "It would be subtle." Subtler than most sex pollen, which has a very blunt, immediate, and, uh, obvious effect. This doesn't even seem to increase sex drive, really, just... shift it. "Do the spores on your world occur naturally, as part of plants or other organisms?" Maybe that's why he thought about planets, before. Something about spores feels very extraterrestrial.

[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.”

[sporesprouter]

Very extraterrestrial indeed. "They fall from the moons. Each moon hangs in the center of one of the seas, dropping spores at the lunagree."

[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.

[peaklordshen]

The moons! "Oh, right, Laertes mentioned you had an unreasonable number of moons," he says. He squints at the table. "You don't suppose the moon over the Mansion is dropping spores, do you? "

[sporesprouter]

"If it is, they're not spores like the ones we have back home. Those come down in a solid stream you can see from fifty or so miles away."

[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."

[peaklordshen]

Shen Qingqiu sighs. "So if it is moon spores, they're invisible," he mutters. "Man, I hope it's not invisible moon spores."

[sorrowandsorrow]

"No," Janet says immediately, then frowns. "What? Right, the gay-married ones. You said they're from... your... genre." The last sentence pains her a little, because she really hates to concede any of Shen Qingqiu's unhinged rambling about fiction to him. "You definitely didn't say anything about seeing them on TV, or whatever."

[sporesprouter]

"I'm... pretty sure we're not in a sea of invisible spores."

[peaklordshen]

"They're from Proud Immortal Demon Way's genre," Shen Qingqiu corrects. Sort of, depending on how you classify—anyway. "But that's the thing. They're not gay married. Well, they are here, but they weren't in the drama I watched. Which is their world, where they're from, it was just fictional to me." Really, it's all very obvious.

[sorrowandsorrow]

God, just when she thinks maybe Shen Qingqiu is okay company, he gets extra weird again.

"Okay," Janet says, obviously dubious. "So what? Maybe they got married after it ended. Or maybe they just didn't show that part. The Fillory books were a lot cuter and gentler than the real story. Plover left out some shit."

[peaklordshen]

Shen Qingqiu shakes his head. "They were straight," he emphasizes. "Like, it wasn't the point of the show, but they had love interests. Lan Wangji had this whole unrequited thing with Mianmian, and Wei Wuxian — well he kind of stole Wen Qing from his martial brother, whatever, it doesn't matter." He gesture at the table in front of him. "I think there's something here making people..." he lowers his voice. "Gayer. Maybe they brought it with them, maybe them being infected with it is what brought them here, I don't know yet."