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.

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[summerdude]

"I feel that," says Magnus. "Yggdrasil -- that's a tree -- touches all of the Nine Worlds, and when her branches shake, storms are born."

[peaklordshen]

Shen Qingqiu blinks. That sounds dope. "You've seen this tree?"

[summerdude]

"Yeah, dude," says Magnus. "I basically live in it."

[peaklordshen]

Shen Qingqiu stares at him, fascinated. "You live in a tree?"

[summerdude]

"Yeah!" Magnus says. "Well, sort of. Hotel Valhalla is built around Yggdrasil, and also it's enormous, so there are branches everywhere, and they're a good way of getting around the hotel and the Worlds. I think pretty much every lounge in Valhalla has an access point? And it's bigger than Valhalla. Like, it's big enough that entire flocks of tiny deer live in it. And Ratatosk." He shudders. "The really mean squirrel."

[peaklordshen]

Tiny flocks of deer sound adorable. "It sounds kind of like this, but more interesting flora and fauna," says Shen Qingqiu. "Also, importantly, you can leave."

[summerdude]

"Actually, this is the first place I've been that's truly separate from Yggdrasil," Magnus muses. "But I guess you can leave it by some value of leaving. You're not always in its branches."

[peaklordshen]

Shen Qingqiu hums, curious. "You're sure this place is truly separate?" he asks. "Not, like, temporarily cut off, but entirely a different place?" It would make sense - but also it wouldn't, in a different way. "I'm trying to think through, like—bubbles within bubbles, if that makes sense," he says. "Your world contains multiple worlds. My world, too, if my world can be considered to mean, like, the things I experienced and places I was before this. So is this world truly outside of both of those bubbles, connected to them only through us, or is it inside one of those bubbles, and just—pulling people in from other bubbles, too?"

[summerdude]

"I knocked myself out so I could try to send a dream-message to my girlfriend and couldn't," Magnus says, like this is a sentence that makes sense. "So I don't think it's a bubble inside one of my bubbles. Because otherwise I'd be able to reach her."

[peaklordshen]

Shen Qingqiu is tempted to tell him that Luo Binghe has dream powers, too, mostly because he just likes talking about Binghe, but if Binghe was able to reach out of the Mansion with his powers he would have already told Mobei-Jun to use Xin Mo to cut his way in here and get back to PIDW,¹ so there's no real point.² "Separate bubbles," he agrees with a sigh. If it was his bubble he's pretty sure he'd be able to contact the System by now.

¹ Because, obviously, Luo Binghe would much rather be at home with his hundreds of wives than wasting away here with only Shen Qingqiu for company.
² Certainly there is no other reason Magnus might be interested to know that Binghe has dream powers.

[summerdude]

"Yeah," Magnus agrees, a little sadly. He reaches out to stroke the petals of one of the flowers arrayed in front of Shen Qingqiu. "I guess I can let you get back to it, dude, but we should hang out sometime soon."

[peaklordshen]

Shen Qingqiu blinks, surprised but pleased. "Sure, man," he says, automatic in response the dude. "Any time."