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 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?"

[sporesprouter]

"We reversed the curse, but not with spores. The Sorceress' magic came from another world, so we needed the same magic to undo it."

[peaklordshen]

"Another world?" Shen Qingqiu sits up a little bit. "Like, the way this is another world, and we each came from separate ones as well?"

[sporesprouter]

"Not exactly, I don't think. She came from the stars and turned her vessel into a tower. So she had an actual way to my world and left the same way."

[peaklordshen]

"Ah, right," Shen Qingqiu says. "Different planet, same world. The way we've been using world around here, anyway."

[sporesprouter]

She looks a bit sheepish for a second. "Oh, yes. I suppose so, yes. I never really had to make that distinction before."

[peaklordshen]

"Oh, sorry, I wasn't trying to like. Correct you." Shen Qingqiu waves a hand, embarrassed. "I can get kind of pedantic sometimes, but in this case I'm just trying to be clear, because some people do have different worlds within their worlds? Or like, different dimensions, maybe? Magnus has a few."

[sporesprouter]

"No, no, it makes sense. Yes, I've met a few visitors from other planets. But as far as I know, none from other worlds, before here anyway."