thenearshore | [open + 1 closed + 1 semi-closed] a pocket full of posies

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[open + 1 closed + 1 semi-closed] a pocket full of posies

Who: A + B: Shun and anyone! C: Shun and Ren, D: Shun and existing CR
What: Shun attempts to relocate a substantial portion of his temple garden to his Near Shore shrine. This goes about as well as you'd expect.
When: June 22nd
Where: A: Nekhbet's Temple and surrounds, B + C: A seemingly innocuous Near Shore park (a.k.a. Nekhbet's shrine), D: Network/anywhere!

A + B: Open

[A: Morning, Nekhbet's Temple]

[There are a lot of things Shun could say about having a rapidly growing garden of funerary and death-themed flowers, and most of them are some form of complaint. However, with recent events on the Near Shore and disappearances on the Far Shore, he's decided it's about time he made his shrine look a bit more lived-in, and if there's any good way to do that, it's hitting two birds with one stone and thinning out his garden to use for decorative purposes. Ignoring the fact that he has no idea how to decorate anything these days, because he'll deal with that hurdle when he reaches it.

The strange hill-shaped temple isn't difficult to spot even from a distance, and the large, tree-enclosed garden to one side even less so. The dwelling vultures are a little agitated today, rustling wings and hopping from tree to tree as they try to get a better look at Shun, who's moving along the edge of the garden with a dagger in hand. With how much the flowers have grown out, there's only an incredibly narrow strip for Shun to walk on between them and the shallow pools flanking the main path, but as always, he walks as if his every step is certain.

At certain plants, he'll stop, either taking one flower stem or a few at once and pushing neatly through them with the knife in his hand. Apparently nobody ever told him pruning shears were a thing, or he just didn't want to bother with that.

There's already a budding line of flowers down the middle of the garden path, loosely arranged by type and then colour, which Shun goes back to add to each time he cuts more. It's probably obvious to most people that he has far too many cut for any purpose other than maybe starting a florist's, but he doesn't seem to care, and the garden barely looks like it's been pruned.

He'll acknowledge anyone who comes to the mouth of the garden...just maybe try not to do it while his back is turned, since he is still holding a knife.]

--

[B: Afternoon, Park/Shrine]

[There's a lot of nice parks around on the Near Shore, and the quiet ones can be especially nice. This one in particular is off a small and relatively low-density street, the entrance flanked by currently unlit lanterns, and looks like the kind of spot someone might elect to have a picnic. There's tables, a large and venerable-looking tree over near the back...and, of course, the tiny shrine building (more the size to house vultures than any kind of human) that looks like it was made by some very dedicated follower, built and painted simply and surrounded by offerings of flowers. Today, there's also a very eye-catching one lying across the shrine "balcony"; a large arrangement of purple and orange flowers, done with not the skill of someone who actually knows what they're doing, but the care of someone determined to do it anyway and make it good.

Also in the park today is Shun, who's commandeered a picnic table with his excessive amount of flowers and is currently sorting through them with a rather critical eye. When he comes across one that looks on the dead or dying side, he runs his fingers carefully up the stem, focusing intently on the flower, and after a few moments, the petals liven up and heal, the natural decay reversing to return them to full bloom.

Unfortunately, the need for focus means Shun isn't in a particularly welcoming mood towards distractions right now, so any Far Shore residents hanging around the park may or may not feel upon them the kind of stare that could probably bore through concrete given long enough.]

If you're just going to be a distraction anyway, you might as well put it to some use over here. [Translation: he's...asking for help. Kind of. Not really, but still.]

[C: Closed to Ren, late afternoon/early evening]

[After several attempts at putting together certain flowers and getting the impression they just look wrong (and that if even someone like him who doesn't really give a damn is noticing, then others certainly will), Shun decides to cut his losses and text maybe the one person he can trust to help with this and be a tolerable presence for the amount of time it will probably take.

So sometime later in the afternoon, Ren gets a text containing a picture of the table overflowing with sorted flowers, and Shun's shrine in the background in the hopes that he'll recognise it from that evening they walked back there.]

Need someone who knows more about how flowers go together than me. I'll explain why if you help.

[D: Closed to existing CR, evening]

[So as it turns out, Shun absolutely cut way too many flowers, and though he definitely knows one person who'll want them, there's still a ton that aren't really spoken for. So anyone Shun knows the name of (or god name, in those cases) and doesn't hate stands a chance of getting a very brief text containing an image of a table still covered in flowers, but with vastly less than there were earlier. There's quite a variety - roses, lilies, crysanthemums, orchids, and so on - and it might be hard to pick up on the funerary and death associations of every single one of them unless one is very well-versed in flower language.]

Trying to get rid of these. Pick some out and you can have them.

[[Any kind of death or funeral-associated flower is fair game to request, even if it's not listed there.]]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[While Shun admittedly hasn't been to Ren's temple in a long while, given they meet at Shun's normally, what he does remember from that first time he went there does speak to having a lot of places to put that sort of thing. However, he gives the piles of flowers an almost wary glance before turning his attention back to Ren.]

Then at least do it sensibly. Leaving lilies near your kittens isn't going to end well for anyone.

[For once, the veritable encyclopedia of reading Shun did on cats when he started working at the cat cafe pays off.]

[What do you know, there's something Shun seems to know about flowers that Ren doesn't. Although, to be fair, Ren mostly just like looking at them and doesn't often look up more than that, and his cat at home had never had the opportunity to get into that kind of trouble.]

Oh, are they bad for them? I'll try to make sure they won't get into them then.

{Which pretty much means that if he decides to leave flowers along the courtyard balcony, they'll have to be something else.]

[There's a short nod from Shun at that. Even if there's plenty of other options for things to put around Ren's temple, he figured the warning was warranted given Ren's obvious fondness for lilies.]

Poisonous, apparently. And I doubt this being the afterlife would make it any less unpleasant for them or you.

[It's probably a bit morbid even for this entire area of conversation, but even if he ended up with a spirit of a cat coming back, it wouldn't exactly be a nice thing to deal with.]

[Ren grimaces slightly as he tucks another flower in with the rest in his hand. He didn't really need that much of a warning to keep them out of his flowers, but he sure as heck is going to take 100% seriously now.]

No, considering they aren't spirits to begin with...

[And he'd really rather not find out if being in the Heavens would affect anything if they died, especially since he's betting it wouldn't.]

[Normally, Shun wouldn't have really considered how morbid the remark was, but that expression from Ren makes him reconsider briefly. It's not an obvious thing, but he does turn his attention back to his weaving as if to try and give the impression he hadn't noticed.]

As long as you're careful, you shouldn't need to find out. [Now to attempt to redirect things towards something Ren might be a little more comfortable talking about.] Anyway, if you want anything that isn't the same thing I have all the time for dinner when you stay over, you might as well tell me ahead of time so we don't waste twenty minutes cooking rice again.

[Oh, that's a much nicer thing to think about and Ren is more than happy to go along with the change in topic. If it had been about something other than his own cats, it would haven't been that bad, but...good for Shun for deciding to move on.]

Mmm, we should still have rice, though. Waiting for it wasn't actually that bad...

[The stew Shun likes to eat all the time hadn't been that bad either, but if he's willing to try something else...]

Maybe I could make you something.

It wasn't that bad, but we might as well be more prepared this time. [Last time they'd just kind of decided on the fly, but since it's less of an afterthought to heavy conversation like what happened last time, Shun figures they might as well not be lazy about it.

He hadn't quite expected that suggestion from Ren, though, and while he doesn't look outright surprised, he does glance over at Ren a little sharply. It's almost immediate, the urge to remind him he doesn't have to do things like that, but Ren has to know that by now and Shun's not going to make a point of it if he's genuinely interested.]

Only if you want to. I'm probably the one who'd appreciate it least out of the three of us.

[It's not dismissive, it's just...fact, though there's something difficult to place in Shun's tone that, if anything, softens it a bit. There's a twinge of something he remembers feeling relatively recently, too, but he still can't quite tell what it is, and so chooses to leave it bar a very faint, confused furrow of the brow in reaction to it.]

[That is a slightly better reaction to his suggestion than he'd been expecting, which is promising. He sticks a white lily right in the middle of the arrangement, eyes it for a moment, and then smiles over at Shun.,/small>]

I don't mind. I have to cook for myself often enough. It wouldn't be hard to make extra. Or we could do something while i'm there too, but you'd have to get the ingredients.

[That placement of the single white lily gets an eying from Shun as well, though in large part because he's trying to determine the significance. Then again, it might just be because Ren seems to like white lilies.

Either way, his attention returns to Ren's face soon enough, as he starts to finish up his weave on the last arrangement and tie the bow.]

If you're going to be training for the afternoon beforehand, you might as well just do something while you're at my temple. There's enough in the kitchen for anything simple, but if you need other things, I don't really care as long as I know and can get them.

[Part of it is definitely because he just likes them a lot, but part of it is that he can't think of Aichi without thinking of Kai and lilies at some point. In fact, after a few moments, he decides he should add three more to help break up all the blue.]

Yeah, that would be easier. Maybe we could do some kind of stir-fry? {That should be pretty innocuous.] So you'd need things like peppers and mushrooms and maybe beef..

[he should probably just write down a list of things he'd need for that instead of trying to list them all on the fly.]

[Though he's still watching Ren's progress on the other arrangement, apparently the ribbon element has become familiar enough to Shun through the course of the day that he doesn't need to pay much attention to tying it up. A few moments later, he places the finished bunch on the bench with the first two, listening to Ren's proposed ingredients.]

I keep the second two already, but peppers I'd need to get. [Mushrooms are an inoffensive but solid addition to a lot of things, and beef is versatile, so they're both things he tends to have at least some of in his kitchen at any given time. With his tastes, though, peppers aren't something he'd get much use out of - which is pretty much why he makes his next remark.] I'm trusting you to know what you're doing with them.

[Ren nods as Shun says what he has, but he doesn't want to keeping list a bunch of stuff, so...]

Mmm, I think I'll text you a better list later...

[He turns his arrangement around a couple times to decide if he's done or not, and then hands it off to shun with a small pout at his question.]

Of course I know what I'm doing. I could even show you too if you want.

It'd work better than trying to list them from memory. [Especially given it's Ren's memory, which in Shun's experience can be a bit mercurial. He's not sure food falls among the things he'd remember more reliably.

Taking the next arrangement with a dry glance in answer to Ren's pouting, Shun shrugs slightly as he starts threading the ribbon through again.]

I can cook individual things fine, I just don't know what flavours go together. So it's not that different a problem to this. [He tilts the arrangement in his hand. He can cut individual flowers fine as well, but when it comes to mixing them, he's completely lost.]

[Food is definitely not among the things he remembers perfectly all the time, so if he did try to list everything from memory, he'd probably remember the last thing three days from now in the shower.

And he knows exactly what this last arrangement is going to be, so he gets right to work collecting red and orange flowers.]

Well, for stir-fry it doesn't really matter, but in general, it's pretty easy if you just listen to how the food wants to go together.

[Red and orange is at least a bit more of an understandable colour combination for Shun to follow, though it puts him in mind of fire more than anything else. It at least might be a good combination for the idea he was entertaining with the ribbon for the last arrangement, at least.

That answer, though, nets Ren a rather odd look. It's the kind of answer Shun would expect from Ren at this point, honestly, but it doesn't make it any less weird.]

I'm not in the habit of listening to my supplies.

[Ah, there it is, his second favorite look Shun gets on his face. if anything, it just encourages him to keep going, sounding as enthusiastically maybe-serious-maybe-not as ever.]

Then that's the problem. You should listen to them more. I bet you'd learn a lot.

[...Hard as it often is to tell whether Ren's screwing with him or not, at this point and in this particular instance, Shun has to err on the side of screwing with him. Not that it changes much about his reaction, which is still as flatly incredulous as ever.]

Maybe something that whimsical works for you, but it wouldn't for me. [Ren is a little better-equipped in the whimsy department than he is.]

[Well, he has a point there, screwing with him or not.]

Hmm, that's true. I guess I'll have to interpret for you.

[How long until he has to admit that he does genuinely know what he's doing in the kitchen and he's just messing with Shun for the heck of it? Hopefully not until he's picked up a few more flowers, at least. Still, he can't imagine that Shun hasn't figured it out by now.]

[Given Shun has severe doubts about the ability of even the most whimsical of people to cause food to suddenly develop enough sentience to tell someone how it wants to be cooked, he's mostly just going along with it because even the suggestion is silly enough to earn the reaction. And because it's Ren, and he figures even just pointing out he's talking nonsense is likely to get at least another few rounds of claimed innocence.

At this point, though, there's one glaring flaw in this entire fantasy that he feels he has to pick on.]

As impossible as it is to believe you talk to your food anyway, you realise that would mean you're eating something sentient enough to tell you what it wants.

[Shun, no...how could you...do you see this face. this is the face of a man who's not actually as alarmed by this revelation as he appears.]

I hadn't thought of it that way before...

[Thank goodness Asaka was too busy mooning over him to notice that either the last time he'd joked about that, and Tetsu had either not heard or not wanted to ruin it for her.]

I can definitely cook without listening too them too.

[Shun's general answer to "how could you" is "very easily", and it's no different in this situation. Especially given, as expected, Ren doesn't look so much like someone who had his bubble burst as someone who just realised he didn't think this all the way through.]

I'm surprised. Even by ridiculous fantasy standards, it's a glaring hole.

[At the very least, he doesn't sound derisive about it so much as laying the facts on the table. To him, sentient food definitely falls into "ridiculous fantasy" territory, even with his horizons expanded by the kinds of things he's seen in this place.]

Then that's fine. I can understand covering up how capable you are, but that's not the kind of thing it's really necessary for. [Because if there's one thing he's noticed in the time he and Ren have been friends, it's that what affectations and quirks aren't genuine seem to serve as disguise.]

The last person I tried that on wasn't thinking about it so much.

[Shun, please, if there can be talking cards there can definitely be talking food...

He pauses in picking up another flower as Shun goes on, and when he does finally take it up and tuck it with the rest, it's with a smile very much like the one he'd had earlier when Shun had given him that arrangement. He noticed...of course, Ren hasn't exactly been hiding that from him either, but he also hadn't hidden it from Hibari--who never seemed to understand--or Hakkai--who's never said anything.]

It's not, but sometimes it's more fun. Until you poked holes in it.

Obviously. [Also cards are more Important than food, clearly. In any case, Shun continues his weaving of the gold ribbon, going a little faster on this one than he had on the last one.

Since Ren's picking up another flower at the time he pauses, Shun's attention is on him, and he frowns a little in confusion when Ren smiles like that again. He has to guess that it's to do with mentioning he's capable, but he can't quite put together why it would make Ren so happy to have someone else notice when he's trying to hide it.

Another thing he can't quite put together is the odd feeling in his chest at having caused that expression again. For now, though, he ignores it, instead letting out a slight, maybe amused huff at Ren's not-quite-a-complaint.]

You know how I am about fun. [It's a bit sad that he's at least half serious. Fun doesn't tend to last long in his presence.]

[He does have a point there, but Ren's not going to give up on that quite that easily. Shun was a normal kid who had fun once upon a time, and that normal kid has to still be in there somewhere, really, really, really deep down.]

One of these days, you're going to have fun and you won't even realize it until it's too late.

[With a face like that, it's hard for Shun not to cast Ren a wary look, because that's the kind of expression that makes him feel like Ren is going to personally make sure this happens.

On one hand, he's pretty sure sounding vaguely like a threat isn't how most people propose fun, but on the other, Ren does have some unusual ideas of what constitutes fun.]

We'll see about that. It's not like you can force someone to have fun. [...He thinks.]

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