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

[revolutionfalcon]

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.]]

Comments

[nopixiedust]

Oh! [Her eyes widen in surprise, flowers drooping in her grip.] I wouldn't have guessed that... I didn't even know shinki could do anything like control ayakashi somehow...

[revolutionfalcon]

Neither did I. They might have been working with someone, or been experimenting with it until they found something. [Either way, Shun highly doubts this is as open and close as it had been framed to him. But this is all he knows, so it's all he can share.]

[nopixiedust]

And nobody knows anything else… Jeez. I mean, if they were trying to find out better ways to get rid of them…

[She turns back to the flowers, winding some of the stems together.]

That doesn’t sound that bad, does it?

[revolutionfalcon]

Their end goal wasn't bad, but that doesn't excuse throwing away the lives of innocent people to get there. [There's a firmness and immediacy to that answer that says this is something Shun has strong feelings about from more than just this situation. It's not something he particularly wants to discuss, though, so he glances over at her fidgeting with the flowers.]

You're going to damage them at this rate, and all they're for is to look at. [The implication being that they're going to be useless if she damages them.]

[nopixiedust]

[She sort of wants to ask more about it- it sounds like a lot has happened and she'd rather not be stupid about this kind of stuff- but then he points out the flowers and she raises an eyebrow at him.]

I'm not damaging them- have you ever seen a flower crown?

[revolutionfalcon]

[The look on Shun's face when she asks that question probably says his answer well enough before he gets there, because it involves the kind of brow furrow born of someone trying to visualise something they absolutely don't have the experience to visualise.]

No. I don't see what the point of something like that would be anyway.

[nopixiedust]

That's because you don't even know what it's like to have fun, so that's not surprising. Just sit there and wait.

[Yeah, uh, you're getting one, now, Shun.]

[revolutionfalcon]

I'm entirely capable of having fun. It just doesn't happen often.

[Despite the mild exasperation of the comment, Shun leans in slightly to watch her make the flower crown. He's been learning things about flowers all day, so he might as well add this to the list, however useless it might be.]

[nopixiedust]

I've noticed.

[Still, she steadfastly continues working on the crown in her hands, fingers light and quick. The memory of why she knows this is lost to her, but the body remembers just fine. Soon enough, she's plopping one decently made crown onto his head.]

There!

[revolutionfalcon]

[Shun pulls back slightly when she goes to put the crown on his head, reaching up to pull it off immediately. At the very least, though, he doesn't do anything worse to it than that, instead turning it in his hands like it's some kind of completely foreign object to him.]

Can you do this with any kind of flower? [He still sounds detached, as if it's simply referential knowledge he's seeking rather than actually being interested, but admittedly it could be something to do with his hands if he ever needs to prune his garden again. Practicing fine motor control is always useful.]

[nopixiedust]

[It's true- at least he only took it off which she was sort of expecting. That he's expecting it.... kind of nice, actually, and is enough to make Wendy relax a bit.]

Um.... Well, if the stems don't bend enough, they probably won't be the best... So ones with thin bendy stems are better.

[revolutionfalcon]

[As if to test that statement, Shun runs a thumb through the ends of some of the stems sticking out. They do feel fairly flexible, though he doesn't recall too many of the flowers in his garden being that rigid either.]

Most of them are like that. Though I doubt these would last long even using more suitable flowers. [His powers could probably maintain one if he felt so inclined, but otherwise the flowers would have to rot quickly.]

[nopixiedust]

[....Shun.... Please. Wendy sighs.]

Nothing has to last forever for it to be fun and cute in the now.

[revolutionfalcon]

[And she's lost him again, because now he's inspecting the flower crown like he missed something about it.]

Even by the standards of what people consider fun, I don't see how this would be fun. [He can't really speak on "cute" because it seems like the kind of thing people would call that, but fun is marginally more familiar to him.]

[nopixiedust]

If you have the right people with you, it can be fun. So, obviously, it wasn't the most fun for me since you still have a rock's idea of fun, but I still liked making it.

[She likes you for all that she's shittalking you to your face, Shun. Really.]

[revolutionfalcon]

Is this another one of those things about other people enjoying something making you enjoy it more? [It definitely sounds like one of those things Shun Doesn't Quite Get, though he remembers Ren mentioning it once or twice before, so he at least knows the logic.

Perhaps understandably given his answer, he doesn't remark or even seem to care about the fact that she's insulting him on the matter. He's dealt with far worse, anyway.]

[nopixiedust]

I think that's most things, actually, but yeah.

[revolutionfalcon]

[There's a hum somewhere between dismissive and understanding from Shun at that, because at least he knows what they're talking about now.] I don't really see why it should make someone enjoy something any more than they would if that person wasn't with them. [If someone likes something, then they just like it, right?]

[nopixiedust]

[A sigh, and she starts to make another one just because she can.]

It’s basic math, isn’t it? One thing you like plus another thing you like makes twice the enjoyment. Usually.

[revolutionfalcon]

I don't think that's how applied maths is supposed to work. [Not that Shun can exactly speak much on the subject, since he hasn't been schooled in about two years now, but he hadn't been bad at it when he was.]

[nopixiedust]

[She pauses and blinks at him.]
Wait... are you telling me one plus one doesn't equal two?

[revolutionfalcon]

No, but you can't describe an emotion with a number and assume it's going to be accurate. [Emotions aren't simple and logical enough for that, though Shun sometimes wishes they were.]

[nopixiedust]

Yeah, but it's the basic idea, right? That's how fun works! You.... You know. [She flaps a hand around.] Are supposed to have fun with your friends.

[revolutionfalcon]

You're not always going to find the same things fun as your friends. [He's kind of playing devil's advocate at this point, because usually there's at least some common ground in likes, but he doesn't mind that role.]

[nopixiedust]

That's why you have more than one friend, Shun.

[She knows this is a mysterious concept to you, buddy, but.]