springforth: (230)
Persephone (KORE) ([personal profile] springforth) wrote in [community profile] voidtreckerexpress2020-07-05 03:02 pm

OTA

Who: Persephone; OTA
Where: Greenhouse/Kitchen/Garden
When: Grasshopper Day 2 into Day 3
What: Insomnia turns into midnight gardening and baking followed by a quiet thorn tantrum
Warnings: Will add if needed


A. Greenhouse

It's getting a little crowded in the greenhouse, if Persephone is being honest. Between everyone's little patches of growth and the roses--and everything, it feels a little like being at home. But not in the good way? In the worst way possible? Surrounded by beings and plants at all hours of the day and night. Even in the middle of the night, when she can't sleep, there's still people walking and talking, wandering about or popping into the greenhouse. There's something new here all the time as people add things from the stores or the pile of seeds from the crates. She's guilty of adding new things herself.

Still, the middle of the night is the easiest time to work on the life here without having to dodge a dozen people as she walks around. She walks from plant to plant, touching them sometimes, merely holding her hand over them as a fizzing pink light shifts over them. Her feelings are held tight inside her, bubbling and boiling up in little fits of thorns sharpening on the roses or flowers bursting into seed. But she keeps it off her face. There's no point in this anxious frustration. Nothing will change.

Persephone moves through the car and the flower bloom brighter in her wake.

B. Kitchen Car

Sleep still isn't coming tonight. So--why not work on breakfast? Why not start the bread (made with carrot juice for color)? Why not waste two hours on making little eggplant tarts, with delicate herbs sprinkle on top? Making the food she wants to eat is part of the joy of having kitchen duties this month. With a note left on the tarts to mark them as vegetarian, Persephone hefts herself up on a metal counter. Her legs swing as she eats two tiny tarts in quick succession, then slows down to savor the third. If someone does come in, she pulls up a hesitant smile, vaguely annoyed at her solitude being intruded upon.

"Try one, they're delicious. If you like eggplant, of course."

C. Garden Car

It's no longer the middle of the night. It's mid-morning and everyone else seems to be happily knee deep in their morning routines. Persephone had laid on her bunk for an hour, waiting out the rush of people moving through the corridors. She moves to the greenhouse and waits again until there's no one she can see in the garden and she walks in. There's hardly any space left in the greenhouse, hardly any space to breathe anywhere on this gods forsaken train. Her hands curl up into tiny fists, then slowly uncurl. But no one appears to calm her down or talk her out of the fit of--not claustrophobia, because she would take the tiniest spot if it was truly hers.

So--why not make a spot for herself? The car doesn't belong to her--doesn't actually belong to Zetta really if you get down to it.For all that she accepts that it's his and he accepts that the greenhouse is her, she's never really given that any weight. Besides, it's not like he would care, right? If he did, well... She floats over the little streams and to a flat portion of the wall. There-- as she stands facing the void, roses curl up, up and over her, in a domed mimic of a room, twisting around each other for strength. The roses face in, the thorns face out, and even if it's just small enough for her to stand and sit in, it's enough. It's bound to get attention at some point, but she grows the thorns extra thick and tries her best not to feel guilty about it. Then and only then does she doze off against the glass.
badassfreakingoverlord: (crap I'm a book)

[personal profile] badassfreakingoverlord 2020-07-08 04:21 pm (UTC)(link)
It is totally his car and he will fight anyone who says otherwise. He'd nearly gotten in a war with the Council over this, damn it!

"I don't know what you can do with vines! I figured you could make them comfy somehow. Also, stop doing that thing where your feelings don't matter. You want to be alone, be alone! Just be COMFY about it instead of all balled up in a ball!"
badassfreakingoverlord: (Standard Zetta)

[personal profile] badassfreakingoverlord 2020-07-08 04:45 pm (UTC)(link)
"Naw, I'll set my minions to keeping people away."

That was so easy and obvious he didn't know why she didn't think of it and ask, except that she was stubborn and he supposed he didn't exactly come off as easy to ask a favor of.
badassfreakingoverlord: (adrift in a sea of nothing)

[personal profile] badassfreakingoverlord 2020-07-08 05:12 pm (UTC)(link)
Since she didn't finish her sentence, Zetta took his best stab at doing so.

"Having trouble because you're stuck on a stupid crowded train with no privacy, feeling trapped and really frustrated, away from a big world that you can do springy stuff in, to start?"

Was that it?
badassfreakingoverlord: (damn)

[personal profile] badassfreakingoverlord 2020-07-08 06:33 pm (UTC)(link)
"Yeah. I hear ya."

If Zetta weren't a book, this was where he'd drop to a seat out there, lean back against the thorns, stab himself, curse a lot, and probably bleed. But all he could do was settle himself in midair.

"At least back in the Far Shore I had a decent castle, even if I was still stuck as a book then. It wasn't a proper Overlord's castle, but it was big and it was mine and I had a game room and a throne room... Here I'm stuck with the minions all the time, and they're idiots. And you know what it's like to get sucked away to the assigned bed every damn morning. It all sucks. So I totally get it."
badassfreakingoverlord: (damn)

[personal profile] badassfreakingoverlord 2020-07-08 07:11 pm (UTC)(link)
"So wall yourself off. You got the power, use it. Just... gimme a heads-up."

Zetta wasn't capable of expressing things like 'concern' or 'worry' or 'caring', of course. Read between the lines, though...
badassfreakingoverlord: (the impatiently literary glare)

[personal profile] badassfreakingoverlord 2020-07-08 07:28 pm (UTC)(link)
"You just take what time you need and I'll make sure you're not disturbed." Maybe she'd be more coherent after a nap. Zetta shivered back into a more active float, if such a thing were possible. "And don't act like it's a problem or weakness that I'm helping you. It's a favor from --" Uh. What word to use here. "--me!"
badassfreakingoverlord: (eyebrow raise)

[personal profile] badassfreakingoverlord 2020-07-08 07:44 pm (UTC)(link)
The hell? In between efforts to blow the thing out of his eyes, he said, "Nah. You're cool."

In some ways, the greatest gift a person could get from Zetta was tolerance. It took so little effort compared to all the energy he usually poured into things!