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A beautiful if exhausted looking redhead sits on a well worn bar stool behind the counter, a can of supermarket brand Dr Pepper in one hand as the other absent mindedly flips through a catalogue of various balloons and seeds. To those who can see through her Mask, the scene looks almost like a commentary on the state of gardens: a beautifully carved statue in a frumpy green smock sitting behind a counter full of plastic plants.
A habit of walking the streets to see where they took him brought Asbolus to this quaint little corner, the name of the shop earning a quiet chuckle before he made his way inside. The Darkling was dressed neatly if casually in black jeans and a dark grey t-shirt with a black jacket to keep off the chill, pale eye scanning the space. Behind the Mask his visage is similar but gives off the sensation of sharpness, the shadows trailing in his wake sporting a firm enough edge that it almost seems like they should be leaving slim cuts in their wake.
Charlie looks up from the magazine as the entry bell rings. "Need any help-" she says automatically before she realizes that she's looking at someone like her. "Oh! Oh, um, hey! I'm not in trouble, am I?" She has a slight Appalachian accent to her voice, if Asbolus is the kinda guy who can pick that out.
"Not as far as I know." His own accent was a clear sign of his London origins, having not faded a whit in his years in the States and further into the Thorns. "Just happened to be walking by, and the name of the place caught my eye."
She lets out a deep breath, deeper than she thought she was holding on to and stands up. "Well, um, hi! Welcome to the Doom and Bloom! If you need any help just let me know." She smiles and quickly closes the gap between the two of them. "I also have some more glamorous fruits for sale if you catch my drift," she adds in a low whisper.
"Really..." His eyebrow arched a touch at that, giving a little nod before offering a hand. "Will keep that in mind. Asbolus,by the way."
"Charlie!" She says, shaking his hand tightly. Her mom always said that a firm handshake was essential. After the shake she rubs off her hand on her smock and starts heading back to the counter. "Sorry for getting all nervous when you first came in. I just figured that you might have been here to, uh, well yell at me for missing the party yesterday."
"Pleasure." His own grip was firm but not overly so, following her to the counter to stay in conversation range for the time being. "Why would someone do that? It wasn't mandatory, to my knowledge."
Her face kinda pales for a second before she forces a smile back onto it. "Oh, it wasn't? Sorry, I'm st-still kinda new to all this." She sits back down on the stool for a brief moment before sucking in a deep breath and standing back up, leaning on the counter as her left leg shakes. "I just figured that this was kind of a 'be there or don't be here at all' type deal. Good to know that's not true!" She lets out a nervous chuckle. "Not to pry or nothing, but is Asbolus a common name in Britain?"
"No worries; we've all been there. From what the hostess said it was more of a celebration than anything else." He gave a small if reassuring smile, lean in against his side of the counter before shaking his head. "No. It's Greek...picked it up while I was out of town."
"Oh! I've never even left the state, except, uh, for you know what. Must be nice to travel." Her smile takes a more natural form as she takes a sip of soda before she suddenly puts two and two together and almost chokes on it. She barely manages to get the stuff down her throat through the coughing but the second she does, she hastily adds, "Oh, uh, sorry. You probably meant out of town metaphorically. Shouldn't have assumed it'd be happy. Sorry."
He blinked in surprise at her reaction to the sudden revelation, taking a moment to pull a handkerchief from his pocket and offering it to her in case she needed it. "No harm no foul."
She takes it to clean herself up, her body still violently unhappy with her soda decisions. "Sorry, I'm just, uh, kinda nervous today. Didn't really sleep great." She balls up the cloth in one of her hands and asks, in a soft tone, "how long have you been back on earth?"
"Little over a year. Yourself?"
"'Bout half that." She pointedly avoids eye contact and asks, "do the nightmares ever go away?"
He paused at that, thinking a moment before quietly shaking his head. "Less frequent, perhaps, but never completely."
Ch-ing-ing-ng.
The door opens again, admits someone that- depending on the location of the counter- may not be easily, or immediately, visible. The new arrival is rather short- very short- extremely short, if we're honest. The tallest things about her are the snowy white rabbit ears poking through the fall of blonde hair, the petite features below casting glances this way and that with big doe's eyes.
"Hi, um. Do- you have succulents? I was looking for something I could forget about now and then without killing it on accident."
Charlie is about to say something about the nightmares, but her attention is completely stolen away by the bunny girl entering her shop. "Oh! Um, yes, hi! We do. How big do you want? Like planter sized or tiny pot by the window sized?" Before she heads over to actually help, she whispers to Asbolus, "Do you know her?"
Asbolus nodded at Charlie's question, giving Wren a polite smile. "Good seeing you again."
"Oh, just like a desk plant. Something to add some green that's resilient to forgetful people." She offers a smile up at Charlie, making a show of glancing around while she whispers to Asbolus, as though she can't hear. She perks up at being addressed. "Oh! It's good to see you again, too. I hope I'm not interrupting anything?"
"No, no! You're fine!" She dashes over to Wren, her right hand lightly tapping a pattern into her own leg. "Hi, I'm Charlie!" She extends her hand for a shake. "How'd you two meet?"
"Mutual associate." He replied to Charlie first, then shook his head to Wren. "Nothing too pressing, just a bit of casual conversation."
Wren's eyes dip to the pattering little fingers, then back up. She's... pitifully low Wyrd. Her Mantle is strong- like the comforting quiet of a snowstorm settling down round your bedroom- but without the ears, she could pass as human. A small human, but certainly. "Hi, Charlie," she says, slipping her own delicate digits into the statuesque woman's fingers. "Wren. I don't think I've had the pleasure, have I?"
Charlie shivers. She shakes Wren's hand maybe a little too long before blushing slightly, blinking a few times and pulling her hand back. "I, um, sorry," she mumbles out. "No, I uh, I don't get to the Court events much. I even missed the party yesterday. But I'm usually here if you need me." Her tapping got a little faster. Why couldn't she talk to girls without being a mess?
"No need to apologize," Wren asserts, smiling reassuringly up at the shopkeep. "I didn't go, either. I had work to do, and Marge understands. It's a lot of pomp and circumstance and it's great for the party people, but for folx like you and me, a bit much, I think?"
"Yeah! Yeah, exactly! All those eyes looking at you," she says, suddenly becoming extremely cognizant of her eyes. "Plus, do you ever find yourself just gettin' kinda antsy in hollows?" she adds more quietly. Her hand has mostly stopped
"Like you're a little bit too close to There and maybe it'd be nice to have Just One More Door between you and There?" Wren asks quietly. "I can handle the eyes, personally, but I don't really like being over there. I'm not- I mean, I came back mostly Me. And I like it that way. The last time I tried to do something in a Hollow, I ended up- I don't know. Contact high from magick, I guess. It was pretty awful. I had to go home and sleep it off."
Charlie nods vigorously. "Yeah, exactly. The eyes thing, um, has been a thing since before, uh, all this stuff. But just... sometimes being over there at all, especially without backup feels, real overwhelming?" Her hint of an Appalachian accent is coming out a bit stronger now, though she hasn't noticed. "I'm really sorry to hear about that. Are you okay now?"
"Oh, yeah, I'm okay, I just- apparently if you change stuff hard enough, you get twisted in the process. I made a Vine of Bacchus and a new pipe for a new kid in town, all at once, and it just overwhelmed me?" She explains quietly. She's got tremendous senses, and knows nobody is nearby, but she's careful anyhow. "And I can get it. I remember coming back and feeling like everybody's eyes were on me, all the time. I was so used to being someplace with so many fewer people, you always knew when someone was paying attention. Here, there's so many, I get how you dont know how to manage sometimes."
Wren's accent was thickly local. If it wasn't so natural sounding, it'd be easy to assume that was on purpose.
It takes all of Charlie's willpower to not blurt out a bunch of anti-drug stuff that been drilled into her from a young age. "You can grow those?" she finally gets out, "I'd love to start growing some rarer goblin fruits." She steps over to a shelf and plucks a small pot of ice plant and hands it over. "Yeah, I'm not exactly used to city life at all."
Wren nods. "I grew up someplace super different to here, too. I get it. And yeah, you can grow them, but I - like... cheated? The Hedge likes good stories- any kind of good story- and if you can do something well enough, it can reshape things. So I convinced someone that a regular vine clipping was a vine of Bacchus. A, um. A little too well." She takes the pot, fingertips brushing over Charlie's hands when she does. "Is this a good one for a bad gardener?"
Charlie shivers again. "It's decent for that. It's not going to be as durable as a full on cactus, but I doubt you'll be storing it somewhere where heat is going to be an issue. Plus, it's called an ice plant and if I'm not mistaken, you're Winter Court." She pauses for a second to think. "Oh, oh! It's called Hedgespinning, right? I think I learned how to do that. It's, uh, kinda freaky to be honest. All our powers feel a little unnatural, honestly."
"No, I won't be. It'll be pretty moderate," she confirms. "And you're right, I am- and you're right, that's what it's called. It's tricky, and you really do need to be pretty impressive at whatever you're doing, or else it can just fall flat." She shifts her grip on the plant, mentally making a note to pay before leaving. "You said you're not really used to city life, right? Have you tried checking out some of the advantages city life has to offer yet?"
"N-not really," she says, anxiously scratching the shaved part of her hair. "I mostly just stay in unless I need to, um, harvest." She pauses, trying to think of a way to salvage the sentence that doesn't end with her sounding like the most pathetic girl in the world. "But my, uh, therapist says I really should get out more!" Nope. Charlie cringed. Worst answer she could have given.
Charlie might cringe, but Wren doesn't. Wren just beams, looking calm and supportive. "Oh! No, that's a good thing- having someone to talk things through helps insulate you from the way your anxieties or fears trend. Especially for people like us, who have difficulty just keeping real and story differentiated? It's a really good thing you're talking to someone." She tips her head faintly, the rabbit ears drifting to the side as her hair drapes a touch differently. "Do- you mind if I ask if you've been back long? You don't seem like you've had time to come to trust your own methods."
Charlie's brain is churning. On one hand she doesn't want to give the true answer, she wants to say that she's only been here a short time and make it look like she's actually doing really well. On the other hand, Wren is supernatural which means Charlie can't just use her goblin powers to get through uncomfortable situations. Plus lying is a sin and all of that. So she just kinda sadly mumbles "eight months"
"And you've already got a job, and a counselor?" Wren sounds... legitimately impressed. "That is... a lot better than my first eight months went. A LOT better. I-" She pauses, looking at the plant in her arms. "... should I stop bothering you? I know you're at work- I could come back after your shift is over, or text you instead, if it'd make sure you didn't get in trouble?"
"Oh, no! Please don't think I'm special or anything! My durance really wasn't that bad and I had a ton of help getting where I am now!" Charlie takes a quick pause, noticing that she hadn't been as quiet as she'd have liked and that there are people looking at her. "maybe, uh..." she blushes and looks away to straighten a cactus. "Maybe that's a good idea"
Wren's expression flashes concerned only when the term durance leaves her lips. She restrains herself from reacting, less it draw more attention to that, but she moves towards the counter and fishes out cash to pay for the ice plant. "Should I come back after shift, or- do you want my number?"
"Your number if you, uh, don't mind. Maybe we could meet up somewhere where I'm not covered in dirt and pop," she takes a second to steel herself. "Maybe we could get a meal or something? My treat?" she squeaks out.
The pintsized woman blinks, then smiles. "Okay. That sounds like a good time- though if you're not careful, you might only be not covered in dirt, if you're not careful with your drink." She sets the ice plant down on the counter and pulls her phone out, offering it to Charlie. "Text yourself so you have my number?"
She sends herself a text. "The last name is Miller if you put last names in. And message me to figure out where and when we're going. Um, don't be a stranger?" She lets out a deep sigh and hands the phone back.
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