Cherry picking [Open]

[zouichi]

As Zouichi had mentioned earlier, the cherry trees behind the Inn had begun, as of the past few days, to bear fruit. Whatever oddity of the 'seasons' here had encouraged them to bloom before, apparently it had convinced them that now was prime cherry season.

He reached up into the branches of one of the trees, plucking the ripened fruit and leaving the rest for later. He'd promised some to Alendian, of course, but truth be told, he was setting aside the sweetest, choicest fruits for someone else. A larger proportion of fruit to pit, not too soft or too firm, with the most attractive colors...

It was normally a fairly mindless task, but he was engrossed enough in picking and sorting today that he might be caught unawares.

[The thread with Alendian and Ildraniath is closed, otherwise the post is open]

Comments

[zouichi]

Zouichi tilted his head at her a little. "Well, I don't know about that. After all, what do you think it was feeding those Reavers?"

That's riiiiight. Clones.

[soulinherfists]

Oh yeah.

That.

Allenby pulled a disgusted face. "Right... that feels like ages ago." She popped a cherry into her mouth and ate it furiously, pit and all. "If I could get by without eatin' any of that stuff, I would. Stupid fast metabolism."

[zouichi]

Zouichi nodded. "I think pretty much anyone would, really. Well, maybe not Howard. Or Lash."

But the two of them had questionable tastes. "...Wait, did you just eat that pit?"

[soulinherfists]

That got an eyeroll. "I ain't gonna base what I want to eat around those two."

She looked at the stem in her fingers. "Oh hey, I guess I did! Whoops. You're supposed to spit 'em at people, aren'tcha."

[zouichi]

"Well, that's probably a good -- what? No. No spitting them at people. Although maybe what we could do is save them to try and grow more trees. Don't you think the City could use more of them?"

Zouichi was rather fond of cherry trees.

[soulinherfists]

"Aw come on, it would be fun! We could make it into a competition!" She leaned back against one of the trees, looking up at it. "Still, you got a point there. There's sure to be other places here that they'll take root. How long does it take a cherry tree to grow?"

[zouichi]

He looked thoughtful. "To be honest, I'm not sure. Maybe a year to become a sapling? But who really knows on this ship. Maybe we could even find someone to make them grow more quickly."

Although he sort of liked the idea of letting them grow on their own.

"Maybe somewhere safe, where they won't get cut down by robots."

[soulinherfists]

"Yeahhh, we could!" Allenby didn't have any kind of objection to using science or magic to speed it up as long as it didn't hurt the tree. Otherwise it'd just take ages and ages to see them grow up. She clenched her fists at the idea of SHODAN happening to an orchard. "And if this ship tries to unleash robots on us again, I'll pound 'em to bits myself before I'd let them get near the trees!"

[zouichi]

Zouichi smiled. "Well, there's something nice about waiting to watch a tree grow up, too. and besides, I expect that now that we've been menaced by robots, we're due for another change. Maybe it'll be shark-men next, or eyeball aliens."

[soulinherfists]

"I hope it's eyeball aliens," Allenby said. "They'd be easy to take care of--just a few good jabs and they're down."

She swung herself up into the cherry tree's branches. "I guess it'd be nice to watch it happen naturally, though. Baby plants are kinda cute."

[zouichi]

Zouichi snorted. "Yeah, and their biggest weak point is pretty obvious, too."

His smile broadened slightly. "They are, aren't they? Some of the watermelon seeds we saved back during the Geartopia shore leave have sprouted. Maybe one day soon we'll have some more watermelon, as well."

Until then, he'd just have to keep Emergency Rations from chewing up the leaves.

[soulinherfists]

"Hey, that's awesome!" Allenby grinned down at Zouichi. "I'm pretty sure they're gonna have to get a little bigger before the watermelons start poppin' up though..."

Now that she thought about it, she'd never had watermelon, had she? She'd had those weird hard candies that were always a little sticky, but never the real deal. "I keep doin' new stuff here. That's weird, isn't it? Earth's gone and we just keep goin'."

[zouichi]

"Yeah, most likely. They're still pretty young yet. But once they start producing, we might have to give a few away." Well, if everyone didn't eat them first.

Zouichi's expression sobered a little. "Yeah. To be honest, I wouldn't have been able to experience half of what I've done so far if we hadn't been brought here."

[soulinherfists]

"Yeah. It's weird how somethin' this awful can have good things in it, too." Allenby sighed. "I definitely don't regret meeting you or the rest of my friends here, but I want to stop the Ohm already and fix Earth. We could do whatever we wanted without worryin' so much."

[zouichi]

Zouichi smiled. "I don't, either. ...But it is probably best if we put a stop to the Ohm sooner rather than later."

Even if it meant he might never see any of the others again. "What will you do if your world is ever restored?"