Rats!

Skye Collins · 01-22-2011, 04:28 PM

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Gardening. What a wonderful thing.

Skye was walking down to the garden again after having dug up some more rotting peels and water from her watering can from around the shops and in the lake, respectively. She loved her garden more than anything, really - well, not more than anything, but more than a lot of things, she'll tell you. She didn't love her garden more than her parents, or more than her packmates, or Bangle, or the pack itself, or even reading and writing, but she loved it very much. It was her pride and joy, her reason for being in the pack; she wasn't only in the pack to be a co-leader and lead the pack alongside Shaw, but she was there to make sure they had enough food for the next months to come by planting edible foods. And even non-edible ones that would make good dyes would be good for the pack, since they had plenty of painters and dyers that would love those plants.

She walked through the walls of Thornbury and turned to her garden. What she saw almost made her drop her things and let out a bloodcurdling screech.

Rats! There were filthy, nasty rats in her beautiful garden!

As soon as they saw her, they all froze and looked up at the girl that was now staring at them murderously. As soon as she took a small step towards them as to chase them off, they scattered in different directions, screeching and squealing and running off to wherever they had come from. Skye let out a loud snarl, scaring them to run even faster - they wouldn't be back in that garden again, she knew. She turned to her precious sprouts and was glad to see that none of them were hurt - whatever the rats were doing, it seemed that they didn't harm their rendezvous site that had been her garden, and it was fine and unharmed. The creamy-white girl with the blazing red hair let out a sigh of relief and knelt down in the dirt.

Suddenly, she heard a loud squealing sound. She whipped around and saw the red eyes of two very large rats come - they were much, much larger than the ones that had been in her garden, and she guessed that these were the parents. So these rats thought it was alright to just stroll up and leave their kids in the garden, did they? Well, they were about to get a lesson they wouldn't soon forget! Skye drew out her dagger and stood, advancing on the nasty rats with the large teeth and red eyes.

One of them squealed loudly and raced towards her at the same time as the other. Skye got a nasty bite on her ankle and retaliated, snarling at the rat that had bit her. It let out a vicious squeak just as the other rat bit Skye on the other ankle, and Skye let out a yowl. Looking down at the two vermin, she snarled and stabbed in the dirt with her dagger. The tip of it got the rat's flank, and it squealed and ran from the garden. The other rat snarled at Skye, who did the same in return, and quickly followed its partner.

"That's right, rats! Run!" Skye yelled after the disgusting creatures. Satisfied with her work, she took her blade and cleaned it on some of the snow on the ground. The snow was now stained red with blood, but she didn't mind - she had been protecting her garden, and now none of those filthy rats could contaminate it. She then knelt back on the dirt where her garden was - her ankles were bleeding, but the wounds weren't too deep or bad, and she was sure they'd heal before long. What she was concerned about now was clearing all this snow off her garden - if the plants' roots were frozen solid, it'd stop transporting water to the plants, and they would surely die from a mixture of dehydration and cold.

Moving carefully as to not crush the precious stems, she began to clear away the snow by removing handfuls at a time. She cupped her hands and lifted the snow off of the dirt, moving the white powder to the side banks where it could be. She did this all around the garden, making sure not to crush any of her sprouts as she did so - they were precious, very precious, and young. If she accidentally crushed one now, it'd mean one less for her pack in the summer when they'd blossom and grow berries for dyes, medicines, and even flavoring for food. She imagined, however, that it'd be more useful for dyes and medicines - the berries, although delicious, were too small to fill a wolf's belly, and would be put to better use in the world of arts. They'd make good paints for drawing things on the Border Tree, she imagined - she'd like to color in the words 'Cercatori d'Arte' so that they stood out against the brown of the forests and the trees. She'd also like to paint some things of her own, maybe - paint the stables? She didn't know. She didn't have many uses for dyes, but she knew Ouija would love some, and Sky would put the medicines to good use.

Yes, the garden was valuable.

Then, she began to spread the peels all over the garden, pushing them carefully into the dirt and making sure they wouldn't be blown away by the wind or drift away without rotting first. They had to rot - that gave the plants their nutrients and made it able for them to survive. It was sort of like plant food - that was why plants bear fruit. When the fruit falls, the fruit rots in the ground, giving the seed inside lots of nutrients and food and energy to start growing. So Skye planted these little peels all over the ground, making sure that each cluster of sprouts had at least a few pieces to feast on.

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Skye Collins · 01-22-2011, 05:09 PM

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Next, she made sure to carefully sprinkle water on her precious sprouts. This would freeze the droplets of water now resting on the plant's tiny and new leaves, which would make the warmth of the water seep into the plant. This would keep the plants from freezing from their insides in the cold, and Skye had to admit that she had her mother to thank for that trick. She did it every winter with her own plants, and had taught Skye how and why she had to do that; it was so the plants wouldn't die. She especially liked doing it with new crops in the winter; she would plant new seeds smack-dab in the middle of the cold months. Skye would ask her why, and she said that if they learned to grow up in the cold and frigid atmosphere, the spring and winter would be even more productive on them than usual, and they'd grow twice the amount.

Skye took her mother's advice and had planted her own plants in the winter, spraying them and putting peels on them just as she had done with her mother when she helped in the garden. The garden helped her think. The garden helped her put her worries aside, and as she spread peels and sprayed the garden with water to keep them from freezing, she also spoke to them.

Her mother said that if she talked to the plants, they would grow better; once, she had had two gardens: one of them she talked to every day while watering them the same water and giving them the same amount of peels as the other, which she didn't talk to at all. She would refuse to talk to Skye if she were helping her with the garden that she didn't talk to; she wanted a completely unbiased opinion. She had soon learned that if you talked to your plants, if you talked to them and encouraged them to grow, they would grow much faster and better than if you just treated them like inanimate objects that didn't matter. The garden that she and Skye talked to grew fast and strong, and the one that they didn't talk to grew as well, but not as bright and green and full as the ones that had the words spoken to them day by day.

So Skye talked to the plants. "You're beautiful plants, good plants, good and strong," she said while spraying them and stroking their green yet tender leaves. "You're going to grow up big and strong, and you're going to help the whole pack. Did you know that? Yes, you're going to grow up big and strong and you're going to be the best plants you can be." She knelt down in front of her garden, now talking to the plants since she had finished giving them the food and water and cleared away as much snow as she could. "You're all great plants that one day will grow up big and strong. You know you are, and don't try to tell me you're not." They didn't. "Good. Because if I thought you didn't think you were the best you could be, which you are, then I'd just have to talk to you some more. You're the best plants out there, and you're going to grow for me. Okay, plants? Okay, my sprouts?"

The words she spoke didn't matter, her mother had told her. It was the way she said them, and she said them with reassurance and gentle care and love. Yes, love. She loved her plants, the fruits of her creation, her dear flowers and berries and sprouts that would grow into all these things. She loved them, and so she told them she loved them. She wanted them to grow big and strong - Skye loved gardening, everyone in the pack knew that by now. She loved gardening and she never, ever wanted to give it up - even if by some horrible chance they all died, she would get more of the berries and start again, giving them the same love she would always have for her precious garden.

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