sixthiterationlogs | The greenman always comes at yuletide

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The greenman always comes at yuletide

Who: Alec Holland + You (possibly some locked threads later)
What: The month of December, the Swamp Thing. Nothing gold can stay (or Alec prepares for/lives in winter.)
Where: Throughout the village. Tag in as needed.

Hunter/Gatherer

When he was a boy his father - both of his fathers would complain about stiffness in their joins when it got cold. Aches in their bones. They'd laugh it off and predict cold fronts. He may not be tied into this world's green but he knows the signs. He is not a human he is the Swamp Thing, and he knows better then many that winter is coming.

Just what winter will look like for him here remains to be seen, but he cuts a figure never the less. A slowly darkening plant man going too and fro and bringing piles of plants to the Inn for people to divide amongst themselves. Cooking, medicine, he's got it all. Come and get it.

Back home in the Hollow

Alec lives in a grove nearby the village, and he's storied what few possessions he has, that shirt, those trousers, whatever he manages to collect there. Anyone wandering haplessly close to the village might find a great green creature hunkered over planted in the ground. Seemingly asleep? Seemingly dreaming? No one knows for sure.

To those who do wander, he'll just keep quiet until they wander in before speaking "It's rude not to knock." and opening one eye in a roguish wink.

The Bunker (locked to

ataashihunter

Alec occasionally goes and stands in front of the Bunker. Today however it's different. Today he's standing in front of it, ready to go inside and then-

He stops. Stares. And turns away. Then, opens his communicator and videotapes his position.

"Are you free? I think...I think now might be the time."

Find Alec Anywhere

[Meet him coming out of all the things.]

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Wandering the woods isn't something Zevran often does voluntarily but- if he is to know his surroundings? It means he will need to hike now and then. Coming across a rather calm grove away from the wind is reason enough to duck in for a moment, cutting down on the chill.

At least.

Until what he assumed to be a pile of moss speaks.

Zevran is well trained, he is a Crow, an Assassin beyond compare- flinching is not something he does. Rather than risk exposing himself further or inviting wrath he goes very, very still, breath caught in his chest, biting back what could be a yelp. "You-"

Leaves. Talking leaves. "...Please tell me you do not rhyme when you speak."

"I'm not that creative." That brings up memories of the creator's kingdom - he hasn't had a chance to process that. His expression darkens a hair before he uproots himself slowly, "Don't worry. I'm not a threat. Do plants rhyme in your world?"

"Normally? No. But one very...charming-" And the way the word twists to hang in the air makes it plain that Zevran found it anything but. "Oak would only ever speak in rhyme. He was an enchanted tree. Are, ah. You? An...enchanted tree?"

"In a matter of speaking." He stretches, one arm towering over his body, "Many call me Swamp Thing, but most people here call me Alec."

There's a stack of personal belongings in one corner of the grove, "...Did you get lost?"

"...Why would- ah. Humans. If they understand it, it gets a name. Otherwise thing it is." He rolls his eyes, tucking his arms about himself for the chill. "Alec you shall be to me. I am Zevran or Zev to my friends and I was merely trying to step out of the wind for a moment."

"Come in and relax then." Alec rises, "I'm afraid I'm a bit of a bachelor and I can't offer you anything unless you like...dirt."

It is so strange to be a part of humanity again. Still. He should consider moving closer to the village. With winter coming soon.

"Which most don't. But." he shrugs, "Do you often go walking?"

"It keeps the blood pumping. I am accustomed to a far more active lifestyle than this." Living in the village is...peaceful. Which hasn't been his life since he was a child and even then? Not terribly much.

"I can relate to that."

He gestures, "Sit? Will you tell me about your world?"

"What would you like to know?" He sits, out of the wind and the chill, face tipped up to this mountainous green man. "Of our races? Our plant life? The people, the food, the music?"

"This is going to sound stereotypical but I'd love to learn about your plant life. And then the people."

He tucks his big green knees under his hands, "Start with the basics. Flora and Fauna."

"Most of what I know involves herbs for cooking or poisoning or the curing of said poisoning. But I shall tell you whatever I can." It is nice, he supposes, to speak of his world. It makes him feel a little less homesick.

"As for our beasts, well, they are not so terribly different from those I have seen here- though there is a distinct lack of dragons which I find relieving. And darkspawn. No darkspawn to be found." For which he is quite glad.

Steph gets bored. Even in the cold of winter, even after being deathly ill for the better part of a week, even after getting her ass frozen and gaining the power of pyrokinesis. (At least there's a nice fire going at the house now.)

With hardly any leaves left on the trees she can explore parts of the village surroundings that she never bothered with before. That includes Alec's grove. She doesn't want anyone knowing where she lived, so it never struck her as important to know where anyone else did.

She frowns when she's close enough to recognize the great lump in all his shrubby glory. Is that how he sleeps? Should she be worried? But he speaks and she relaxes.

"It's rude not to have a door for people to knock on. What, am I supposed to scrape up my knuckles to be polite?" She grins wryly to let him know she's joking.

"Sometimes a friendly "hello" is just as good." Alec gestures, "How are you Stephanie? How are things in the village? I think I'm finally feeling like myself again. It might be time for me to return."

"Yeah? That's good to hear." She was only wandering around, so she doesn't mind sitting down on a particularly large rock.

"I'm okay. Tony finished my sewing machine a while ago, and I've gotten used to it enough that I can make actual projects now."

"I was surprised by these gifts." He's wrapped his shirt in waterproof plants, "Surprised that I missed wearing clothing. At some point you think you'd forget about it."

He shrugs.

"I envy people able to manage their time. Once the frost ends I'm considering starting some sort of garden."

She chuckles at the image of Swamp Thing in pants. Hopefully he'll assume she's laughing about something else.

"It's not so much time management as desperately trying to occupy myself. Nothing worse than too much time to think, right?" Of course, being plant-based he might disagree. She hopes he doesn't, so she doesn't have to explain too much.

"Yes."

He tilts his head, "You sound like your mind has been turning to a darker bent? Like you're worried about thinking too much?"

No point in not occupying the time right?

She makes a face. He's not wrong, but she'd been hoping she wasn't quite that transparent.

"I mean, I'm dead. It's hard not to have some dark thoughts now and then." Or, like, constantly.

"So am I." He shrugs, "That doesn't mean there can't be positives."

When he sighs the air fills with oxygen around them, "That said, if you are turning to darkness more frequently I am available to listen."

Her eyes turn down and away, her expression desolate.

"Thanks. It's still... hard to talk about." There were thoughts still rooted deep into her mind, impressions that hadn't been disproved. There was still a very real potential for her to be hurt just by sharing them.

"It's not really even the dying part that bothers me. I mean, I definitely still have nightmares about power drills, don't get me wrong. But it's better to just stay distracted during the day."

She honestly isn't always sure where she is lately. The shock of Squall's loss wore off, but it left behind this distracted numbness that she was living in. Rinoa left the house every day and went about her routine, but she usually was surprised to find herself home every night, like she didn't remember going in the first place. She wishes that she could make sense of why they were there, and why this happened. Why she was alone again.

Seeing Alec walking shakes her out of her dazed grief, because she recognizes him. It's difficult not to recognize a giant person like him. He's more intimidating in the light of day than when he was in a bed ill, but it only makes her pause for a moment. She moves toward him, feeling some curiosity that was outside of the general nothingness. "Hi, you probably don't remember me. I sat with you during the sickness." He thought she was someone else though. She glances toward the plants. "You must know a lot about these."

"I do."

He's feeling lethargic today, perhaps a bit slow, "...Pardon me for asking but. Are you all right?"

She looks up at him, startled by the question. It's not really something she gets asked often, since Rinoa's very good at putting on smiles and acting okay no matter what. She almost does exactly that, but it's difficult to these days. She clasps her hands at her waist. "...no. My boyfriend is gone. I guess whoever's in charge of this place didn't want him here anymore." She didn't know how else to put it, looking down at the ground. The sadness hung from her.

"We finally had a chance to be together, but ...." She shrugs one shoulder. "I guess sometimes things aren't meant to be."

"...Sometimes things seem that way. You'll find each other again." Alec's voice is soft, "Trust me. The universe wants those who are meant to be together to be together and if you feel it...if you feel it in your soul..."

He shrugs.

"I want to believe that." Rinoa believed it strongly, once. Especially when they woke up here and Squall had been without her for six years and had still waited for her all that time. It seemed so meant to be. "We've found each other over and over, when everything was against us, so I want to think this is just another block in the road of eventual happiness." She plays with the rings hanging on her necklace. Their rings, signifying their love.

"I think the people in charge of this place are cruel. They gave me this necklace the same day he disappeared. Our rings. I came back to show him."

Alec uncoils, "I'm so sorry." There are no words. He knows that. So instead he just sits and studies her with a nod, "...They are cruel. Omnipotent beings are incredibly cruel."

Just look at him. He's living proof.

"...What will you do now?"

"I knew one overly powerful woman, I'm not sure she was omnipotent, but she was beyond cruel. She could never see anyone else as more than an object to use. So from that experience, I'd agree, and then here." Rinoa doesn't have to be nice with their captors or pretend she's okay with what's happening. She's now stuck in a place without her love.

The question is a good one. "I really don't know. I know it's ... it's probably silly to just fall apart and be useless because your boyfriend isn't there." Rinoa never wants to be useless. She doesn't want to be the silly girl who needs a man to keep going. "I had a life before him, but I don't know, we were supposed to be together forever." But maybe not. Maybe they weren't supposed to be.

"I don't want to be like my father, who never got past my mother's death. It's not the same thing, Squall is alive somewhere, but Dad never moved on, he lived in that grief." And in some ways it got in the way of their relationship.

Alec knows about this...far too deeply. Shifting himself, he puts a hand into the earth and holds up a handful of dirt.

"...When I was a boy my step-dad told me that everything comes back to the earth. I'd just watched the lion king, a movie, and I was obsessed with the idea of the circle of life - he did his best to explain it every time a flower died."

He shifts his fingers through the earth, "When I became the avatar, when I died, I learned how right he was. But what he didn't know was that everyone who came before us is there waiting for us. Each realm is governed and kept safe, magic or otherwise, but...magic is just a different kind of knowledge."

He drops the earth back into the ground and plants it, "Human beings hold onto concepts like heaven and hell and I..." He shakes it off, "Just know, human beings are never alone, or forgotten, and the loved ones we lose are always with us."

Rinoa listens to him. He's very wise, she can tell that much, and he's clearly gone through a great deal. She got a sense of that from when he was sick, and now when he speaks of his past, and then apparently of his death. It always makes her anxious, knowing some of the people here are dead in their world or have died. What if they go next? It'll be a greater loss than someone who wants to go back safely.

She plays with her necklace, their joined rings on it. "I felt that way when my mother died. My father lost it, but I was so sure she was still with me. I swore I could feel her. I was five at the time, and I grieved, but I also still know she's with me now. If not in spirit, she's with me when I sing, and when I try to be a better person, and when I pick love over war." Rinoa smiles sadly. "My father used to be a noble soldier, but he turned into a cold general, after she was gone. I tried to make him see that what he was doing she wouldn't approve of, but he couldn't hear it."

So Rinoa rebelled against him and the army and government that did wrong. And he probably would never understand why.

"I can't feel Squall with me, even with these rings. We can love each other across time and space and separated by cruel beings, but it doesn't change that we aren't together."

Picard, as is often the case, has mostly been exploring when he stumbles across Alec's grove. Not that he's aware of it, initially. At first, he figures it's simply another grove of trees. One that he's... fairly certain that he hasn't explored before. It's only after he spots a familiar-looking mess of greenery in the middle of it that he realizes that he has intruded, and by that point Alec has already spoken up.

"I hadn't been aware I was intruding."

Not until just now, anyway, and there's a note of genuine apology in his voice; one that's echoed in his expression.

"It's understandable." The bald headed man is someone he's seen before. Alec nods and moves to rise, "I should get up and be more social. I suppose I was...asleep."

Oh Alec. Abby's voice echoed in his head, You're so anti-social. It's cute.

He shakes out a massive sludgy hand, "What brings you out here?"

While Picard will freely admit that he's not particularly familiar with the ins and outs of more plant-based lifeforms (much less any real idea as to how plantlike Alec, in particular, is, beyond the obvious) it makes a certain amount of sense that he might find himself to be sleeping more as the days grow colder. Still, without that sense of what is normal for Alec versus what isn't, he simply takes the comment at face value. If he says he'd been sleeping, that's good enough for Picard.

"Exploration, mostly. I'm not aware of there being any maps of the area that have been committed to paper, yet, and the more familiar we are with the immediate surroundings the better, in that case."

He's also not the best at staying still for long periods of time, mind. But if he can put that inclination to explore to good use, so much the better, he figures.

"A wise plan." Alec stretches, "I never have a pencil or paper, so I tend to mark things by the plants and creatures I see but sometimes I..."

He shakes his head, "...Well. Even human memory fades. What sort of plants are you looking for?"

"I wasn't so much looking for as at. Getting a sense for the lay of the land first, before working on anything else."

Which isn't to say that Alec's more plant-based way of doing things isn't also a useful thing to know. It's simply that it isn't where Picard's immediate focus is, just at the moment. Of course, given that he also doesn't have pen or paper with him, his mapping is thus far purely mental, but it still gives him something to do that's at least partially useful. And something that gets him out of the village now and again besides.

"...It's frustrating to be unable to sense the land." Alec puts a hand on the ground, "My abilities normally let me navigate the land easily. But here...I feel disconnected and uprooted."

He shrugs, "You remind me, I haven't been among the humans lately." He sighs, "You've reminded me to do that. Walk back with me?"

"I'd be glad to."

There's a smile to and a nod to go with the words. While he certainly can't blame Alec for wanting to hibernate a little - if indeed that's what he'd been trying to do - he's never minded walking a little while with a friend either. Especially not when it's something that has been asked of him.

"And if you don't mind the question... how does your ability to navigate the land usually work?"

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The greenman always comes at yuletide

Back home in the Hollow

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Back home in the Hollow

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Hunter/Gatherer

Re: Hunter/Gatherer

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