fandomhighdorms | The Garden, Thursday Afternoon

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The Garden, Thursday Afternoon

After a class, Karla went back to her room and changed into Morton's old cast-offs. Between the heavy content of today's discussion, the rapidly fading memories of the previous weekend, and the radio's reports that 'Dite was leaving--which would explain her message asking Karla to meet her at the store later--she had a lot to ~~brood over~~ think about. And now that the ground was thawed enough, Karla decided to skip the roof in favor of spending some quality time in the gardens. She could be useful and thoughtful at the same time with the guarantee that she'd feel better when she was done.

Ten minutes later, she was muddy, with dirt under her fingernails and over her face and already feeling a little better about everything.

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"Mostly turning over soil, pruning, and making sure nothing untoward has taken root," Karla explained. "The earth is thawed now, so we want to make sure that it's looser around the perennials and that it's ready for new things to be planted by the annuals. This also gives us a chance to get rid of any big rocks or slugs or harmful bugs that might have moved into the soil for the winter, down low where they could survive by eating the plant roots."

She grinned at Ender a little more. "Ready to get dirty?"

"More than happy to," Ender said, with a smile. He pressed his hands to the soil. "Just don't spill anything on my book; the library would frown on that."

Karla mock-pouted at him. "Ender, you wound me." Sapphire light sparked in the air for a moment as she tossed a hasty shield over the book. "If I ask what you're reading about now, will it require another relativity lesson for me to understand?"

"Not at all," Ender said, shooting her a little amused smile. "It's Spanish. Ben and I gave it a crack out of boredom on the way to Eros, and I guess the language appeals to me."

"This world has so many languages," Karla said, shaking her head. "Ugh, you're going to make me feel guilty for neglecting my studies in the Ancient Tongue for so long."

And they studied random languages for fun. Her friends were such dorks.

This was a surprise to her how?

"Yes, you're a terrible person for bailing on your studies," Ender agreed, amicably. "So what do we do first?"

Besides heartily repress screaming arguments?

In Karla's defense, she was less 'heartily repressing' and more 'struggling to remember.' She knew that something was weird between them, but she wasn't entirely sure what or why.

Dammit.

"Here," she said, calling in a gardening claw and handing it over. "Start making furrows in the soil. It'll loosen everything up. I'm going to look over the plants to see which ones survived the winter."

Working with the land helped loosen up her tension as well. "Do I owe you an apology?"

Ender remembered. He didn't remember all of it - some information was sketchy and hard to grasp, and some conversations fuzzy while some circumstantial knowledge remained intact. But he'd remembered enough of their argument to recall the anger and the sorrow, and he wasn't sure whether he appreciated that she didn't know much, so he wouldn't have to talk about it, or he didn't.

It also didn't help that he swore sometimes his older self was lecturing him at the back of his head.

He took the gardening claw and got to work. "I don't think you owe me any apologies," he said, "Unless you remember more of the weekend than I do."

He was also a filthy liar. Well. At this age.

She shook her head. "Just flashes. Little bits and pieces. I remember yelling at you, though. I was so angry. Mostly because I was hurt and struggling not to cry and it was easier to be mad."

She remembered emotions better than she did events.

"I remember yelling," Ender offered, quietly meeting her in the middle, at least a little. "Frustration, sadness, but that's about it."

Content that she didn't need to offer an actual apology--even while feeling the obscure desire to do so--Karla leaned back on her heels. "Frustration, I'm used to causing. Sadness is--hopefully--a new one. I wish I remembered more."

"I don't," Ender said, happy to focus on the work he was doing with his hands. It, at least, was real. "Dwelling on possible futures is an excellent way to drive any man insane. Especially on an island that offers you such a broad range of choice."

Though his had been fairly uniform so far, barring little Valentine's world.

Edited 2011-04-15 06:29 (UTC)

"I'm used to knowing the future," Karla said quietly. "Or, at least, some of it. Black Widows don't believe anything is set in stone. If we see a future we don't like, we can try to change it. Maybe if we remembered this past weekend better, we could avoid all that frustration and sadness."

She gave Ender a wry smile. "Well, maybe the sadness. I'm pretty sure the frustration is here to stay."

"And by trying to change it, you might wind up in that eternal paradox where any prophecy might be self-fulfilled," Ender countered.

But he let that go. "I don't think you're that frustrating, for what it's worth."

The sadness, he wasn't going into.

"If something like that is going to happen regardless, I think I'd rather have it be because I was trying to make things better, rather than because I sat on my hands and spent all my time fretting," Karla decided after a few moments' contemplation while weeding. "I'd rather have agency than not, even if it means I have to shoulder blame as well."

Karla didn't do 'nothing' very well.

She did give him a slightly wider, less wry smile at that. "You don't? You must have even more patience than I thought."

Or had simply learned to accept Karla for who she was, instead of who she wished he'd be. Which, honestly, sounded more like Ender than even all that patience.

Ender quirked a slight smile. "No patience required," he said, sincerely. "At least, not if you're trying to insinuate I have to put any effort into dealing with you."

It was an excellent diversionary tactic, because it was true.

Karla's answering smile was a little wistful. On the one hand, it was good to hear. On the other...she wished she hadn't had to wait until coming to Fandom to hear it be said.

Pushing those thoughts away, she said, "Speaking of things you may or may not need patience for, did Ben tell you of our trip to Glacia?"

Diversion: complete.

He was a master of diversionary tactics that way.

"He did," Ender agreed. "He was quite adamant about the fact nothing went horribly wrong..."

"Nothing did!" Karla said, deliberately ignoring the knot in the pit of her stomach that felt a lot like the phrase 'not yet.' "It was a really nice visit! Not exactly relaxing, but nice!"

Which meant she had been right, right? It had been a good idea?

Ender sighed. "Any word on Hobart?" he said, "Any movement so far that suggests he knows about it?"

That seemed more useful than questioning actions she performed out of loyalty to her people.

"Nothing yet," Karla said with a frustrated sigh. "We deliberately chose tiny villages so that it would take time for word to spread, but I still expected it to go more quickly than this."

She glared at a weed that she'd dug up before tossing it aside. "Though, I guess it's for the best. The longer it takes for him to hear about it, the safer everyone is. Especially the people in the villages I helped."

"So you're at least in part deliberately provoking him," Ender noted.

"Yes, a bit," Karla said. "It's more that I want word to spread that I am alive and helping people out, like a good Queen should, but there's no way to make it so that word spreads only to the people I want to know. And I can't let years pass with people thinking I'm dead. It will make my claim that much harder to back when I'm ready to return home."

And also Karla got a perverse kick out of thumbing her nose at Hobart, true.

"And thus," Ender said, after a moment, "You're making them swear their fealty now. You're taking a risk, Karla-- a smart move by Hobart and you might wind up either forced to go to war much earlier than you planned, or showing your people that you can talk the talk but you can't walk the walk."

"I'm not making anyone swear fealty to me now!" Karla said, stung. "The Queen's Gift is a tradition! Any Queen can participate, whether she has a Court or not. It's to help the land and the people who live off of it."

Damn it, Ender. You always had to see right through to what she was most afraid of.

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