New Growth

[radiantlegacy]

Who: Ienzo and.... oh heck, let's keep this OPEN for anyone who wants to come geek out about plants with him.
What: Taggin' your Gummigram Photos #EPCOTgoals #hydroponics #springtimesquad
Where: Radiant Garden!
When: Post-KH3
Warnings: ^



They're still calling it planting day, but all the romance of newly turned soil and timeless agrarian wisdom and hand trowels is sort of..overstated?

But technically speaking, it's more like carefully transferring trays upon trays of peat-podded seedlings into evenly-spaced holes in the lines of piping and filling them with up with the appropriate measurements of growing medium. Stretched out across the old fountain bed...only recently populated with new fish, they only wait to be filled in.

Still, it's something quite momentous, and even Aerith, who's proven a bit of a traditionalist when it comes to the flowerbeds already bursting with life near the gates, seems sufficiently impressed by the ingenuity of this new system.

Ienzo's...seemingly in bright spirits, and tenatively proud of the progress, dressed-down in cuffed-up overalls that probably used to belong to Braig and a checkered violet button-down (which seems to be as far a nod of concession he'll make toward all the rage in fashion nowadays). Somebody's actually convinced him to wrestle some of his hair back under a bandanna, for once, and for now this renders him almost comically nigh unrecognizeable. No promises how long he'll be keeping his face feeling so naked.

For now he's pleased to oversee the arrival of helping hands- never one to shirk hard work and rolling up his sleeves, of course, but really he's better at the bossing-about and organizing.... and the task at hand gives him ample excuse to chat cheerily, offering around cups of ice cold minted water between checking off notes on his clipboards and fussing with testing strips.

"...And you?" he gestures with a smile, tapping the end of a pencil to his lips. "You can either start with.... Ah, the cherry tomatoes, here on Row 4, or down in strawberries on Row 8."

Comments

[erodingearth]

Terra smiles as he observes the bustle around the in-progress garden, raising a curious brow at the various seedlings being picked up and carried off by volunteers. He cannot begin to imagine what had inspired the system, but it seems to garner a good amount of interest from passersby.

Regardless, there is a swell of pleased approval in his chest as he watches Ienzo direct the volunteers. Who would have thought he could dress down like that, looking amusingly unlike himself with his hair pulled back? It's a great contrast from the put-together apprentice of Ansem the Wise, even as he keeps busy and continues making the world better in his own way.

He watches the latest of the volunteers take off in the direction of the strawberries before stepping forward, tilting his head in greeting. "Did I miss something? What spurred all of this sudden gardening?"

To be fair, he has been off-world for awhile.

[radiantlegacy]

"Have you forgotten where you are?" Ienzo laughs, a sound that's somehow twisty-wry like something lurking in the slant of a shadowed corner and yet light-as-air out in broad daylight all at once. He shakes his head and plants his arms akimbo, clipboard dangling against his hip. "There's a reputation to be remade!"

After all, what's in a name like Radiant Garden, without a little greenery and a riot of other colors besides?

(We can't let the 100 Acre Wood hog all the fun with vegetable patches.)

"It's the perfect time, the right season." He tucks a pencil smartly behind an ear, looking over the tubing, the burble of the water pump, the occasional flash of orange and white beneath the surface, carp swimming in the fountain pool beneath. Ienzo consults his diagrams, then turns the clipboard around to show Terra. "We're trying something new. You could've have picked a better time to turn up, with those hands."

He takes a moment to take in his... (friend? more?) looking over the keybearer up and down, something gleaming far too indiscreetly in his eyes, with both of them exposed like this. It certainly makes a world of difference for his face, this unusual openness. Even more difficult to pin-point his age, with all avid keenness showing, asymmetry wrangled.

"It's good to see you." He beams warmly, and gestures toward the pallet of seedlings. "Want to jump right in, or.... do you want me to give you a walkthrough?"

[erodingearth]

There's perhaps the faintest flare of embarrassment at the tease; for all of the time he remembers of Radiant Garden, both as himself and to some extent a part of 'Xehanort,' he doesn't actually remember a time when Radiant Garden wasn't full of flowers. In retrospect, it seems obvious that they would need to do more gardening, even with so much rebuilding finished around the city.

"I guess the garden could always be more radiant," he murmurs, casting a bemused look over the volunteers before turning his full attention to Ienzo. His eyes flit over the diagrams he's shown, going back and forth between the conceptual aids and the in-progress work, before he flashes Ienzo another smile and stands shoulder to shoulder with him. If he can help out in some way, he's more than willing to lend a hand.

"It's good to see you too." There's something markedly different about looking at Ienzo dowsed in the sunlight of his temperate home world, as opposed to the tropical atmosphere of Destiny Islands. Maybe it has something to do with simply looking comfortable after all that had transpired. "I wouldn't mind a tour, if you can spare a few minutes? I hope this whole operation isn't going to go off the rails if you step away."

It's a wry joke, carrying into the look he gives his friend -- his confidant. It's a look that he doubts he could properly explain to Ven or Aqua, given its root in darker times.

[radiantlegacy]

"We're only going to step closer-" Ienzo pouts, as if he's a little wounded that Terra would suggest he'd just up and abandon the project to let it fall to pieces under less capable hands.

(Which is nonsense, of course. Any of the committee could step in at any time, he hopes, with the way he's taken care about transparancy at every stage of the engineering.)

"Unless you came to see the hatchery and the grow-lamps, too?" He jerks his chin casually in the general direction of the castle postern, eyes half-lidded, loftily challenging. There's a hint of something else in his tone, something new. Defiance? A swell of resiliency. "That's back in the labs."

Amazing, what a Heartless Manufactory can be re-imagined into, given enough aggressive ingenuity and desire to transform the footprint of one breeding ground into another... something infinitely less horrific. (Unless you really hate your vegetables.)

Looping a hand gently around Terra's wrist, he leads him along the length of the fountain pool. Sprouts are in the process of being placed in very carefully, their roots suspended by pale little beads and ground-up stone. Ienzo gives him the abridged overview, in a tone that's far more pleasantly pedantic than listening to Even ramble on like a know-it-all. He's doing his best at warmth- or maybe, with certain visitors, there's no need to fake his way through it at all..

"It's actually quite simple. See, we've finally moved these fish out to their outdoor pond, and they'll do most of the work here by providing fertilizer, which in turn is delivered via biofilter tanks to the root-flow system... which come through here, gravel supporting the plants so that they can drink up from the nitrate-rich water!" He beams, as through he's rehearsed explaining this in simplest layman's terms so very many times over. "...Then it goes back down to the waterway sumps, and eventually cycles back through."

"...But the lettuce towers and the microgreen matting are so delicate that we think they'll do a little better continuing indoors, for the time being, or under some kind of greenhouse covering." His nose crinkles. "Still figuring that out."

[erodingearth]

Terra laughs a little at Ienzo's pout, finding it easy to navigate through feelings that had once left him awkward and wary around the younger man. No sooner had Ienzo drawn his attention back towards the castle than they were walking, and he just manages to make a comment before the overview begins proper.

"I did say a tour. But I guess heading up to the castle would take more than a few minutes."

Still, he follows without complaint, only waiting until Ienzo is talking to adjust their hands so it's more mutual hand-holding than guiding by the wrist. He doesn't feel the need to call attention to the change, especially given the enthusiasm he hears with each word.

"The finer details are a little lost on me," he admits, scanning over the pipes and thinking of how long it must have taken to plan out this system. "It sounds like it's supposed to be a self-sustaining cycle?"

Even with the assurance that he wasn't dumb for not being scientific-minded, he feels safer guessing than making an assertion. He hums, glancing over his shoulder in the direction of the rest of the town. "What about the drinking water for the city? There's no, uh, crossing of the pipes?"

[radiantlegacy]

His eyes rise to the castle towers again, to the lift platforms where their last 'tour' began becoming so interesting, and he can feel the ache of a longing sigh ballooning in his lungs.

"Mmm, yes, maybe later..." Ienzo murmurs instead with a non-committal half-shrug, though as Terra's hand shifts against his, the apprentice's slimmer fingers spread to accomodate- first their loosely clasped hands, held like mitts, then with a promising little wriggle, interlaced fingers. The glove-soft pads of his fingertips tap pensively across the keybearer's knuckles, and a quick sideways glance of furtive eyes suggests otherwise- that he'd certainly like to retreat to the cool indoors and peel out of these silly-looking overalls, eventually.

But first there's a job to be done. All good things come to those with patience.

"That's exactly it. It'll require some regular maintainence on our end, of course, just to make sure things are properly balenced, and pump needs to keep running to prevent algae and root rot, but ideally everything exists in symbiosis."

Luckily Terra's not one to get hung up on technicalities, seeing the rough gist of the system without launching into the same critique of details as Cid and Dilan did, pouring over his first set of blueprints with scrutinizing eyes, ready to pounce and practically rip his heart out of the project over the finer flimsy points of engineering.

But that meeting was months ago, and he's since learned to take it in stride when the whole committee talks about separating scaled-down projects from impractical pipe dreams, feasible and not feasible. (Such as digging out the old septic tanks and installing new incinerators for biosolid soil conditioning.)

One step at a time, kid.

So it makes him laugh a little, bowing his head when Terra talks about a crossing of the pipes.

"Yes, yes....the running taps are on a separate filtration system." He smiles a bit crookedly, rolling his eyes in spite of himself. There's room at every round table about waste management for plenty of toilet humor, but Ienzo's still polite enough that they always leave him feeling red-cheeked and vaguely unclean. "As for that septage, well, we're still fiddling around with a few new W-t-E ideas."

He rattles this off easily, offhanded, like the first time he used 'RTC' as common parlance for heading back up to the castle, and Tifa looked at him unblinking, uncomprehending. There's insular language he's still learning to release.

[erodingearth]

In much the same way as Tifa, Terra gives Ienzo a blank look at the unfamiliar jargon. It takes effort on his part to not reach up and scratch his head in confusion, instead focusing on a confused fidget of their clasped hands. A subtle scratch with a callused thumb, a question left unsaid for a moment.

"W-t-E? ...Waste to energy?" he hazards, convincing himself that he can't shy away from guessing lest he seem completely inattentive. "I'm glad you've been keeping busy," he adds, no less sincere despite any confusion that clung onto his voice.

There's just a tinge of something in Ienzo's face that carries into his eyes, relaxed and happy after ... well, everything that could have taken that away. Terra lets that comment hang as he turns his attention back to the gardening system, watching the volunteers continue carefully arranging the seedlings. Then he's back to looking at Ienzo, as if confirming to himself that the look had not changed.

"Satisfaction's a good look on you."

He can't help a faint cough and twitch of his lips that accompany the words.

[radiantlegacy]

He enjoys the puzzled petting of Terra's thumb, watching him work it out with a sleek smile, deepening and serenely catlike.

"Uh-hMmm..." Ienzo nods the affirmative warmly, letting his body gravitate and their joined hands rest against his thigh, till their sides are touching too and he's sinking even deeper into contentment. "See, I'm really not that hard to keep up with, am I?"

It's nice, being able to trust that Terra can follow along with his context clues. Master Ansem frequently reminds him not to lose The People with too much technical talk, but people aren't entirely stupid, are they, not even keybearers with a bit of a reputation for being more brawn than brains.

(Ienzo's spent his Nobody years with Lexaeus as his closest colleague. He certainly knows better than to presume anyone is thickskulled simply because they look too physically formidable to have intelligence on their side as well. Some are doubly blessed.)

"Well, I'm just glad it's all come together without incident, so maybe I can give myself a little space to rest until the next stage." he insists modestly, relieved, though he's also well aware that Terra's being free with compliments, finding himself in no hurry to dismiss them.

"But come," Pulling away, drifting back to work, he bends for a tray of seedlings to turn and deposit in Terra's arms, "we should probably finish doing our part before resting on our laurels, lest someone calls me out for standing around playing lazy overseer."

Laziness doesn't seem to suit Ienzo's work ethic, but accusations of getting preoccupied by comfortable company are far more likely. Dilan's got zero tolerance for it, and there will probably be a little jovial sneering and intensive questioning to contend with later, if he's caught leaning and handholding.

"...then we'll see about satisfactions." He murmurs closely, once their heads are bent together, crouched over a row of piping.