[SEASONAL EVENT] belladonna

ASHE some people survive chaos, and that is how they grow,    Ashe looked up with a soft hm? when Vai reached forward to show her how to remove the seedling. She watched attentively, echoing her mother's instruction to plant the herb. She'd pulled up plenty of herbs from the root before, but never gently, and never for replanting.    She turned her eyes back up to Vai and half smiled, warming slightly. Even with Ashe's impeccable memory, recalling anything from before she and her mother had been separated was vague at best. She recalled wind chimes and the sounds of the ocean and the shadows of mountains, she remembered hands over her face or a murky image of her mother (now easy to fill in). It was always... something else.. to hear of before she was gone. Her father had filled in the holes in Ashe's memory as best he could, but it wasn't as if they had ever been allowed much time together.    Ashe gently pressed soil down around the seedling she'd just successfully planted and reached for the next, enjoying the task more than she had thought she would. The girl looked up at Vai again with her question, and she briefly paused. Her lips shut, and she looked down in thought as she dug into the earth once more.    "I'm... doing better," she answered honestly as she planted another of the herbs. Not as neat as her mother's, but effective. "Healing. Learning." Ashe took a deep breath and looked back down to the garden soil, busying her scarred hands with digging and planting. "I've been sleeping more.. filling my time with less destructive habits. Theea takes up a lot of time at least, she's -"    Ashe broke off and looked up at nothing in particular, brow furrowing before she turned her gaze to her mother. "You haven't actually met her yet, have you?" She might have seen the little girl in Kalt's arms at that festival with the unfortunate encounter with Ludo, but Ashe couldn't remember her mother ever actually meeting Theea. "Kalt and I took care of her when she was an infant, until I.. was separated from her." She frowned then and turned back to her task with planting the garden, gingerly uprooting another of the seedlings. "It's a long story. But I'd like you to meet her, and... I could tell you about it." Her chest tightened anxiously, but she looked hopefully up at Vai. and some people thrive in chaos because that is all they know.