[se] slithered here from Eden

Dark side, you can see through my dark side
Spitfire, you can handle me

"The desert is wondrous, isn't it?" Poppy murmurs warmly, wstching a trickle of crystalline sand flow up to her fingers. Like a reverse waterfall the rivulet ascends, rising up in defiance of gravity to nestle in her hand. The naturalist brings it to her face, thumb spreading the grains across the landscape of her palm. What does she see in the shimmering dirt, the long-since-crushed stones and fragments of bones?

Hard hand turns over and the sand spills out, vanishing into its brethren like water in the sea.

"Interesting." From her pack well-worn notebook appears, pen tucked in its pages. She opens it up and scratches out notes in a spidery shorthand utterly incomprehensible to anyone else.

The book slips back into one of the many pockets of her pack. Poppy peers across the pale expanse, hand raised up to shield her eyes. "Yes. Must be." She glances back and up toward Sunjata, copper ponytail spilling over her shoulder. It's her first time truly acknowledging him in some minutes, and her eyes take a moment to focus on his. "Based on the sand, I'm confident there's tainted growth nearby."

Excitement glitters in her honey gaze, casts her freckled face with an eager glow. Sure, the new plants seem rather hostile, but they're new. Surely the Flood,  an acolyte of Frey, must find that fascinating. It's the reason she asked him along, after all.

That, and dragon back being a much more efficient means of travel than taking a horse and cart.

Persephone

Fault lines, you just dance on my fault lines
Landmine, you can handle me

// i came from a broken home, so look at all my broken bones
count me in, but count me out, i know what this is about //

“It’s a bit too dry for my taste these days.” Sunjata admits honestly, focusing his attention on Persephone as she inspects every little thing rather than looking around the desert. It was the same as all the others as far as he was concerned. Too try. Too much sand. Too coarse. rough and irritating, and it gets everywhere.

Ahem, anyway, now that Sunjata’s Anakin moment is over, he casually watches as she marks a note in the book she’s brought, unable to read it despite how he certainly tries. And he remains silent while she doesn’t acknowledge him for what feels like an eternity before her eyes land on his face and he realizes that she’s talking to him now.

“Mm, we should check it out then shouldn’t we?” Perhaps she’s misread him on when it comes to new things of nature – he follows the reproduction variant of Frey after all – but he can play the part, an actor as he starts heading the direction she’s pointed out, magic at the ready just in case they need water to drink or water to use to fight.

the flood

// i'm the next, so get in line
just let me have my fucking time //

Dark side, you can see through my dark side
Spitfire, you can handle me

"You're right - it's dry today." Persephone nods, as though this were a remarkable observation and not the defining characteristic of every desert, everywhere. "Which is part of what's so wonderful. When the rains come through this whole basin will flood." A sweeping gesture of freckled arms encapsulates the vast white plains. "Flowers will bloom. Birds will cry. Animals will emerge and fuck and feast. This place will be a riot of noise and color and life, so incredibly different from what it is now. And none of that would be possible, were it not so dry today." Her warm eyes glitter up at Sunjata; there's breathless exhilaration in her voice.

An absent nod as she falls into step beside him, her attention again enraptured by the endless expanse of sand. She walks barefoot, the better to feel quiet vibrations or the changing texture of earth beneath her feet - changes like the one she senses now, as smooth warm sand grows cold and jagged, a siren song sung by the grains.

Poppy pauses and drops to kneel, her long toes curling against the ground, her hand splayed in the sand. "Do you feel it?" she asks, eyes closed in thought, a quiet hum pushed through her lips. "There's something foreign in the earth. There-"

As suddenly as she stopped she's on her feet, darting toward the east. And it doesn't take a naturalist to see what she's spotted: a copse of flowers, pitch black and glittering, as dark and foreboding as blood on the sand.

Persephone

Fault lines, you just dance on my fault lines
Landmine, you can handle me

// i came from a broken home, so look at all my broken bones
count me in, but count me out, i know what this is about //

Perhaps she’d be a good fit for the nature Frey’s demigods, with how invested and easily she explains the process of the desert and its plants and the reason it’s so dry. He’d taken it for face value, not lingering on the thought as the sand still somehow finds its way into making it into his boot, and how the slightest breeze means his teeth have an almost gritty sensation from unfortunately inhaling at least a few specks of the stuff.

So he offers her a hum of understanding, nodding as her glittering gaze and excitement reflect up to him, creases around his eyes softening as he hums a soft sound. “I suppose you’re right.” he offers, content to concede the point as she walks alongside him in the direction they’d picked – his gait only faltering the second she pauses and drops to kneel, brows pinching because no, he hasn’t felt it. And the second he kneels down from his towering height to press his hand against the hot sands, she’s bolting.

He might be concerned about losing her behind one of the dunes, if it weren’t for the black glittering stain on the horizon, something of which stands out in a way nobody could ignore. He shifts to his macaw shift – a streak of blue against the golden sands as he catches up with her, shifting back into himself the second they stand before it and Sunjata winces. “I don’t recall seeing that here ever before.” He murmurs, dropping to a crouch to inspect it further.

the flood

// i'm the next, so get in line
just let me have my fucking time //

Dark side, you can see through my dark side
Spitfire, you can handle me

Sunjata flies past her in a comet of color, leaving a coat of envy slick on Persephone's mind. Ah, to be able to take on the shape, the spirit, the soul of nature; she yearns for such a thing, always have, yet her lot has not been that of the blessed.

But Poppy is not one to dwell on dreams, to ache for the things she does not have. So it is the envy slides away, leaving a sheen of curiosity on her view of the Flood.

"Wait." It's a suggestion more than a command. Though the Naturalist believes getting close to the plants is unlikely to end in a positive outcome, she certainly will not stand in the way should Sunjata wish to put the theory to test.

Again Persephone drops to her knees, pulling the notebook and pen from her bag. "These flowers are usually white," she explains, inky nib dancing across the page as she sketches out an image of the corrupt bloom. "This could be a spontaneous mutation, of course, but then we would anticipate only one to a handful changed. But here," a gesture with the pen across the dark star speckled sand, "we're seeing uniformity in the change, which suggests an inorganic cause."

There's question in her face as she tilts it to Sunjata, concern in the way she bites her lip. "I don't think this is Rae's design," the Naturalist concludes quietly. "But it could lead to significant changes in Caido. Especially if it spreads between species, similar to the Blight."

Persephone

Fault lines, you just dance on my fault lines
Landmine, you can handle me

// i came from a broken home, so look at all my broken bones
count me in, but count me out, i know what this is about //

The wait is heard precisely at the right moment, Sunjata’s hand twitching from where he’s nearly started to reach out for it. His hand withdraws and he inspects it further, listening to hear the scratching of Poppy’s pen across her notebook as she jots down notes and sketches of it. “Hm.” He murmurs unhelpfully, looking over at her as she continues to speak, as if igniting a memory in the back of his mind of a variety of letters sent around. The mention of the blight has an uncomfortable shiver running down his spine, recalling the black blood that had seemed to leak out of any wounds he'd sustained in that time.

And he couldn't forget the irrationality then, either.

“There are other mutations already.” Sunjata informs her, brow pinching as he looks back to the flowers and uses that hand to instead rake through his hair. “There’s a problem with one of the plants in Halo. And each lived in region so far seems to be experiencing strange weather.” Perhaps this flower might be worth mentioning in a letter back to Deimos.

Perhaps he should check King’s End for anything off as well, just in case before he reports back. He’s sure the least amount of letters Deimos receives from him, the better it likely is.

the flood

// i'm the next, so get in line
just let me have my fucking time //