Work Text:
hyeon
you know about flowers, right?
I kept my mother's roses alive for years with only the most incompetent gardener for support.
I nursed them through blackspot, witches' broom, and botrytis blight.
I even successfully hybridized a promising new cross that I'm certain would have taken the Horticulture Society by storm, if all living examples were not now within ghost territory.
yes fine
tell me what this is
An extremely blurry photo?
You'll have to do better than that.
trying. hard. can't stay still.
here
Five. Get out of there.
so i was right
Less typing, more running.
i don't need to run, hyeon
we have flamethrowers
there
done
What were you doing in a field of red spider lilies?
What was a field of red spider lilies doing existing at all?
Those ghost-magnets have been banned since the main rift first appeared.
I was hoping you could tell me
Why would I know?
you're the one tight with the Horticulture Society
The Horticulture Society? They won't even let you display Lycoris squamigera or Griffinia hyacinthina, though of course they don't have the same effect. I couldn't buy red spider lily for all the fortune of my house.
well, someone has
and I've just been told there's another cluster
next district over
The good news: it's a very dry autumn.
is that good news?
maybe I like long walks in the rain
No one likes walks in the rain, Five.
Anyway, that's not the point.
Red spider lilies only bloom when it's wet. We've had so little rain, most of what got planted probably never bloomed at all.
you mean there's more of them?
three damn parks infested isn't enough?
we had to let one go
too many ghosts already gathered
couldn't get close enough for flamethrowers
again
how is this good news?
Because they also can't survive our winters.
As I said, they're very expensive flowers.
Whoever planted them, if he wants to try again next year, will have to dig up any remaining bulbs within the next few weeks and store them somewhere safe and dry.
They like sandy soil. I'm sending you a map of all the parks that might be suitable.
central command will love you
Heavens, don't tell them!
I have a reputation to uphold as a scion of an ancient and noble house. A reputation of doing nothing useful. My sister would never forgive me if word got out.
and you think it would be a boost
to my career
if I took credit
Well. Wouldn't it?
no
hyeon
I barely know enough about flowers not to stand in them
no one is going to believe I drew this map
Oh, very well. Just leave my name out of it. I don't need the love of central command.
hmm
What?
oh, nothing
we got the bastard
gods, if anyone had told me
when I volunteered for this job
that I'd be chasing rogue gardeners
I would have laughed in their face
Congratulations. It is four in the morning.
I know
that was the good news
I wanted to be the first to tell you the bad news
it was Moon Min-Seo
I want you to know I just sat up so fast in bed I banged my elbow.
You're telling me the head of the Horticulture Society is responsible for deliberately planting gardens that draw ghosts?
yes
I am telling you that
I'm sorry you didn't get to show them that rose you made
I don't think they'll be meeting again
for a while
or ever
at all
As the only specimens of that rose that I managed to remove from the estate before it fell were the cut flowers I gave to you, which I'm sure have long since wilted and been throw away, it's rather a moot point.
still
Yes. Gods. Moon Min-Seo. I wonder why?
don't know
don't care
and no, they haven't
What? What hasn't what?
the roses
been thrown away
I dried them
they're hanging in my cockpit
not really within regulation, but chung sol hasn't said anything
probably just holding it in reserve
You kept the roses.
yes
by the way
I don't like walks in the rain
I like sitting in the vpx, though
and listening to the rain drumming on its skin
it's the only time it ever feels peaceful in there
looks like our dry fall is over
there's a storm coming around dawn
and I think we can fit two in the cockpit
if we try