ATLOP: Lessons in Water

I have no words (proceeds to lecture for 2 hours)

You all had better ADORE this chapter, it's over 10k. You get to learn soooo much in it. It's not plot heavy, but it's very important to the growth of the characters. Next chapter will be camp stuff, and the closing of the year.

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OO OO OO OO

I sat with the Demeter kids before dinner. They were happy to gossip with me about what had happened while I was asleep. Silena had told me a lot, but she'd forgotten to mention anything about the backup we'd called, and some knew news had cropped up.

For one, it was decided to have a memorial on the hill but the traditional grave markers in the graveyard for the dead. The memorial would honor them, and everyone who'd fought. I thought they might like that.

And then she told me about the people from the college that had arrived. They'd appeared over the horizon only an hour or two after I'd fallen asleep, having rushed straight over. They'd been on Pegasi, wild ones that would stop by the college periodically for food and medicine.

They'd been glad to know that there was no battle left, but angry they hadn't been called about the sick tree. Though they'd agreed if Lord D hadn't been able to help, it was unlikely they could... but they had argued Lord D could only do so much before he was directly interfering in their lives and that wasn't allowed, so they could've helped.

Miranda was laughing as she told me how everyone immediately threw both Khiron and Tantalus under the bus. Apparently, Khiron had wanted to handle it "in house", and Tantalus hadn't wanted to allow anyone that didn't have to listen to him into the camp.

Once the tongue lashing had ended, Miranda explained how they had gone to the beach and planted a few seeds. They'd grown grass many feet high all down the beach, some kind of sea grass, and used it to smooth out the sand. Then one of them had simply killed all the grasses on the beach itself, leaving a pristine beach behind.

"Wow," I muttered. "That sounds so cool."

"It really was! And then once they finished with the beach they went to the other parts of the camp and started restoring the plant life there. The grass has never been healthier, and several trees and bushes damaged in the fight in the forest were fixed right up!"

She'd then gone on to tell me about the native plants they'd grown. And the camp had been supplied with a variety of native plant seed mixes, with explanations on how to care for them. It was fascinating.

I let Miranda regale me with how the native plants were what should be planted here, and while the camp had a lot of native plants, she didn't think it was nearly enough. She eagerly told me about how the college was working with some Natives on preservation and restoration efforts, and how the Native leaders of the project were apparently really good at teaching the others about the native life and how to take care of it.

A lot of the stuff she talked about made a lot of sense, I wondered why more people didn't ask the Natives what worked best. They were here first.

It made me think about what I wanted to do. Miranda seemed really interested in the restoration and preservation of plant life. Did I care about something like that? I supposed the cleaning of the rivers, was that something I wanted to do for like- a job?

Could I? Was that a job?

Other than them lecturing Lord D and Minos, and fixing up the damage from the invasion, they also looked over the tree. They agreed with Lord D that it seemed to be recovering, but slowly. They advised the campers on what to do to speed its recovery and demonstrated so that they could see it.