Flora and Fauna

Soft spoken words yielding a foreboding desire

Night falls.

It's never too cold in Sumeru, especially in the rainforest sections. The tropical weather makes it hard to ever be.

Although, it is ever so rainy and does have its monthly precipitation laced with borderline toxic substances - unwillingly to all of Sumeru's citizens, of course.

But nature has its course, and so rain falls relentlessly and embraces Sumeru City in a chokehold. It slaps and hustles against the translucent, stained glass of Tighnari's cottage and its greenhouse that creaks against the pellets of rain.

Light footsteps, fitting for a fox hybrid, reverberates through the thin wooden walls of his home.

Tighnari adjusts the air conditioner to a comfortable temperature as he plops down onto a lumpy, over-cushioned sofa surrounded by overflowing amounts of plants. Lavender, basil, calendulas, and rosemary emanate pleasant scents that fill the room with warmth. Ivy and spider plants drape over the jade green covers of the sofa, and a small cacti thrives happily in front of the large window to the left of his sofa.

Paying no attention to these floras, Tighnari instead runs his fingers over the stems of the venus flytrap he's planted in a cluster on the windowsill. He watches with mild interest as a small house spider nimbly navigates its way through the pot by edging around the lobe and down to its stem. It's when he notices that one of the violet tinted flytraps has gotten a large house fly in its grasp.

Tighnari blinks in disbelief, not out of the astonishment that the flytrap has caught something, but rather the surprise that it was able to - they've been de-evolving for far too long that they could no longer catch anything beyond some ants, maybe. Scooting a little closer to the violet flytrap, he examines this particular bud with mild curiosity. It was no different than the others, save for particularly sharp outer edges and trigger hairs. It dug into the corpse of the fly, impaling it onto the lobe of its bud. Violent.. Was an understatement.

He chuckles. These venus flytraps weren't completely decorative afterall. Drawing away from the flytraps, he tugs his tail over to his front and strokes the dark green fur comfortingly, untangling the knots and picking out small dirt and debris pieces from underneath the thick coat of fur. The other hand pats around for the remote thrown carelessly onto the mattress, but instead feels something hard, round, and just slightly smoother than sanded stone.

Pebbles? Tighnari looks over to the hand that was stuck between two mattresses and a pillow - god forbid knowing why his hand thought his remote would be there in all places. He digs a little deeper into the couch and comes up empty handed. The unidentifiable object seems to have slipped away.

"Ah, don't tell me it's sentient." Tighnari sighs.

He grips tightly onto the mattress and lifts it over to the other side. What was revealed were loosely stewn food wrappers, pieces of discarded lined paper, strands of hair from his tail, his TV remote lying innocently on the left, and a marble sphere.

Tighnari sighs again, this time heavily. Of course he recognizes it - A gift from Kaveh on his eighteenth birthday, one of the twelve marbles enclosed in a glass box.

It's merely a beautiful decor to Tighnari, but Kaveh claims that it can tell one's fortune. Each marble is of a different color, and each color signifies a different fate. The eleven marbles, unfortunately, have been collecting dust atop his bedroom shelf for years now. And the twelve sits in his open palm, a clear, deep shade of violet tinted with gold. The color of ambition and power.

"Really... I thought it was something invasive." Tighnari shakes his head. The color he despises the most in the set, not for its color, but for what it represents. Power and ambition have been the rise for many great scholars, yet the downfall for more. It does not promise stability, but is the stark opposite, the exact outcome Tighnari fears in his life.

Thunder sounds outside, and illuminates his lounge with far too bright a white light. He shudders lightly.

Rain continues, and Tighnari goes to store the twelfth marble in its glass casing back in his bedroom with no further thought, or rather, the reluctance of thinking any further.

Thinking that isn't rational sometimes gets the better of him, and it's doing exactly that now. He will obtain his TV remote and that will be the sole objective in his mind for the next two minutes.

————-

BREAKING NEWS:

'Aaru Village representative Candace schedules meeting with Haravatat Sage Alhaitham for discussions about increased tariffs on Sumeru City products.'

'Relationships worsen between Corps of Thirty and Ayn-Ahmar: the future looks bleak for Eremite individuals within the Desert.'

'New breakthroughs on studies of Eleazar sweeps through the Amurta Darshan of the Akademiya as scholars scramble to test valuable findings.'

'Mysteries of the massacre of Tanit tribe plague Matras as General Mahamantra Taj Radkani continues investigations throughout the Desert.'

'New theatrical play [ The Sages of Buer ] from Zubayr Theater, starring Nilou, is scheduled for grand opening on June 23rd, 3:00pm! A must-see for all theater enthusiasts!'

Tighnari's eyes survey the colorful headlines that appear as the turquoise haired broadcaster speaks animatedly through each. She becomes extra excited when she mentions Nilou - probably a big fan of her dances and songs.

To have such an artistic passion in nowaday Sumeru is, indeed, much more tolerable than it was centuries back - and he's grateful for it. He'd take a train ticket to Liyue if those horrid traditions from historical Sumeru continued to the present days. Although, modern days aren't much different in terms of terribleness.

He's always hated stuck up people yet there never seems to be a shortage of that anywhere in the world. Grand Sage Azar is one of the most prominent. Tighnari's worry for Sumeru grows tenfold for each second he's on the throne. The rising tension between Desert and Rainforest isn't a good sign - it's centuries of peace that that old man's disrupting, and that leads to war. War is never good for anyone.

But he supposed that there needs to be a balance out in the world: say, while three people are of good valor and wits, there's bound to be another three that are of bad qualities and-

He was tempted to say 'stupid', but stupidity isn't a trait that needs to be seen as wholly negative. Perhaps corrupt. maybe hateful. How about... immorality?

Yes, immorality. People with no bottom line that they make notes to shouldn't cross.

Anyways; where there are three people that's good, another three prove themselves to be immoral.

Tighnari sighs at the little mental note he's made for himself, and as he presses the power button on the remote, he sneaks a last glance at the monitor seconds before it darkens.

The scenery that it displays at its last second was of a photograph of Aaru Village and the wastelands surrounding it, the village's street lights flickering as if a power outage was to occur any second.

He cuts off the broadcaster's final words before the screen goes black. The roaring rain has skidded to a stop outside, and he does hope that his greenhouse doesn't get completely ransacked by nature tomorrow morning. He stretches out comfortably on the sofa, and wills for a sunny day tomorrow.