Solar Bright

Meeting Fog

"Well, umm... of course, pollinators flower when, umm.... I mean..." Cieba began, a bit disconcerted by Glow's questions about reasons why a tree would not flower.

"Yes, I know all about that, but what about seeders? We are called that BECAUSE we make seeds. You can't seed if you don't flower!" Glow insisted on an answer this time, she had been waiting for so long. She hadn't been able to find a single minute alone with Cieba all seeding. Dài had kept her busy with preparations for a partner search, and she couldn't ask with Dài in the vicinity

Dài had claimed that none of the trees in their forest were good enough for Glow and that she would have to go far away to find a partner, so she needed to know about the various forest kingdoms. It was DewDrop before she was able to ask the question that had so long been on her mind.

Cieba knew that she must be thinking of the queen. He had noticed that she didn't flower either, but the king never seemed to notice. When Cieba brought it up, he always responded that he didn't want any more saplings, and then the fungus had come. "Only landscapers don't flower," he replied firmly, even knowing the meaning of what he said.

"What is a landscaper?" Glow remembered that the bush she and Solar had saved a few moon cycles ago said that he was a landscaper, but she had no idea what that meant.

Cieba was a bit taken aback, everyone knew about landscapers where he was from, "they make fertilizer," he started, expecting her to respond. "They mulch and prune." He continued more forcefully. When Glow just stared at him blankly he continued, a bit exasperated, "They change things, trees and water and soil. They can make fertilizers that make sick trees healthy and healthy trees sick. They can kill a tree with a single motion and turn them into soil, called mulching. They can cause a tree to lose a limb, a whole branch, all their leaves, called pruning. How have you never heard of this?!?"

Glow was gobsmacked. "Landscapers sound horrible! Wait, they can make sick trees healthy?"

"Yes, but they usually make healthy trees sick. Now tell me how you don't know this from the sap?"

"There are no landscapers in this forest, not for all the generations that my father's family has grown here."

"And your mother?"

"I don't know. We didn't share enough sap to find out." Glow responded quietely.

"Oh, well, stay as far away from any landscapers you encounter as possible."

"But, Dài-"

"Do your best to avoid ANY landscapers you encounter."

"You said they could heal..."

"ANY landscapers, Glow."

Glow turned away without responding. She had waited all through seeding, and now that she had an answer, she found that it could also be the answer to her father's problem. She didn't know what to think about the idea that Dài was a landscaper, or even why, if she was a landscaper, she didn't heal the king.

...but maybe she wasn't a landscaper. Maybe Cieba was wrong and there were other reasons that a seeder didn't flower. Either way, she knew of a landscaper that owed her and she intended to get that little ungrateful bush to help her, one way or another.

She found Solar and told her about what she had learned. At least, she told Solar about the fact that a landscaper could cure the king of his fungus. The rest wasn't important, and they had to hurry. A thick mist had rolled in with the dew this season, making everything a bit hazy.

As Solar and Glow wandered through the forest, asking every bush they could find about Splinter, they found that, though no one knew where he was, they all knew about why the girls knew who he was. All the bushes learned about the rescue while it was happening because Splinter had his roots buried.