Logs:Forget-me-not

Forget-me-not
Dramatis Personae Anahita, Lucien	2024-06-13 "I felt a private joke would not go amiss."
Location <NYC> Le Carrefour, Le Bonne Entente - Astoria, Queens
Above the bustle of the clerestory restaurant, tucked at the base of the bell tower, this indoor garden and library is out of the way and easily overlooked, sure to become a favored "hidden gem" of travel guides. Low bookshelves full of mythology, fairy tales, and folklore ring the central elevator shaft and the stairway spiraling around it like an easily navigable labyrinth. Beyond these are plants in a variety of tastefully whimsical containers, each with its own engraved plaque giving the common name, the scientific name, and their significance to various traditional stories and practices. The walls have been done away with so that the room extends beyond the doric columns into a surreal rooftop garden enclosed with glass stretching between the tower's massive buttresses. The arrangement of plantlife becomes less formal as one moves out into the four arms of the conservatory, visible containers giving way to beds and terraces and eventually landscapes carefully cultivated to look wild. There is plentiful seating scattered along the paths and just off of them, from proper benches to picturesque logs to surprisingly comfortable boulders. By day, myriad butterflies dance amongst the enchanted vegetation, and likewise moths by night. A shallow stream weaves throughout, feeding ponds that host plants of their own alongside fish, frogs, and turtles. Wandering the outer edges of the conservatory, one could almost feel lost in a mystical forest but for the stunning views of the cityscape beyond the glass. The City never sleeps, and neither does le Carrefour, despite the posted hours. Anahita would probably get a pass even if security were enforcing the hours, though she isn't actually working right now. She's sitting on a rather comfortable log beside one of the larger ponds in the westerly arm of the crossroads. She's dressed in a slate blue tunic and black wrap skirt, a moss green shawl draped over her shoulders, her feet bare. Perhaps she was reading earlier, but right now Coyote Stories is closed in her lap, serving as a flat surface on which she is meticulously folding a sheet of blue paper into something that is probably origami but not yet identifiable. Lucien doesn't make much noise as he pads into the garden. He's barefoot, too, dressed for lounging around the home in soft black wrap pants and a grey-green short sleeved henley. He has a slender reMarkable tablet under his arm and a glass of Scotch in his hand. Though he's gravitating generally towards A Place To Sit And Work he is taking his time about it, meandering in his path to stop at this bush and that tree and that patch of flowers to check in with the growing plants. Eventually his wending path brings him into Anahita's view. His already unhurried steps slow further. He fetches up against the side of a large rock nearby, leaning against the boulder and, quietly, watching Anahita's hands at work. Anahita tilts her head slightly as Lucien approaches, probably catching him out of her peripheral vision given the soft burble of water masks his softer footfalls. She does not look up from the paper until she finishes creasing the latest fold down smooth and flat with the back of her fingernail. "I planted some forget-me-nots in your memory," she says without preamble, tipping a hand further westward. "Stereotypical, perhaps. But since I was tending the entire place in your memory, I felt a private joke would not go amiss." Her eyes tick over him, quick and appraising, but her words are more hesitant when she adds, "I am glad that you are alive." "I am quite fond of tradition." Lucien's voice is warm, here, though his expression doesn't much change. He looks much the same as he used to -- noticeably slimmer, now, than his Cap bulk, but otherwise none the worse for whatever wear death and alien abduction might have brought. "I apologize, for the disruption. The garden still looks beautiful." Anahita folds her hands primly over the origami in progress. "I had no shortage of guests to entertain, but. It was burdensome sussing out which of them would enjoy hearing me expound on varieties of ground cover and their respective merits." Her gaze drops to the colorful sedums and moss carpeting the edges of the pond. "Somehow I managed. It is a relief to learn that such impediments have not compromised my work. I am sorry that you missed the spring planting, though." Lucien a bit nearer. He sets himself carefully down on the edge of the pond, several feet from Anahita. He sets his tablet on his knees and his glass down on the rocks, and drops his hand to brush fingers gently against the soft fuzz of the moss. "Spring will come again, before so very long." "It will." Anahita doesn't smile, not quite. "And I've started some hibiscus seedlings. They are good medicine, and best to plant in high summer." She's been tracing the angles of the creased paper under her hands. "But I'm only making paper flowers for now." She shuffles the half-finished flower aside and produces a few more sheets of smooth, thin paper. "Would you like to join me?" Lucien has plucked up his stylus, and is starting to reach for the power button on the tablet. He doesn't press it, instead just spins the stylus slowly across his fingers. "Oh -- I've no idea how to fold those," he starts to demur. His eyes drop to the tablet in his lap, and after a moment he sticks the stylus back to the magnetic edge. Scoots a little closer to Anahita. "-- but I suppose I have time to learn."