![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
[closed post: behind a lattice]
Jun. 21st, 2024 08:32 amClaudius spends his time below the pavilion focused on research: comparing records made with a luxmeter to ensure the balance of sunlight and moonlight doesn't stray, collecting samples of the loamy soil to conduct tests on in his workshop, or with the few alchemical arrays he'd packed to bring along. He exchanges signs with Galahad and Magnus when he needs assistance, or to explain what a device does so Magnus can relay it to Luo Binghe. At some point, he decides to do away with the vagueness of keep the soil moist with exact measurements made in watering globes, set to slowly release throughout the day. It will take that particular worry off Magnus's plate, he thinks. Much of what he does is slowly teach Magnus ways to sustain a garden without constant attention. He also sits with Galahad, while Galahad draws, and takes exacting notes on what Galahad is seeing.
"It needs to be part of a living ecosystem," Claudius says one day, after a moment's reflection. "Any plant, where it lives natively, has a network of native connections supporting it. Symbiotic or parasitic, predating or pollinating, systems which break down the soil in which it can grow, propagate, and thrive. That's only slightly metaphorical," he adds. "Most of that's quite literal. Some plants will not start the propagation process, unless the conditions are such that their progeny will thrive. I think the Sun-Moon Dew Mushroom might be one of them, and that's why its environment is so particular. The perfect balance of sunlight and moonlight, and all the other descriptors that make it hard to find."
He taps his fingers, caught up in all the other details of the theory, before he comes to the point. "Keeping qi circulating certainly fulfills many of its needs. But we really ought to plant more around it, replicating what we can of the Bai Lu Forest. Fortunately,” he says to Galahad, “Magnus and I have some experience in that regard." Not with re-planting the Bai Lu Forest, but certainly another world's landscape after careful questions and research.
He casts a look in Magnus's direction, signing ask LB about forest? He's given up fingerspelling Luo Binghe each time, likewise given up creating a name-sign that avoids all offense. Planting will also help SY body.
Perhaps, in time, he’ll speak to Luo Binghe directly. The cool distance Claudius gives him for now is respect, not fear, though he doubts Luo Binghe understands or accepts it. Luo Binghe believed respect was born of fear. But Claudius feared his brother more than anything in the world, and all that fear turned to was weary disdain. What he respected most, in his world, was Gertrude’s magnanimity, her kindness.
She would be glad, he thinks, to see him gardening. She would be proud, and that pride carries him through, along with his own conviction.
"It needs to be part of a living ecosystem," Claudius says one day, after a moment's reflection. "Any plant, where it lives natively, has a network of native connections supporting it. Symbiotic or parasitic, predating or pollinating, systems which break down the soil in which it can grow, propagate, and thrive. That's only slightly metaphorical," he adds. "Most of that's quite literal. Some plants will not start the propagation process, unless the conditions are such that their progeny will thrive. I think the Sun-Moon Dew Mushroom might be one of them, and that's why its environment is so particular. The perfect balance of sunlight and moonlight, and all the other descriptors that make it hard to find."
He taps his fingers, caught up in all the other details of the theory, before he comes to the point. "Keeping qi circulating certainly fulfills many of its needs. But we really ought to plant more around it, replicating what we can of the Bai Lu Forest. Fortunately,” he says to Galahad, “Magnus and I have some experience in that regard." Not with re-planting the Bai Lu Forest, but certainly another world's landscape after careful questions and research.
He casts a look in Magnus's direction, signing ask LB about forest? He's given up fingerspelling Luo Binghe each time, likewise given up creating a name-sign that avoids all offense. Planting will also help SY body.
Perhaps, in time, he’ll speak to Luo Binghe directly. The cool distance Claudius gives him for now is respect, not fear, though he doubts Luo Binghe understands or accepts it. Luo Binghe believed respect was born of fear. But Claudius feared his brother more than anything in the world, and all that fear turned to was weary disdain. What he respected most, in his world, was Gertrude’s magnanimity, her kindness.
She would be glad, he thinks, to see him gardening. She would be proud, and that pride carries him through, along with his own conviction.
