Blackwood Grove, Saturday Afternoon

[witchoftheflesh]

Adrian turned in a slow circle, examining his Grove from every angle, his brows drawing together and his shoulders slumping. The damage was...extensive. Not catastrophic, thank the Forest, but not far off, either. 'Devastated' might be about right.

Naked branches clawed at the sky. Tree trunks were withered and twisted. The grass was dried and yellow under his feet, crumbling to dust wherever he stepped. The soil was thin and powdery and several of his reservoir rocks had split or shattered. Even the air felt thin here. He laid a hand on his heart tree, the acorns all paper-thin husks scattered across the ground.

"I'm sorry," he whispered to the great oak, which seemed a little diminished under his touch. "I was a poor steward to you. You are my responsibility and I failed. I'm sorry. I'll do better, I swear. Just..." He looked around again. He wasn't even sure where to begin to fix the damage he'd caused. "Just keep going. I'll swear, you'll be strong and healthy again."

"Adrian!" A yowl as a black blur streaked from the cabin to his side. "Adrian, what happened? How did this happen? What did you do?"

Adrian looked down at the accusatory face of his familiar and winced a bit. "C'mon," he said, holding his arms out to Boston. "I'll explain inside. We've got a lot of work to do."

[Open, though Pam's thread is canonically last!]

Comments

[joan_of_bark]

Pam's expression softened - and a hint of guilt snuck further into the lines under her eyes. "It really is your heart," she said.

She let herself open up to the Grove around her. To listen. To find out where Adrian's arteries ran - where the flow had stopped, stilted, suffered.

[witchoftheflesh]

"Well, yeah," he said. "Did you think I was joking when I said, 'The heart of a witch is the Blackwood, and the heart of the Blackwood is the witch'?"

Because that definitely sounded literal and not like figurative magic nonsense, Adrian, honestly.

His heart under the oak strengthened and Pam could feel it radiating outwards, all over his Grove - not like his own mycelial network, honestly. Under her touch, plants regrew, the earth enriched itself again, and the magic that had gotten so thin and weak, replenished. A transfusion of life into the struggling forest. That copse over there, that rill of a brook, even that profusion of vines and weeds, his heart led to so many places that cried out for aid and were rewarded with new growth.

[joan_of_bark]

"Honestly," Pam said, "That sounded like poetry."

A little ring of flowers formed right around her feet. A few crept their way up Adrian's heart-tree.

New life. New growth. Not all of it was the same as what had died here; Pam couldn't whisper back into existence that what had already passed. But she could give the soil around her the power to do what nature always did, to take what was dead and forge something new out of it.

She thought of the marsh, born again with her. Of the strange town she had found in its depth. Of the look of Adrian's grove when she had entered. Dead or dying, yet with the strength to rally.

She could feel the heartbeat underneath, a pounding rhythm. She suspected that the echo would linger with her, and she'd hear it whenever she set foot on the island.

He'd almost given it up for the sake of her own monstrous heart.

[witchoftheflesh]

He'd almost given it up for a friend. Who sometimes did monstrous things, yes; but was, in her own way, trying to make things better. And who learned (slowly and begrudgingly, true) from her mistakes.

"Poetry, but with a core of truth," he said, still idly rubbing at his chest. "From a Blackwood point of view, I shouldn't have done it. But I don't regret it."

[joan_of_bark]

"I tend to think of all of this in scientific terms," Pam said. "Burying your own heart - it shouldn't make sense."

She let the flow of life - the active exchange of chemicals and pheromones - trickle down as Adrian's Grove took over and found its own way. "Magic always hurts my head," she admitted.

[witchoftheflesh]

Adrian just stared at her for a moment. And then he began laughing. "Pam, what do you call what you're doing right now?"

[joan_of_bark]

"I can tell you about every chemical and pheromone I fed into your Grove to do this," Pam pointed out. "It might look like magic, but it's just... chemistry."

[witchoftheflesh]

Right. Chemicals and pheromones that she was able to produce and control within her own body, something humans were famously known for doing.

But he wasn't going to regain his newly-regained breath arguing about what did and didn't count as magic (even though it was totally magic, just so they were all clear), and asked instead, "How are you doing? After...everything?"

[joan_of_bark]

"I feel good," Pam admitted. "Strange as it might sound. Not just because I'm me again, but because-- I finally have some sense of where I want to be going."

[witchoftheflesh]

"Honestly, feeling rejuvenated after the magic resurrection swamp is the least strange thing about yesterday," Adrian informed her, and yes, he was counting Janet's closet in that estimation.

And then you know, very casually, "So is that a metaphorical or a literal 'where you're going'?"

[joan_of_bark]

Pam snorted softly. "Metaphorical," she said. She looked out over Adrian's grove, to where flowers sprouted from the grass. "I want to build something," she said. "I'm tired of ruin."

[witchoftheflesh]

He couldn't help but smile at that. "Sounds beautiful," he said. "We need more builders in the world. Do you know what you're going to build first?"

[joan_of_bark]

"The bog," Pam said. "I might have been able to bring it back from the fire, but there was a lot of damage done there. Not just by me, but by generations of people who came before me." She shook her head. "I also found an abandoned village tucked away in there," she said. "I think everything that happened... uncovered it. The area's polluted. I think there's a lot of work to do to clean up that environment, too."

[witchoftheflesh]

His smile grew bigger.

Listen, though his acts of terrorism were still in the future, that didn't mean he was presently unaware of the need for direct action sometimes. But he would always, always, rather build than destroy, nourish than harm.

"I can't wait to see it," he said. "Is this one of those 'I have to do this myself' things? Or can friends come and help from time to time?"

[joan_of_bark]

Pam smiled. Not surprised, maybe, but a little touched. "You're more than welcome to swing by," she said. "I'm sure you'll see things I'll miss."

[witchoftheflesh]

"And, I've gotta say, just getting to watch you work is both a little inspiring and humbling at the same time," Adrian said with a laugh. He looked around at his Grove, rich once again with life, though banked and ready for slumber. Something he'd've needed whole months of effort to reproduce. "Mostly inspiring, though."

[joan_of_bark]

Pam let out a soft huff.

She looked pensive, though. Maybe even a little--

Well.

"So how are you doing?" she asked. "I know your heart took a beating, but... I also put you through a lot yesterday."

[witchoftheflesh]

"You didn't put me through anything," he retorted. "I chose to follow, and I don't think you chose a damn thing that happened to you yesterday."

He looked around, and took a seat on one of the large reservoir rocks. "A lot of that is going to linger with me for awhile," he admitted frankly. "And I'm confused by so much of it."

[joan_of_bark]

"A lot of what happened yesterday is a consequence of my own choices," Pam pointed out.

She picked a rock of her own, settling down on it with one leg swung over the other.

"Either way," she said, "The least I owe you is answers."

[witchoftheflesh]

"So, I guess we should probably start with..." He looked at Pam. "Why is Janet living in your closet?"

[joan_of_bark]

"She wanted to come with me to Gotham," Pam said, blinking. Really? That was what he was focusing on? "I couldn't find her anywhere else to stay, so Harley offered up her walk-in."

[witchoftheflesh]

Everything else was so much! Getting that one out of the way was easier than tackling most of the others.

"Will you be upset if I try to convince her to move literally anywhere else?"

[joan_of_bark]

"Why would I be?" Pam asked, frowning. "But you'd have to find her somewhere she can afford, and she's in between jobs right now."

[witchoftheflesh]

"Still, she deserves something better than a closet," Adrian said.

But, with that out of the way...

"Okay, so now who were all those people? What was their deal? The guy with a flower for a head? The guy who carries flamethrowers on his bike? Solomon Grundy and his everything?"

[joan_of_bark]

"We'll have to take that one at a time," Pam said wryly. "Pick one."