teleios | { open | event, and for the month! }

THE WEEK OF THE TRIFFIDS |

It's Jazz who notices that things aren't as they should be, a fact which he'd certainly try to parade around if he could speak. As it happens, he spots something amiss as Fortescue is on a morning walk into the city. Movement snakes at the corner of his green eyes, and he shifts on Fortescue's shoulders to watch it. She pays no mind, humming a bit of The Magic Flute; he watches birds in the same manner.

But she absolutely notices when a section of vine suddenly extends from a planter and wraps around her ankle, yanking her off of her feet. Jazz leaps to safety, snarling and hissing, keeping his distance as he was trained to do.

Fortescue, meanwhile, grits her teeth and taps into her pyromancy. Flames dance along her skin, avoiding her skin but not the vines that are trying to drag her bodily into the planter for... whatever the vines are attached to. She isn't too certain.

"Oh, just get off," she manages. The vines make a whining sound -- how on Earth or any other world do plants make sounds? -- and retreat, but not before a section of one burns off. Fortescue doesn't get up immediately, watching with narrowed eyes. "...just where did you..."

The thought is abandoned as two more sections of plant life suddenly lurch out, one around her right wrist and one around her other ankle. Fortescue's yanked a few more feet along before she huffs out an angry, "All right then," and ignites all of her body. This time, though it hurts the vines the same, the plant seems just as angry and sends out as many vines as she can burn. A deeper noise starts coming out of the planter, something bigger wriggling forward -- something which looks like a person-sized, yellow bulb.

THE THINGS FROM ANOTHER WORLD |

When she isn't being grabbed by enthusiastic greenery, and when other people aren't, Fortescue can be found in the library looking at cookbooks. She's curious about other things she could make which would be feasible for a beginning cook, and the library does have a good selection. Jazz lounges in the sun on the floor, often right in the way of other readers. Some of her experiments are done in the temple's kitchen as well as her own, and when they turn out well she sets them out in offering to those who still bunk down in the temple. She's experimenting with various pasta dishes, slowly amping up the difficulty.

She can also be found in the temple training rooms ever so often, dressed simply and taking out any excessive energy on a punching bag. Everything about her form and stance indicates a seasoned fighter. Jazz curls on the shoulders of a training dummy, and purrs smugly at anyone who approaches it and needs to use it.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Altruism isn't something that Druitt is much inclined to. But he is an old hand at violence, and for all that having to deal with rampaging plant life is a little outside the scope of the usual, for him he figures it's best to take what he can get. Besides, the pair of swords he's brought back from the Arena will be just as good for this as anything else, and fewer people are likely to complain about him working out any latent aggression on a bit of over-active vegetation than anything else.

(He might not be against the idea of sparring, but it's not really the same, in the long run.)

He happens across Fortescue just as she sets herself on fire, and for all that he's known more than a few people with unusual abilities (himself included) that isn't one that he can say he's seen much, before. There are elementals, yes, but those are really more to do with the embodiment of an element as opposed to someone who can simply bend it to their will, as seems to be the case here.

"Impressive."

By the time another vine tries to fully wrap around Fortescue's ankle, she has her fire at such a blaze that the vine all but disintegrates the instant it comes into contact with her. Huffing in annoyance -- she's even seen this type of thing before, but not this persistent -- she climbs to her feet and then, distracted, glances over toward the familiar-looking man.

Ah, she's talked to him at one of the arrival ceremonies, hasn't she?

"Thank you, darling," she responds lightly, as another vine tries for her left wrist. But the fire evaporates it, too, and the orange pod in the planter roars in either anger or pain. Fortescue hopes it's the former. She's seen the research for plants feeling pain, and that doesn't sit too well with her if that's the case. All those children plucking flowers...

The blaze on her arms and legs has now reached the intensity of a long-burning campfire. But the plants are the only things that need to worry, here.

"These plants are getting awfully aggressive. Have they been bothering you as well?"

Fortunately perhaps, he's not too worried about the fire. He is, admittedly, staying a respectable distance away, if not so far that conversation becomes difficult, but he has at least one escape route, should things take a turn for the less-than-favorable. But for now, he's willing enough to simply let things continue as they are.

And for all that she does seem to the primary target of the vines, he's keeping an eye out just in case an inquisitive vine decides to take an attempt at grabbing someone who isn't very literally on fire.

"They've tried. But they haven't gotten very far."

His swords alone have seen to that, even if what he's been doing has been more along the lines of aggressive pruning than any real attempts to help out other people. But it's worked well enough for him, and he figures that's the most important thing, in the long run.

"I wish they'd bugger off and go back to the woods. Or wherever else they came from," Fortescue sighs. It's an explosive sigh, as another vine tries for one of her legs and retreats with a singed end. That one had felt almost... barbed, before the fire had swiftly caught it.

Perhaps, she thinks, she should count herself lucky that this isn't a murderous poison ivy plant. Or something much more severe. Nightshade comes to mind. Jazz hisses loudly at the vines and backs up a few more steps, all of his black fur puffed up as he tries to look menacing.

"I'm not sure they're woodland plants."

This is offered as if it's the most natural thing in the world to be casually discussing the origins of plant life that may or may not be inclined to try seeing what the taste of human flesh is like. Not that he's much of a botanist either way, but it's the point of the thing, for the most part.

"Although I might be more concerned about that."

He indicates the pod in the planter with one of his swords. It's clearly a part of the organism as a whole, but to what end, and what they might have to expect of it are questions that he can't answer.

Fortescue glances to the pod, as she bolsters the intensity of her flames. Sending a plume of fire at it might cause the whole planter to go up, which will cause more of an issue than the plants are causing. She thinks, at least. But in the meantime, her flames can keep the thing from grabbing her again. She'd rather not end up as plant dinner.

Or whatever the thing wants.

"Here? Who knows where they came from," she practically grumbles. "We get so many invaders from another Realm, perhaps one of the connecting Realms is just... full of awful plants. I wouldn't put this past the Asgard I saw when I went there."

Though, Asgard is supposed to be better, now. But perhaps the awful creatures they had to fight are still there, just in hiding or in other parts of the Realm. She glances at Druitt, gears turning in her head.

"I can step up to it without it seeing me. Or sensing me. However it perceives." Perhaps a concentrated blast, one that won't spill onto any of the other plants, will work. "But it's going to be focused on you for a minute or two, if I do that."

Dinner, fertilizer; it all amounts to the same thing in the end. Namely, the sort of result that is rather less than appealing, for any of a number of reasons. And while might certainly be willing to have the planter up in flames besides, it's hardly his ability. Nor does he really know Fortescue well enough to suggest it besides.

"Perhaps they were always here."

Dormant, perhaps, but present nonetheless. Which admittedly, raises the question of why they've awoken now, as opposed to any other time, but he doesn't pretend to know the life cycle of unusual plants. That's more Helen's area of expertise and she isn't in Teleios any longer. But rather than dwell on that he turns instead to her comment about being able to sneak up on the plant.

"I can handle myself."

It can't be worse than dealing with three of the Cabal's supersoldiers at once, and if the plants mean to attempt to grab him, they might just find him to be more slippery prey than initially expected.

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