Cultivating Plants

Three individuals of diverse backgrounds soared through the skies in a compact aircraft. It was a technological marvel that heavily relied on the creations of Evolution, and only a handful of individuals on the whole planet even knew of that vital art's existence. But it mattered not that secret or that unknown for individuals as they had a simple – almost primal – smile plastered on their visages as the air caressed their manes. That was the simple yet universal joy of flight.

"Airships were already outstanding, but airclippers… they are truly something else," Josephine mused as her eyes were glued to the hastily moving Evergreen beneath them.

"Indeed," Xochipilli nodded.

The silence was almost mandatory in air travel. Not because it was needed, but because flight evoked that in people. They had that perfect length and ominous stage where words weren't required, perfect satiated wanderlust.

"Should I land around here?" Shinobiyorutsurai said over the loud engine, breaking the silence after nearly half an hour.

"Sure," the Prince of Flowers mused.

The landing spot the dryad had selected was far enough from the heart of the Evergreen that trees had become an occasional road landmark instead of a guarantee. As soon as the Voyager made contact with the ground – grass flying everywhere from the movement of the helices – Xochipilli guided Josephine outside, not before speaking to Shinobiyorutsurai.

"Fly around for a bit, we have to talk alone for a while, I will signal you," the dryad simply nodded to his words before making the airclipper take off again.

Xochipilli took a deep breath as he took in the beauty of the green desert that was the Qiraji's Evergreen into his eyes and lungs. He then exhaled with a might that didn't fall short from the Voyager's streams of wind.

"We aren't that far from the World Tree, so we are technically still detectable by her, but in practice, we are so far away that the interference caused by the air between us alone makes our conversation unintelligible."

"You… really know a lot about Mother Nature's senses," Josephine expressed her surprise at the druid's understanding through a small whisper, as if she didn't fully trust his words.

"I have tried to calculate how powerful her senses are, and whilst they are way more than I expected, they run into physical limitations way before I can extrapolate their actual magnitude. Air resistance really – and I cannot emphasize this enough – really messes with some stances. Sense, speed, even stealth and charm… Any interference affects them really, and even if it sounds weird, the air is not transparent but translucid."

"I cannot say I expected Nurture to be such an… academic field. I only thought Enlightenment could behave like that."

"I sense some bias there," Xochipilli strolled the steppes as he spoke. "Is it because you are an assassin?"

Josephine jolted at his words but quickly recomposed with the modesty of a lady. "You knew?"

"No, not really." The blades of grass caressed the Tecolatan's feet. "But seeing how you didn't want Aloe to hear you, or know of your presence, I guessed it might be the case."

"I see…" She sighed tiredly. "I was an assassin if you want an answer. But I was made out, partially at least. A lot of things happened that day I left the palace."

"So an assassin, huh…" The Prince of Flowers wasn't particularly worried by the revelation. Assassins were weaker than cultivators most of the time, and he wasn't just a cultivator, but also a druid. Instead, his mind could only think: I don't know much about Enlightenment yet.

"Yes, but my previous – though I guess they still linger – allegiances have nothing to do with why I came here."

"Why did you come here, then?"

Josephine twirled on her heels to face him. "Faith."

"Faith," he repeated slowly. Heavily.

"Indeed," the mature woman nodded.

"I worry I might need a further elaboration, Josephine."

The Pincerarean woman grinned, the gesture exacerbated by the wrinkles in her visage. There was a small shock that still lingered inside him after these many years as he saw her fair skin. It only happened with people of fairer skin like Loyatans or Pincerareans because Ydazi people had a somewhat equal skin tone to Tecolatans. A part of his brain just couldn't understand how people could be that… colorless; as if they had their life removed from them, but he ignored those questions. Mostly because the brain was a stupid thing, and he knew of the concept of melanin. Though most didn't as it was a rather recent discovery.

This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it

"I see it in your eyes that your explanation differs from what other people might want to hear," the mature woman added. "You don't want to hear why I have faith, but what I want to do with it."

"If you and I know that fact, why even bring it up? Can't you just answer?"

"Some words only become true once they have been spoken aloud, Prince of Flowers. And only now that you have heard about my faith it has become tangible. Malleable, even."

There was a degree of insanity in that woman's eyes as she spoke. Xochipilli had beheld many years ago the insanity in the eyes of assassins – of the conquerors – and what he was seeing was something different. Something familiar.

He saw his insanity reflected in those dull brown eyes.

"She doesn't like to be referred to as a goddess," he answered calmly.

"Nor she needs to," the assassin kept her smile. "But I have this faith that strains my heart. I know this wonderful woman capable of many things, yet she is reclused. This is… I would say sacrilege, but I do not know if it would be appropriate when directed to the divine. I guess we could say it is… inefficient. Unbecoming, even better."

There was nuance when people talked, it was a fact that Xochipilli sometimes forgot. He was straight-forward and wanted people to answer in kind, but that wasn't always the case. That was why he liked dryads, they were always direct, and the concept of subterfuge wasn't known to them beyond that of an internal infusion. But there was a lot of nuance in Josephine's words, so much that he feared he may not fully understand them. A part of him worried about that, but he kept it silent.

"Correct me if I am wrong…" he started with the innocent phrase that protected people from most mistakes and slips, "but you want to… express your faith? Is that what you are saying?"

"Not completely right, yet not completely wrong either," Josephine answered. "I have spent many years looking for you too, but it wasn't for only a desire of faith. But when I look at you, I must say it. This cannot go on! I have talked with a handful of dryads and villagers before you welcomed me, and Mother Nature is seldom seen. She cannot remain atop the World Tree alone!"

I know, the druid didn't voice out those words. Mainly because he knew they meant it in different ways. Josephine was seeing a goddess staying away from the world, leaving it unprotected, bereft of her divine embrace, but he saw… He didn't know what he saw, and that scared him.

What… what is she to me? The boy, no, the man asked himself. Aloe? Mother Nature? Master? What do I feel? What should I feel? Many conflicting thoughts battled against one another in his mind.

"I… understand your point of view," he haphazardly answered. "But if that were the case, you are no one to push your ideals onto a goddess. It should be the goddess that decides them and not you, a mortal."

"But she does not know that," she stated cuttingly. Powerfully.

"What do you mean by that?" For the first time, Xochipilli frowned.

"I have seen it, monsieur. I have seen her doubts as clear as the heavens on that night."

Madness, that was what he saw in those gestures and reactions, but that pressured him into asking: "What did you see that night?"

"I have avoided telling you, but… maybe you deserve it," Josephine stepped closer to him.

She was small, way smaller than him. As a grown man, a powerful cultivator and druid, his body was massive, only standing a bit less tall than Aloe, but towering for most standards. And the former assassin was an average woman by all possible descriptions. Maybe that was why they recruited her.

"That day, I… died. She killed me, Prince of Flowers. Mother Nature crushed my skull like someone may wrap a ball of paper in their fist."

I know, he almost said but kept to himself because he didn't actually know. He had just guessed that Aloe had killed that maid for what she did, but a question lingered.

"I have the need to point out that you are alive before my eyes, Josephine."

"Exactly," she smiled. "I have died yet I stand alive before you. You know what that means."

I do, this time he did know. It was a quintessential gut feeling. Aloe could do a lot of things with a single Blossomflame, but that wasn't the only trick she had up her sleeve. If she could do that much with a single trick, what about two? And three? If she could create life out of nowhere… why not restore it?

"Now you know how my faith originally appeared, but it is not that shallow," Josephine added. "I saw a weak and splintered woman when she killed me, almost more when she revived me. Because she is of mortal origin, she does not know how to behave like a goddess. We must teach her that. That is my faith."

"Are you even listening to yourself? How do you intend to teach a goddess about divinity whilst being a mortal if you are saying that she doesn't know about divinity because she happened to be a mortal once?"

"No, you are the one that is not listening," Josephine looked directly at his scarlet eyes with her dull, commonplace brown pieces. "I do not intend to teach her that. I said we."

"What difference am I going to be?"

"Not only you, monsieur. But also her," she revealed. "If we, you, can convince her to listen, you can convince her to change. I wholeheartedly believe that if she were to embrace her divinity, not only would she be healed of her ailments, but also would heal the whole world's."

"You are…" Right, an awful part of him wanted to say.

He didn't voice it, he didn't know why, but the faith in those otherwise unremarkable eyes struck him true. Josephine was being truthful with one thing; she did believe her words.

You have tried for over a decade, a part of him whispered. Over a decade of talking to her only to be met with silence. You have been too passive. What about being passionate? What about being forceful for once? Maybe faith was what you were lacking.

Those thoughts – awful, dark, and manipulative – resonated with him. They were his own, but at the same time, he had long been manipulated, and he knew it. Whether it was conscious manipulation or not, that mattered not. After all, if he had been manipulated, didn't that entitle him to manipulate her back?