Ryn of Avonside

Sleeping next to Grace, or at least in the same room proved to be a huge factor in the quality of my sleep, I realised, as we all blearily had breakfast down in the boy’s common area. Turns out that all the events of the past few months on the ring were taking their toll on my psyche. Restless sleep and nightmares were the result— an attempt by my mind to process memories that I had skipped and dodged around, rather than examining them properly.

Warily, ashamedly, I spoke up to the group, “Guys uh… I think I need time in my grove. Time to calm down. A lot has been happening and… yeah.”

“The nightmare?” Grace asked gently from my side.

“Yeah,” I nodded, staring down at my food in order to avoid meeting everyone else’s eyes.

Troy’s tone was kind when he agreed. “That’s a good idea, Ryn. Everyone here is… well, no offense, but besides me, you were all just college kids until three or so months ago. I wish… well, no— there’s no point in playing what-ifs, but if you need someone to talk to about anything that’s happened, I’m here. I’ve been through a lot— lived through a lot, and hopefully I can help you all do the same.”

“I might have to take you up on that,” Kit said quietly, his face schooled carefully neutral. “This shit has been amazing. Magic is real, we’re on a ring world, alien cultures around us and stuff, but… the attack on Avonside, fighting bandits on our way here, the battle with that robot thing… it’s fucked up, man.”

“I can’t get the scene of that robot battle out of my head,” Grace nodded, giving a little shudder.

“Yeah, the team definitely needs a rest,” Troy decided. “We’ll take some time to chill out here and see if we can’t spruce this place up a bit. I don’t know about you lot, but we could really do with some damned beds.”

There was hearty agreement from the group, which meant I had a lot of magic stuff to do. I sagged in relief as the decision was made, but also because in a weird way, the fact I wasn’t the only person haunted by what we’d seen made me feel less like a weakling.

Eager for the alternative conversation topic, I cleared my throat. “Can I get like, a list of stuff that we’ll need, magic wise? I can pretty much only do plants and landscaping, so we’ll have to think within the bounds of those constraints.”

“Yeah, we can do that,” Troy smiled. “I imagine the rest of us have some knowledge that could help. We’ll start brainstorming.”

“Alright,” I nodded, then thought of what I needed to begin first. “I think I’ll go and work on the outer protections of my grove first while you do that. Damn, I wish I had tenders though, extra hands would be amazing.”

“Oh!” Adam exclaimed, his eyes lighting up. “Eilian mentioned that! She said something about… asking her grove to help? I can’t remember much.”

“Asking her grove to help…” I repeated, furrowing my brows in thought. “Thanks… I’ll see if I can figure out what that means.”

“Alright, I’m going to go and start dragging all those knocked down trees into storage, they might be useful,” Adam said, standing up.

“Good idea,” Troy replied, following Adam up and out the door.

Guess that was it then— time to get to work.

Replacing all the growth shrubs and water trees took most of the morning, but when I was done I flopped down into the grass feeling pretty good. It was nice to just work without care for being stabbed, burned or shot.

I was currently basking in the sun, as much clothing as I could reasonably take off had been thrown aside— exposing the maximum chlorophyll that modesty would allow. It was nice, warm and peaceful. Unfortunately, I was just a little bored as I waited for my reserves of mana to replenish. There was only so much laying around in the sun you could do during the day before your mind started to wander.

So rather than let it go back into the recent past, I decided to try and figure out what Eilian had meant by, ‘asking her grove for help’. My grove itself was there within me— and without of me, bound to my will, my life and my magic. I began to poke and prod at it with my magical senses, feeling a frown come on as nothing really happened.

“How do I get help from you?” I murmured to myself, my eyes still closed.

I want a big bunny to pop up and help me please. Although, probably give it opposable thumbs. Wait, but not weird looking ones, I thought at my grove in a probably fruitless attempt to get it to cooperate.

Except, there was a small surge of power from my grove, as though it had heard me after all. I felt nothing happen though, there was no pull of magic from my reserves, nor a spike of magic pulled from the surrounding garden. Odd. Where did it get that power it had just used? Also, what was the soft thing poking at my arm?

I opened my eyes slowly, retracting my plant body back into my human one. As my eyes refocused, my curious gaze was returned by a very fluffy little face staring back at me.

“Oh my goodness!” I blurted, sitting straight up in surprise.

There was a bunny! It was about three feet tall with soft, luscious golden fur all over its body and little warm black eyes. Its ears were the floppy kind, and they looked to be even softer than the rest of it.

“Hey bun,” I said with quiet delight. Until it hopped into my lap that is. “Oof! Bun, you’re heavy! Oh, now you’re sniffing at my face. Look at your little nose twitch!”

My heart was melting, a puddle of squealing girl as the soft fluffy animal stared at me from my lap. I was about to try and move it when we were joined by a second and third bunny, who just popped into existence next to us.

The second one was black all over except for little tufts of white fur on the tips of its long floppy ears, while the third one was entirely white except for a small patch of gold on its nose. Then a forth one popped into existence, and a fifth.

“Oh no,” I squeaked as more and more bunnies began to flop into existence around me.

Did I make a mistake by choosing bunnies as my tenders? Were they going to multiply until I was drowning in soft bunny fur? No, they did stop eventually, but by that time I had around fifteen of the little critters hopping around me and sniffing at things. What the hell did I do now?

Carefully shifting the heffalump out of my lap, I stood up and muttered, “Where the hell are my clothes?”

No sooner had I said it, than a small fluffy paw was tapping me on the leg. I turned and looked down to find the black bun trying to hand me my pants.

“Oh! Thanks little one!” I laughed in surprise, reaching down to take the pants out of its hands.

As I was putting them on, another bunny I hadn’t noticed yet hopped up with my shirt in hand, and it almost looked pleased with itself.

“Well, you’re all rather helpful aren’t you,” I said to the crowd around me, a huge grin on my face. They were so damn cute, I felt like I was going to giggle and cry at the same time.

I was met by silence and many attentive twitching noses, one or two rubbing at their faces with their big fluffy paws.

“What do I do with you all now? I guess you can all just follow me around and play while I set up the next layer of trees,” I mused, then remembered what the time was. “No, wait. It’s lunch time. Come on everyone, let’s go and find the others!”

With that I marched off towards my tree with an army of buns hopping along behind me. They weren’t the most disciplined lot, frequently stopping to sniff things or eat some grass, which had me wondering exactly what their nature was. Were they more magical or more physical? How intelligent were they? Clearly they understood that I’d needed my clothes earlier, but that might have also been part of the magic of their creation.

I found Adam first as he was approaching the ramp up into the tree. He stopped dead in his tracks when he looked up from something in his hands, then burst out into laughter.

“Oh my god, Ryn! Are these your tenders? How are there so many of them, and why are they a bunch of rabbits?” he asked between gasps of laughter.

“The scientific term is bun, actually. But I asked my grove for some help and this is what I got, like fifteen buns. They’re good buns too and they’re very helpful,” I said with mock chastisement. I meant it though, no one was allowed to laugh at my buns. They were just trying their best.

Next to arrive was Grace, who saw the horde from a mile off and squealed with delight. Rushing over, she knelt next to one and tentatively reached out to pat its soft fur. The bunny turned to sniff at her, then promptly stood up on its hind legs, pushed her over and then hopped up to lay on her stomach.

“Ryn! What are these? Why are there a bunch of huge bunnies in your grove?” she asked as she giggled and played with the bun on her stomach. Something inside me wished that I was in place of that bun, but I decided right then and there that I would not be jealous of my own buns.

“They’re my grove tenders! They will help me with plant related activities and, if I'm lucky, more besides that,” I said happily, reaching down to pat one of them.

“This is so good!” she said with a happy laugh, and I realised with a spark of insight that the buns might also be able to help us emotionally. Like support animals or something.

Kit and Troy both arrived soon after, and once the ruckus around my new buns was over with, we sat down for lunch.

With secretive whispers, I assigned a bun to each of the team with the express orders to be both helpful and cuddly in an effort to keep everyone happy. No one could be too sad when they had a big bun to cuddle, after all.

“Alright so I was talking to Kit, and he had the idea to—“ Troy started to say, before being interrupted when his secret support bun flopped down on the grass against him. He chuckled for a moment and placed a hand on the bun, beginning to pat it as he continued, “Anyway, he had some ideas for plant related materials. Wood is the obvious one, then cotton to make some sort of bedding, bamboo would be useful for a variety of reasons too.”

“Gourds!” Grace exclaimed suddenly as she chewed on her tough travel food. “Dry them out and make bowls and cups! And like, please can we have some sort of plant for toilet paper.”

I wholeheartedly agreed with that sentiment. Girl parts were a lot harder to clean than guy parts had been, that was for sure.

“Hemp for rope,” Adam commented as he stared down at the bun in front of him. It was currently cleaning its face with its paws.

“Dyes and stuff too, we could sell those probably,” Kit murmured as he pressed his face into the soft fur of his secret support bun. “Damn these bunnies are soft!”

“Think you can work on those Ryn? After we have some food sources, that is?” Troy asked, and I nodded in reply while munching on my own food.

After lunch I walked back to the edge and began to design my second row of trees. They were basically just apple trees, although again they were strengthened to withstand the wind. My hope was that the apples would be a useful source of food for us later as well as just their windbreak duties.

Once that was done, I began to walk around the perimeter, planting the seeds that would become my apple trees. The buns reacted almost immediately, hopping up to the recently planted trees and clearing away grass from where I had phased the seeds into existence under the soil. Then they started doing what I’d seen that tender near the mage fruit do so long ago. They sprinkled little dustings of growth energy over the plants.

“Huh, I guess you’ll be very, very useful, as well as cute,” I mused out loud, and then I realised something. Was this why I hadn’t seen any of my growth plants in Esra’s place? Because there was already a solution to the problem, even if the buns were putting out far less growth energy? I’d have to ask her when she finally made it over here.

Musings aside, I had work to do, so that’s what I got to doing. With the help of my buns I might even be able to get the whole second row done before nightfall.