sporesprouter | Recent Entries

There's less than a month until Dark.

Of course, that's not as ominous a prospect as it used to be. After the first year, they knew to be prepared. Susan had taken point overall, but Tress was also right there making sure that supplies were shored up to last everyone the month. Last year's Dark had been much smoother than the first, and what lessons there could be learned from what had been lacking near the end of it were learned, and so heading into the third time it was practically a well-worn routine. Not that it was a given that the spirits, quiet of late, wouldn't throw another wrinkle into the month.

But with less than a month left, most of the preparations are complete, and most of the stores ready. Still, a little extra will never go amiss, and it has rarely been said that Tress is not determined.

So she's in one of the kitchens, working on pickling verdant vines. If she can get a good flavorful brine to compensate for the relative tastelessness of the vines themselves, it might be her best preparation method yet.

Tress was an old hand at waiting. She'd waited for Charlie for more than a year once. Having to do it twice was somewhat disheartening at times, but the mansion kind of had more to offer than the Rock had. (Not quite as much as the spore seas, but... nothing ever would.)

The first time she waited, she was the one to go out and fix it herself. (With help.)

This time, though... sometimes waiting apparently works.

There's a flash of red out of the corner of her eye as she passes a lounge. But that's not the important part. She's clearly on her way to the kitchen to cook her heart out. Charlie's here now. Tress is ecstatic.

Dark is thankfully over and the mansion is slowly returning back to normal, and it's honestly not a moment too soon. They'd gotten through it, because clearly the mansion spirits didn't want everyone dead, but since everything had happened without any real warning, and in the middle of winter at that, there hadn't been a real way to know to be ready for it.

Clearly, though, that wouldn't be the case next time.

Tress did still have her notebook that she'd brought from home, full of her original notes on sprouting, as well as a bunch of notes she'd added since arriving here, but it seemed to her that a long term project that's going to be quite as wide-ranging as preparing for next Dark would probably need one of its own, so she had found another notebook in her closet. (And she had smiled so brightly upon discovering it, with its charcoal gray cover and pristine pages. It was another sign that things were going back to how they had been.) She had then proceeded to jot down what ideas she had this early on on the first few pages.

She also knows, though, that this isn't a one-person project, and it absolutely can't be. Obviously not everyone here is going to be interested in the extremely early planning stages, but not everyone really has to be involved in those, either. She knows exactly who will be, though.

So she's off to find Susan.

There's still quite a bit of winter yet, according to the calendar, not to mention whatever Dark is, and Tress got an idea for a project fairly recently. It's appropriate and it gives her a chance to stretch out a skill she hasn't really gotten an opportunity to use in a while.

So she's in a cozy parlor, sitting curled up in a big comfy armchair right by the window, a basket of yarn at her feet, and she's knitting. It's still too early to be immediately obvious what it is she's knitting, but she's moving with the easy confidence that indicates it's definitely not a new craft she's just now decided to take up.

Sometimes, after all, it's nice to go back to something old and familiar.

It's been a few days since the arrival of the temporary visitors and Tress has become a wraith.

Her routine is established enough that she's sticking to the fundamentals, but out of rote instead of any sort of enthusiasm. She wakes, she tries to meditate (unsuccessfully, with Crow's poisoned words echoing in her memory and eluding any attempt to clear them), wordlessly brushes Fenyes (she obviously notices the new horse but does not know the new horse), gets food from the kitchen (pre-prepared things she finds in the refrigerator or cupboards, as she cannot muster up the will to cook), and retreats to her room. Her workshop notably remains unused. Crow was there, and although Tress knows she won't be back (and that she was right, Tress would trade places in a heartbeat), she can't bring herself to go back and step into where she'd been, where the undeniable situation had been laid out in plain and simple words.

On such rare occasion that she manages to pass someone in the hall, she offers a smile of greeting that comes nowhere near reaching her eyes, as rote as everything else is.

She's fallen into this before and knows she's doing it again, but a new-found resolve is what brought her out of it before, and she'd had that, to no effect, so that clearly won't do it again.

She has no idea what will.

Now that the latest burst of activity has actually settled into something like calm for a few days, Tress has settled into a temporary project. In fairness, most of the temporary project took place the previous day in the out of the way kitchen that she had previously commandeered small appliances from. But today requires a bit more wandering.

So she is currently in the process of going around various at least semi-frequented common rooms leaving trays of both nut and honey balls and chocolate coconut balls. Next to each room's tray, she sets down a small card that says in careful handwriting, 'It's been a tough week. Help yourself!'

She's not putting a whole lot of fanfare into the process, but she's also not being particularly secretive about it, so she's easy enough to find throughout.

Tress is, as she often is, in her workshop. However, what she is doing in her workshop is not even close to her usual activities.

Instead of her usual array of spores and sprouter's gear, she has found some more standard tools which are sitting on the table next to a rubber mat that is holding... a toaster. She secreted one from a kitchen that isn't particularly used. To the side are a couple books from the library as well as her open notebook.

She turns the toaster upside down and starts undoing some screws on the bottom of the case.

After all, the best way to figure something out is often to gain practical knowledge.

Yes, Tress might have been up late charting stars, but that doesn't mean that she can't get up at dawn to start doing other work on the continued Operation Get Us Out of Here.

So it's barely light outside when she tucks herself into an out of the way workroom that she's decided to repurpose as a sprouter's workshop. She doesn't have much in the way of spores, just what she arrived with, but that was no reason not to use some. What was the point of hoarding a potential resource? Sitting on something that might be able to help? Not a great idea.

So she currently sits at a table with some supplies laid out carefully before her, carefully taking water from a bowl in front of her with an eyedropper to some pink-red spores and shaping the crystals that spring up from them with a small iron shield-shaped plate and a steel trowel. She's working slowly and incrementally, but several finished spheres sit on the table away from her active work.

On the floor to the side of the table are several full drinking water bottles that she found and commandeered, knowing they'd come in handy if she decides to move on to her next idea.

For now, though, pink crystal spheres.

S	M	T	W	T	F	S
	1	2	3	4	5	6
7	8	9	10	11	12	13
14	15	16	17	18	19	20
21	22	23	24	25	26	27
28	29	30

Tress

Open Post: Pickles

Open Post: A pair of gloves

Closed Post: Meticulous Planning

Open Post: What a yarn

Open Post: A human who was merely being.

Open Post: Treat

Open Post: Curiosity

Open Post: Hard at Work

Profile

June 2026

Syndicate

Most Popular Tags

Page Summary

Style Credit

Expand Cut Tags