How Green Becomes Wood

"Master Dark?" Daizi couldn't help but laugh, "You can never let him know you called him that, you will inflate his ego to unprecedented levels. He is surprisingly knowledgeable, though, given he's listened to me talk about my garden for all these years--did you know we'll have been married a decade this Samhain?--I'd offer myself, because I adore flowers, but I couldn't work there without bringing Ivy, and at some point it's just creating more trouble for you."

~~

"I think it looks elegant," Sloan replied, moving her head back, "Worn down at the collar, it looks like a strange necklace. I think they'd look good in an ascot, though, it's dramatic and delicate, like their spindly-ass looking legs."
 
"I did not know that. Congratulations! That is a momentous occasion," Tristan congratulated. "Please, do not worry about it. I can manage, I assure you. It is a bit more awkward, but it is doable, I assure you."

~~

"What the hell's an ascot?" Xander asked, feeling he should know the answer to that. "And they do have the dorkiest legs."
 
"Thank you. We are excited for it. It has been a very long time." Daizi replied cheerfully, "If you are certain, I'll be content to drop the subject, but the offer really is on the table. Honestly, it'd probably be good for him to get out of the house for something other than grocery shopping or sticking to his incredibly tiny social circle."

~~

"It's, you know, the frilly thing." Sloan replied, holding her hand up to her neck with her fingers pointed down and wiggled them, trying to indicate what it looked like, "Do you know who really have stupid legs? Kangaroo mice. And oh my god, have you seen the pigeons with long legs? They look ridiculous. Now those are animals who should be wearing ascots!"
 
"Well, if he really wants to break out of a rut, tell Master Dark I expect him here at Alec's usual time," Tristan said, amused and not in the slightest expecting Dark to show up, "but I wouldn't want to inconvenience you in any way. Oh, hold on, please." He pulled the phone away to talk to someone, his words muffled. He came back only a second later. "I should probably go and let you get back to your bustling household. Thank you very much for updating me on the situation, and I wish you luck."

~~

"You look like you're a turkey," Xander commented at her wiggling fingers. "What's a kangaroo mouse? You gotta be pulling my leg with that. I have seen the weird pigeons. Pigeons are weird enough, and then you add those freakish legs on top of it. Like those one chickens and ducks that look like they're walking with a stick up their butts."
 
"I'll tell him," Daizi laughed, "I should get back to them. Well, actually, I should get back to my own work, it's been thrown off enough lately. I'm sure we'll speak again soon."

~~

"I'm pretty sure your dad has worn them, so I'm surprised you don't recognize them," Sloan grinned, "Maybe he's been a turkey this whole time. But no, kangaroo mice are real. Here," she took out her phone and pulled up a video of a small mouse, with a tail about the length of its body, and long, spindly legs which hopped like its namesake. "Look at this weird little dude."
 
Tristan bid her a polite farewell and turned his attention to his daily life. He had his shop open for more hours than Alec could work during the school year, but it still opened later. Not many people needed a corsage at ten in the morning. So, he opened at noon usually, and he handled working alone well, but it was exhausting. Having another person there really eased up on the load. Not having someone to help over the weekend would put a little strain on him, but he could manage. If he couldn't, he was not opposed to closing.

~~

"That looks fake. You're totally showing me some kind of AI junk, right?" Xander demanded, peering at the image skeptically.
 
Daizi got some of her more pressing work requirements finished and then went downstairs to find her husband, "Goose," She told him, dramatically sitting down on the couch, draping herself across his lap, "You need to help Tristan at his store."

"Do I?" He replied blandly while making no effort to remove her.

"He says he's okay on his own, but I can hear it in his voice. He needs help, he'll end up closing down otherwise, and then what will we do? We'll have cost him his living." Daizi explained, playing up her emotions.

"Or we can just send---"

"He wouldn't hear of it!" Daizi replied, sitting up and taking his face in her hands, unable to hide her grin as Ivy giggled at how silly her parents were being.

"Are you trying to get rid of me?"

In truth, she was, a little bit. It was right before her surprise proposal, and with him around all the time, finishing up her final preparations was tricky. If he was gone for a period of the day, just for this weekend, it would make things much easier. Really, she should have explained that to Tristan, then he could have called and asked, if it wouldn't hurt his pride too much. Maybe she'd still text him."

~~

"No dude, it's not AI, it's totally real! Look it up if you don't believe me!" She replied, gesturing to the phone. Then she took it back, and after a few moments began to read from the Wikipedia page, "A kangaroo mouse is either one of the two species of jumping mouse--genus Micro...di...dopodos..." She mispronounced the genus, "--native to the deserts of the southwestern United States, predominantly found in the state of Nevada. The name kangaroo mouse refers to the species' extraordinary jumping ability, as well as its habit of bipedal locomotion."
 
"It still sounds made up, but so does a long-necked, long-legged horse with leopard spots and horns that only eats leaves," Xander remarked with a frown. "Makes a unicorn sound realistic. Like a narwhale."
 
"Some people think giraffes are where the questing beast myth came from. I don't know what the questing beast is, but I've heard that giraffe fact before." Sloan commented, "Do you know, Benny thought narwhals were fictional until, like, last year."
 
"The questing beat is from King Arthur legends and is called that because it's always the point of a quest to go slay it or something," Xander told her. He chose not to say he'd always been on the fence about a unicorn fish existing until just recently, too.
 
"I'd rather commit you to some event you don't want to do," Xander grumbled. "Serving at a homeless shelter by yourself. No," he got a glint in his eye, "cleaning the house with your mother by yourself."
 
"Nothing is fair in war or arguments," Xander replied as the first bell rang. "Time to get back to school, where we're supposedly fairly treated and graded."
 
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