[video - for the good of all of us (except the ones who are dead).]

[purpleknee]

Oh Abeegail, what am I to do? I need to help five people and fill them with hope so I can get something that makes me feel like I have a heart again! Because I don't have a heart inside my body, which apparently means far more to me than it does for most of the people in this stupid cave. Hmn? What's that Beeatrice, this trade is basically impossible for me without the thing I'm trading for? Right you are! How smart, and how quickly you realized it, you smart little bee.

[His faux enthusiasm drops and he glares flatly at the camera.]

Come help a witch help you to help himself help us all. I have healing magic and a temper. If you think this is cheating, I don't want to hear it, and I only want things that will actually help. I'm serious, I'm trying to be good, here.

...Oh, and it goes against everything else I'm trying to do here, but I should let you know that the bees I found can't make honey. Maybe if you tell Delight or someone they can, she'll believe you and the copies will be able to, I don't know. I don't really care.

[He's screwed.]

Comments

[hasitsthorns]

Hm, well, I mean there's a lot of upkeep. Watering, trimming, picking the fruit...

I do my part by singing to the plants. How's your voice?

[ Nothing like a duet to help plants grow, right?

Don't worry, she's only half-joking. She does actually sing to the plants but he doesn't have to. ]

[purpleknee]

[Ohhh, he's liking this less and less.]

Trimming them sounds fine.

[Maybe the picking... His gloves should make that part safe enough. Still not chancing the water at all. Singing would just be humiliating.]

I'm bringing my axe with me so no one tries to take it, but on Ozma's health, I promise not to use it. Is that good enough for you?

[hasitsthorns]

Good! I'm sure you'll be a pro at it.

[ She'll get him to sing yet. It's cathartic! ]

Hmm. [ She's skeptical, but... ] Alright, sure, you can bring your axe. But! I'm keeping you to that promise. Or else you're out and any chance of hope from me for your heart is lost.

[purpleknee]

[Warrick grunts, but the noise isn't as derisive or doubtful as it could have been. He was a Chopper. Choppers and plants were kind of a Thing, weren't they? He was related to the Tin Woodsman -- his mother had been part flower, for fairies' sakes.]

Yes, yes. [Hope from Rose is much lower on his list of priorities than Ozma's health, but he can't expect an idiot like her to know better.

Anyway, he's floating on over now, handle of the axe sticking out of his purse the witch's bag and looking less than thrilled to be there. Yaaaay...]

[hasitsthorns]

[ ... Part... flower... That sounds like a fascinating story. Maybe someday she'll get to hear it. Doubtful, but maybe. ]

C'mon, dude! Turn that frown upside down. It isn't so bad.

[ Trimming trees is easy. ]

Why do you hate this place so much, anyway? Because it's Sorrow's?

[purpleknee]

[It's not as interesting as it sounds. Or...at least not as lewd.]

No thank you.

[He sighs and goes over to the supplies, edging away from the watering can to pick up the branch trimmer instead. Nooo thank you indeed.]

I don't particularly care about Sorrow. All of these "gods" are terrible, but I've never talked to him, or anything. It's mostly because all of you were so annoying about it. And I got my axe! Wanted to use it.

[hasitsthorns]

[ Still! All the nature-based spirits in Rose's world are animals, so... ]

Suit yourself! [ Though she'll remain chipper as can be. Or, at least, she's very good at pretending to be. His aversion to the watering can - water in general, maybe? - is noted though. ]

So, you were... going to do it out of spite? Because you could? [ What even is your logic, Warrick. ]

[purpleknee]

I suppose that's a good way of putting it.

[Warrick floats back on up over to a tree, studying it a moment before going to the side that needed the most work. He sits crosslegged in midair, face and body language unconcerned, like he sees...absolutely nothing wrong with that.]

Impulse control isn't really high when you don't have a heart, you know. Especially when things are just making your anger even worse.

[hasitsthorns]

[ Rose has stranger things, actually. She wonders if that's just a... witch(?) thing or. What. Either way, he's free to float as he pleases! It means she doesn't have to lug a ladder over, at any rate.

It might not look like she's doing a lot but she is inspecting the trees to make sure they're healthy. Water and trimming is fine but who even knows what kind of weird cave bugs or diseases might be down here! ]

So, not having a heart... It is just, like, harder to keep your emotions in check? Since you obviously have them. Well. Anger, anyway.

[purpleknee]

[It was more his attitude about chopping things down, but sure, the floating, too.]

That's part of it. [Warrick sighs, a little worn down on this subject, but he did bring it on himself by pursuing this stupid deal...] Typical heartless jokes apply. If I wasn't a mender, there would be a lot more physical side effects, I imagine.

[Like, being super dead instead of just kind of...regular dead but kept alive and well by his spell.]

It's kind of self-explanatory, I don't know why all of you are having so much trouble with it.

[hasitsthorns]

Well. We do call people heartless when they act like you, so. Yeah.

[ She can comprehend it even if she doesn't understand the actual how or - more importantly, in her opinion - the why of him not having a heart. ]

But in a lot of worlds, people die without having a heart too. I can see why it's confusing to some people. [ An afterthought, then- ] What's a mender, anyway?

[purpleknee]

Again, self-explanatory.

[He sighs and sets the tool down in his lap so he can smooth a gloved hand over the tree limb he's working on.]

Most worlds must call them healers. That's what the group on Earth used, anyway.

[Warrick closes his eyes, breathing slowing as he concentrates, and when he looks over his shoulder to Rose a few moments later, he gestures with his free hand to the new, healthy branchling splitting off from one of the more solid points. He assumes she's obsessed with these trees enough to notice it definitely wasn't there before.]

I can heal and shape. Things like this are more difficult... I mostly deal with injuries. My spells keep me alive even without a heart.

[hasitsthorns]

Yeah, we call 'em healers where I'm from. I mean, there's the difference between doctors and healers though. Doctors are clinical whereas healers are spiritual or magical.

[ She's gonna go out on a limb from his work with the tree and assume he's one of the latter. Hah. A limb. Get it? She blinks curiously, smiling after a few seconds at the newly formed branchling. ]

That's really cool, dude. The cousins to my kind can heal, but... Not me. [ She'd always wished she was born one of the benevolent guardian wolves. ]

[purpleknee]

Speaking of which.

[Since she's bringing it up... He looks sideways at her and drops both of his hands into his lap again.]

I noticed you weren't as human as you looked. Mind explaining that?

[hasitsthorns]

[ Hm. She does, but... not nearly as much as she used to. Besides, he's a magic wielder so. It won't be as odd or alarming to him. ]

I'm not! I look human because I like to, but I'm a yokai. A wolf one, specifically. I'm basically like... an animal spirit that's taken humanoid form.

[purpleknee]

[He's also a green heartless dude, so.]

...Huh. That explains the stubbornness.

[He's playing nice and being pretty calm now, but he still doesn't like her very much!!]

[hasitsthorns]

[ ... This is fair. ]

I've been told I'm a bit headstrong, I can't lie. [ 'A bit.' Sure. ]

[purpleknee]

[He gives an unenthusiastic grunt in reply, then moves on to the next tree to start shaping it up with the trimmer.]

It's very annoying. Kind of "wicked lite".

[hasitsthorns]

Well! If that's the most annoying thing about me, I can't really complain.

[ Granted, he doesn't know she also eats people. That's decidedly far more wicked. ]

[purpleknee]

[He grumbles -- that outlook is annoying, too. Admirable, perhaps, when he liked the person and was in a better mood, but now? Nope. Not having it.]

Is this really helping? I can't exactly tell when I'm filling someone with hope, these rules are so stupid... He doesn't have to spend any energy on me at any other time, it's not like I'm the one owing him.

[hasitsthorns]

[ What a sourpuss. ... It'd be endearing if it wasn't downright annoying. ]

Heck if I know! I'm supposed to be collecting hope, too. And sadness! I have no idea how to tell if it's working or not, to be honest... I'm pretty much winging it myself.

[purpleknee]

What the heck are you collecting sadness for?

[Sounds easier than hope, anyway... Hope has so many fingers in so many pies, though. Gross.]

[hasitsthorns]

Just a flower from home. [ Her true home, that is. Not that she thinks it's important to mention. ] I want to make potpourri. And since Sorrow's the man with the plants, he seemed like the dude to ask.

Just gotta' make a couple people sad. Which, I kind of do that already anyway without really trying so I figured, hey, why not.

[purpleknee]

That's ridiculous.

[Hmn. Sadness, huh...]

I have a sister. A twin. We were always together, as children, and then I cast this curse on myself. I no longer have a heart, but it did something to hers as well. We're connected. Always.

[Yeah. That stirs up some kind of feeling, even if he can tell that it takes way too much emotional effort to drag that out. Being heartless was dumb.]

I don't want her to come here. But if she has to, then I want her to be able to be herself. I need control so she can have it, too.

[hasitsthorns]

[ Sorrow had said humans were ridiculous when she'd asked him for the flowers and why. So she finds it far more amusing than she probably should that Warrick is saying 'ridiculous' too.

She wasn't expecting the story, however, of his sister and how his curse had affected her as well. Though that does beg the question of- ]

Why did you curse yourself? [ Did he know it woulf affect her too? Did that matter? It seems to now, at least. ]