diligence, chapter 6

The day after harvesting the ambrosia couldn’t come fast enough, and much unlike Aurora’s first couple times visiting the Heavenly Embassy to help out with the seeds she’d planted, it wasn’t with a sense of dread or desire to simply get the task over with that she came here. In fact, it had been of her own accord that she’d asked to help out with the process of making the ambrosia itself!

Just a short while ago, she might have gladly shirked the duty, especially since this was not a task she could reap any physical rewards for— unlike the tea or coffee deliveries she’d made, there was no warm, yummy drink she could imbibe at the end, considering ambrosia’s toxicity to her own species.

It wasn’t even really the desire to prove herself that moved her that early morning, either; if she hadn’t proven to Primrose and herself that she could be diligent with the countless early mornings spent in the gardens tending to the fragile new buds she’d planted, she didn’t imagine it would ever happen! No, it was simply… the desire to help the new friend she’d made in the stuffy little cherubun that brought her to a room near the back of the gardens.

Inside, Primrose already stood, setting up a scene that might have appeared… questionable to the average succubun. A round-bottomed flask was held in place over a burner, connected by some very scientific-looking equipment to another, smaller flask. He wore an apron and gloves, though not quite the heavy-duty set that she often spotted him wearing when tending to the gardens.

“So, what’s all this?” Aurora asked, kneeling a bit to look over the setup at eye level. “You didn’t tell me we were doing experiments in here.”

Primrose glanced over his shoulder before turning back to fine-tuning his workstation. “There’s nothing experimental about this,” he explained, patient as ever. “Though I admit that Beanny has helped me refine the process into something much more efficient than what we were capable of when we first left the Heavenly Meadow.”

Not too long ago, Aurora might have walked away from a situation like this one, confronted with something so foreign to her that she was unsure where to even start, but curiosity tugged at her instead. “Well, how does it work?”

Primrose glanced back again. “Would you like the scientific answer, or the gist of it?”

Aurora didn’t take even a moment to consider it. “Gist, if you please.”

He pointed at the first, bigger flask. “The raw nectar goes in here,” he explained, then moved to point at the smaller flask, this one held in place a bit lower. “Once it heats for awhile, the pure nectar flows out into here.”

That answer made sense to her, of course, though it must have shown on her face that Aurora hadn’t the faintest idea where to begin helping out with something like that.

“It’s a very precise process, and luckily for you, usually a one-person job,” he began, earning a giggle from Aurora. “I’d like you to help me by mashing up the petals.”

Her entire posture changed; happy as she was to help Primrose out, it had been more obvious than she’d imagined how intimidated she was at the idea of becoming an ambrosia scientist in a single morning. Standing a little straighter, she grinned wide. “I should be able to manage that,” she replied. “Where do I start?”

Primrose stepped aside to a large cooler, where inside was an impressively sized bowl full nearly to the brim of the petals she’d picked off the blooms yesterday. Though their shimmer was a bit more dull than when they’d freshly bloomed, their beauty couldn’t be understated. Even a succubun who had never heard of this ambrosia stuff would have been able to tell the blooms were something special. She had to use both arms to pick up the bowl, and with the way it was positioned, the petals’ sweet smell wafted right up to her nose.

“You can find a mortar and pestle in the cabinet over there,” Primrose explained, guiding her to a nearby table where she could work. She set down the bowl with an audible ‘thud,’ stepping over to find the mortar he mentioned as well. “And you’ll want to wear gloves.”

“Because it’s not good for succubuns, right,” Aurora agreed, taking the mortar and pestle back to her own little workstation to begin what she would already tell would be some arm-straining work.

Primrose made a face. “Actually, it can stain your skin,” he explained. “You can imagine how I found out.”

Aurora chuckled to herself as she took a pair of vinyl gloves from the box set near Primrose’s distillation station, careful to not poke holes right through with her nails. “Poor thing,” she teased. “Did it take long to go back to normal?”

Primrose simply shuddered and shook his head, earning a final laugh from Aurora first and then Primrose himself before she returned to the table.

It was definitely the arm workout that she imagined it would be. Aurora found that despite her instinct being to completely fill her mortar full of the petals, thus having to go through fewer batches, trying to grind too many at once was a bit too messy and made the whole process slower.

“So what will this be used for?” Aurora eventually asked, the pestle scraping gently up and down the sides of the mortar as she worked.

Primrose looked up from what he was doing, which Aurora would not even attempt to speculate upon. Adjusting the burner that sat beneath the larger set of flasks, by the look of it. “The pulp? You can dilute and sweeten it to make a popular drink.”

Aurora stopped grinding for just a moment to switch hands, another technique she’d discovered that helped rest her wrist between batches of petals. Her muscles still burned slightly with the repetitive motions of her task, and she was sure her arms wouldn’t feel great in the morning, but it was far more bearable this way. “Yeah? I bet it tastes good.” Not that she was tempted to give the slightly shimmery, goopy pulp that she’d been grinding up a taste. Of course not.

The cherubun seemed to think about it for a few moments. “Yes, though… I think it’s more than that.” Aurora tilted her head in inquiry, though Primrose was already explaining himself. He adjusted the smaller flask while he spoke. “Everyone in the Heavenly Meadow participated in harvesting ambrosia, which… you now know is hard work.”

A light-hearted gasp escaped Aurora. “You admit it!”

Primrose offered only a sly smile. “I never denied it, in fact. In any case, once we were finished with the harvest, one of the first elements that we processed would be the petals, since they can spoil quickly. For your sake, imagine a cup of lemonade on a hot afternoon.”

She glanced down at the pulp coating the sides of the mortar again. The temptation to take a little taste was not necessarily going away.

Primrose closed his eyes while he finished his story. “Almost all of us cherubuns came here of our own accord, for so many different reasons. Regardless, I think most of us remember that first sweet taste after a day of hard work… and I can’t imagine that being a feeling that a cherubun doesn’t hold close to their heart.”

Aurora couldn’t help what bubbled out of her lips next. “So why is it that you ended up leaving?”

Though he’d opened his eyes again, Primrose wouldn’t meet hers at first. Aurora immediately wanted to verbally recognize the question as far too personal, take it back before he could attempt to answer something as surely complicated as that, but he opened his mouth again before she had the chance. “Tell me,” he began, “aren’t you the slightest bit curious what that drink I just described tastes like?”

Aurora flushed. That made sense. “Ah… well, yes.”

Primrose let that settle between them before he turned back to his work quietly. He cleared his throat. “To answer your question,” which was peculiar, since she’d imagined what he said before to be his answer, “who else would do all of this for the cherubuns that come down here?”

Maybe Primrose wasn’t ready to admit it in its entirety, but seeking a taste of the other side was understandable! Wasn’t that what this entire endeavor was about for her, anyway?

She reached out to take a handful of flowers to add to the mixture in her mortar, thinking on what he’d said— and more importantly, what he wouldn’t say. “Primrose,” she said, “would you like to find a place to get lemonade after this?”

A small hum rang from his throat. “That sounds good, actually,” he answered. Aurora made a ‘mhm’ sound, the only other background noise being the boiling of one of Primrose’s flasks and the rhythmic scraping of the pestle in Aurora’s hand.

“It’ll be my treat,” Aurora promised.