[ARIETTE] PURSUIT OF DILIGENCE: CHAPTER 6

Extremely disgruntled, Ariette began making her way back to the greenhouse gardens of the Heavenly Embassy to meet with Primrose for the last time. She was already upset that Dove was ill and wouldn't be able to teach her how to brew ambrosia. That alone was bad enough, but to top it all off, Primrose of all buns would be the one teaching her instead. “Teaching her”. Yeah right, she thought. More like being condescended and belittled for half an hour under the guise of teaching. That was more like it.

She was in no mood to deal with him today. But, this was it, she thought. This was the last time she was going to have to deal with that pretentious bun and his stuck-up, holier-than-thou attitude. All of these thoughts churned in her mind as she determinedly stormed towards the greenhouse.

She took the long way around, making any attempts at all to abate her temper before she entered the greenhouse. She honestly didn’t know if she’d be able to hold her tongue against his provocations and broadside if she was already as nettled as she was.

Over the next 15 minutes, however, she had managed to compose herself to the point that she felt as though she could enter the greenhouse and face Primrose without immediately losing her temper.

As soon as she opened the large glass doors, however, her thoughts of Primrose vanished. Upon looking around, she was immediately confronted with the fact that the greenhouse was completely empty and barren, save for the empty plots and the workstations in the back. All of the ambrosia in the greenhouse had been harvested. This was incredibly shocking to see, especially because it had taken her and Primrose nearly an hour to harvest just a single plot of ambrosia the day prior.

So, how in the pits of hell did they manage to harvest all of it? Did Primrose enlist an army of buns to harvest ambrosia all night? She had to admit, the thought of half of the population of Burrowgatory crowded in the greenhouse, all harvesting ambrosia together was quite amusing to picture, if for no other reason than how absurd it was.

As she walked through the greenhouse and over to the workstations in the back, she took in just how dull the gardens were, a very striking difference from the glimmering golden menagerie her eyes had feasted on the day prior.

Primrose was standing at a workstation with his back facing Ariette. He heard her approaching footsteps and turned to acknowledge her with a curious glance that quickly fell into a sneer. Ariette kept her expression neutral even though she could feel her blood pressure rising at the sight of him.

“Wow, I’m surprised you’re actually here on time, especially since you are a sloth bun.” he spat, and with a haughty wave of his hand, he tossed a pair of gloves in her direction. They both watched them hit the ground, and Ariette let out a shaky breath in an increasingly futile attempt to calm herself down. Primrose rolled his eyes with annoyance as Ariette woodenly stooped to pick the gloves off of the ground. His attitude was already grating on her last nerve, and they hadn’t even begun brewing ambrosia yet.

~~~

Primrose dismissively asked Ariette to go collect the basket of ambrosia flowers they had harvested the day prior so they could begin the brewing process. Ariette obliged, and went to retrieve the basket from where she had left it on the workstation table.

Upon seeing the basket, she immediately noticed the color of the flowers. In just 24 hours, the ambrosia had lost a considerable amount of its color, and was now a dull, pale grey color. As Ariette picked the basket up off of the table and began making her way back over to where Primrose was, she stared at the dull, grey basket of flowers with a look of dismay. It was honestly a bit depressing to see how quickly they had lost their color after harvest.

As she walked, she suddenly wondered why the Cherubuns waited until the following day to brew the ambrosia if the flowers faded as quickly as they did. Surely it would be better if they brewed it while it was still fresh and colorful, she thought. This was exactly the question she posed to Primrose, who rolled his eyes and looked down at her as if to say “what a stupid question”.

“Becauseee….” he began, straining the last syllable. “We've already brewed it all, if you haven’t noticed.” He waved his arms around in a grand sweeping motion, gesturing to all of the empty plots in the greenhouse.

“Me and the other Cherubuns have already harvested and brewed quite literally all of the ambrosia in this greenhouse, save for this little basket.” he said, pointedly tapping the basket of dull, gray flowers on the table. “It is for expository purposes only that I am even here right now showing you how to brew it. So, I would greatly appreciate it if you would remain silent while I explain the processes to you.” he finished and narrowed his eyes at her distastefully. Ariette clenched her fists and did everything in her power to stop herself from snapping back at him, taking a deep breath and folding her arms.

“Anyways, as I was saying...” he continued, seemingly unaware of her being moments away from lashing out at him. “It is best to brew the ambrosia as soon as possible after harvesting. This is because, as you can see, ambrosia loses its color, flavor, and potency at an extremely fast rate. That’s why we reserve only a single day for harvesting and brewing. If we were to wait an extra day, the ambrosia would be completely unusable. This pitiful gray arrangement sitting on the table in front of us is completely unusable. The brew we are creating today will be flat and flavorless precisely because we have waited so long to brew it. I will throw it out as soon as we are finished here, because as I said before, I am only showing you the processes of how to brew it.”

Ariette was really annoyed at this point, for a few different reasons. She was annoyed because of the way he was speaking to her in his flagrantly condescending tone that lacked all common decency; she was annoyed that Dove wasn’t there to teach her instead of him; and she was annoyed that Primrose wasn’t even letting her brew actual fresh ambrosia, and was using this sad, gray arrangement instead.

Primrose, continuing on as if nothing was wrong, began to pluck the petals from each flower, explaining how they could be brewed into ambrosia-based drinks. Ariette watched him as he did so. He then placed the petals into a liquid mixture and mashed them finely until they were almost a pulpy consistency. He turned to her and explained that if it were fresh ambrosia, they would drain the flowers and strain the mixture the following day to complete the process.

After he finished, he crossed his arms and stared at her somewhat contemptuously, and she stared right back at him.

“That’s the whole process.” he said flatly.