It ain't much, but it's honest work

“If I may ask,” Primrose began. He paused until Morgaine looked up from watering the ambrosia flowers and nodded for him to go on. “What exactly made you decide to start assisting with the greenhouses?”

Morgaine shrugged, looking back down at the plot of flowers to make sure none of them were getting too much from the watering can. “Dove asked if I’d be interested,” they said simply.

They could see Primrose pursing his lips slightly from the corner of their eye. “Yes,” Primrose said, “but what interested you?”

Primrose remained a tough nut to crack, but Morgaine supposed that it was a genuine question and not some veiled judgment, so they straightened up and considered their answer properly, rolling their shoulders as they thought. “Well, I s’pose I’m thinking of it as a kind of culinary experiment,” they said, smiling slightly at how Primrose’s brow knitted in confusion.

“...You do remember that you can’t consume ambrosia, as it’s poisonous to you,” he said after a moment. There was a long-suffering air to the reminder which suggested that Primrose had needed to give it out liberally.

“I haven’t forgotten, hoss,” Morgaine reassured him with a crooked grin. “Culinary doesn’t necessarily mean something that I’m interested in eating or drinking for myself. It’s my job to make things that other buns enjoy, you know? And I do that ‘cause I’m good at it, and I like it. Ever heard the saying, ‘Love your job, and you’ll never work a day in your life’?”

Primrose crossed his arms, seeming to think over their response. “I’ve heard the saying,” he said after a moment. “I’m not sure how it relates to the question.”

“It relates because learning how ambrosia is made and why it’s important to y’all is something I can connect to the things I’m passionate about. That’s why I wanted to try my hand at it when the opportunity came. Nothing much deeper than that,” Morgaine explained patiently.

“Hm,” was all Primrose said in reply. Morgaine raised their eyebrows at him, waiting for more, but he waved a dismissive hand at them and remained looking deep in thought. They shrugged again and went back to watering the flowers.

The watering routine was nice. It seemed like the hardest work in the ambrosia growing process was right at the beginning, with the digging and planting. Walking the rows of flower beds with the watering can and stopping to refill it every so often before continuing on the route was positively zen and relaxing in comparison to digging in the dirt.

After a little while, Primrose seemed to snap out of his thoughts and realized that he’d left Morgaine to do the watering themselves. He quickly picked up his own watering can and started on the plots that they hadn’t gotten to yet.

“It’s an interesting motivation,” he said when they’d met in the middle. “Everyone’s motivation is… interesting. I’ve asked others who have come to help, and they all have different answers.”

“Yeah? Like what?”

“Boredom, curiosity. Wanting to make cherubuns feel welcome in Burrowgatory. Wanting to help out a new friend.” Primrose ticked the various answers off on his fingers. “...Some seem convinced that perhaps the ambrosia isn’t as poisonous to succubuns as we say, in spite of all the information they have been given.”

Morgaine snorted softly. “Sounds about right.”

“I thought that there might be patterns,” Primrose confessed. “But so far, I haven’t been able to say for sure.”

Morgaine tilted their head to the side. “Patterns?” They prodded for elaboration.

“In the reasons that different…” Primrose fumbled for the right word for a few moments before giving up and gesturing to the crown of his head, the same area where Morgaine’s horns sat.

“Ah. Different types of succubuns, hoss. You can just say that,” they said with an amused smile.

Primrose made a disgruntled noise. “Isn’t there a better term for it?”

“Nope,” Morgaine said cheerfully.

Primrose huffed through his nose and crossed his arms again. “Fine then, yes. Different types. I thought that there would be different reasons between different types, but that they’d have more in common within the groups.”

“But they don’t?”

“Not really. Other greed… greeds?” He looked at Morgaine for help, but they just shrugged again to his irritation.

“‘Greed buns’ is fine.”

Primrose muttered something under his breath that might have been a promise to write a new dictionary and/or encyclopedia with more clearly-defined terms for himself. Morgaine was admittedly having a little bit of fun at his expense; his desire to not offend was clearly earnest, if a bit misguided.

“Other greed buns,” Primrose continued, looking faintly pained at the informality, “mostly haven’t given the kinds of answers I expected, and they haven’t answered like you did, either. And I suppose I’m interested in why.”

Morgaine tugged on one of their own ears thoughtfully. They wondered if this was Primrose’s very roundabout way of apologizing for stereotyping.

“I can’t tell you why anyone else answered the way they did,” they said finally, considering that a safe response. “If the positions were reversed- hell, they don’t even have to be. Why are you doing all of this? Managing the Embassy, and the greenhouses, and all that? You don’t have to.”

It was something that they really were curious about. Why had Primrose, of all cherubuns, taken on that responsibility? That so many others were willing to lend a hand made it obvious that he hadn’t been the only option. After several weeks of working in the greenhouses alongside him, Morgaine was less inclined to think of him as the wannabe tyrant that some others painted him as, too.

“Someone has to,” Primrose said, as though that explained everything. Morgaine raised their eyebrows at him, but he didn’t elaborate further. Maybe to him, that reasoning really did explain it all, and there wasn’t anything to elaborate on.

…Actually, looking at it from that angle did explain a lot.

“You’re a sweetheart, Prim,” Morgaine said, grinning when the nickname got an indignant noise out of him.

“I am not-” 

“Sorry, too late!” They picked up their watering can and grabbed Primrose’s too as they passed him, heading back to return the cans to their proper place with the other gardening tools. “I’m giving you official ‘secret nice guy’ status. You’ll need to drop by the bar to get your badge later.”

“You are not funny, and also that doesn’t even make sense,” Primrose said, hot on their heels.

“Look, I never said that all of my jokes were winners. I get paid to make drinks, not to be a funny guy.” Morgaine set the watering cans in place and dusted their hands off.

“Obviously.”

“Keep that up, and I’m going to revoke your ‘nice guy’ card.”

Strangely, this didn’t deter Primrose’s attitude one bit.