[Comm] Pursuit of Diligence: I

It goes like this when Ashes slowly gets to understand Cherubuns – he’s always been relatively curious about them in the first place. After all, he’s doing this to better understand Cherubuns, less so about the flowers. Ambrosia is interesting but they’re basically plants at the end of the day.

Primrose, does not agree with his assessment.

“It’s the only thing we can drink,” Primrose points out. “Alcohol is poisonous for us.”

“Yeah, but haven’t you thought of shaking it up a bit?” he finds himself asking. Really, he’s not trying to be stubborn as much as he wants to know if anyone’s tried going out of the norm when it comes to making Ambrosia. “Change up the flowers a bit.”

Primrose only looks at him funny instead before handing over the flower seeds.

“Plant these first and then I’ll consider entertaining your questions.”

A beat.

“Do you act like this with everyone trying to get to know you guys better?” Ashes prompts.

The Cherubun simply sighs and massages his forehead. “There’s only so many hours in a day, Ashes. And I only have so much patience.”

“Of course.” If anything, he’ll shove his questions away for later. But then he looks at the flower seeds.

“I don’t have a green thumb,” he then admits.

“Don’t worry, I’ve probably seen worse.”

Ah. Ashes does wonder what other Succubuns Primrose has met, maybe some of them better than what he’s about to do and others who’re even more clueless than him. But since he wants to get to know Cherubuns in their element, then he’ll figure this out. Somehow.

It’s why he ends up holding a whole bundle of seeds in his hooves and he sprinkles them all in one spot in the ground– except– he’s pretty sure that he’s doing this wrong.

Primrose looks like he’s lost years of his life from the act alone but has since resigned himself to this life of instructing Succubuns like himself to do this.

“I’ll tell you how to do it right, in exchange I suppose you can ask some questions about Cherubuns,” Primrose concedes.

Ashes can practically feel his ears perk up (slightly) at the mention of learning more about Cherubuns. Now that’s a nice bargain if he’s ever heard of one.

“Really? I was thinking that you’re doing this to save yourself from the headache later.”

“Maybe so.”

And that’s how it starts.

–

Ashes learns very quickly that he’s grateful that he’s not a gardener for his full time job. Or at least having to do as much manual labor as he’s expected to do. Really, he’s so tired of digging into the ground to plant a few seeds, then to bury it.

And then to turn around to get more seeds.

“I’m thinking this time,” Primrose muses. “That we mix up what flowers we plant. Your suggestion is a sound one.”

Ashes looks up from where he’s planted his flower seeds, there is what looks to be a whole field in front of him. He’s never resigned to his fate that he’s going to be here all day more than anything but at least he gets to hear Primrose talk about his experiences first hand.

“So how often do you all do this?”

Primrose shrugs. “There’s always flowers being planted for Ambrosia, it’s a bit like making jam but the cultivation can take a while, same with the coffee seeds that Beanny uses to make their coffee.”

“Good to know,” he replies. “Still, quite a pain when accounting for how many different flowers you’re growing at once.”

“It could be worse.”

Rather, it can always be worse by all accounts but in Ashes’ point of view, in Burrowgatory there isn’t much further that one can dig. No really.

Now, he has to swap what flowers he’s planting while Primrose instructs him where the flowers should go. Ashes thinks that he can plant his own plants once he goes back. Even milkweed is something that can be planted, or maybe rice, if he puts his mind into it.

For now, his mind can wander even for a bit as he turns to Primrose.

“So, I was wondering what you all feel about being in Burrowgatory? It’s not exactly, how do I put it... The expected place with how some of your brethren act,” he asks as he sets another seed on the ground.

Primrose’s expression is unreadable.

“It could be worse,” the Cherubun eventually replies, which really isn’t much of an answer. “I like some of you lot, not all of you – obviously – but there could be more awful downstairs neighbors.”

That gets a snort out of Ashes. “That’s quite a low bar to clear.”

“I’ll take anything above troublemakers, and at most I would say that most of us Cherubuns are either naive or too stubborn.”

“I’m more likely to believe the latter statement,” Ashes points out as he covers one of the flower seeds up. At this point he’s not sure how many he’s done but really wonders how Cherubuns even keep up with this.

Rumor has it that more have been landing down at Burrowgatory (literally) and keeping up with that growing demand has got to be hard no matter how orderly everything is kept.

“Right, and how have you been checking on the newcomers to Burrowgatory? They can’t be easy to find, at least some of them.”

Primrose scoffs. “Tell me about it. Some of them are like trying to find a needle in a haystack and I haven’t even seen some of them before–”

That does not sound fun.

“And it doesn’t help that we don’t have anything like the Church of Sulfur to handle newcomers because almost no one announces their presence when they arrive,” Primrose continues. “It means that I have to be ready at any point. Though, it really doesn’t help with how many Succubuns insist on checking out the Statue of Patience–”

“I think most of us are praying to get lucky. It’s like gambling,” Ashes points out as he finally buries the last flower seed into the ground. “Maybe you should talk to Angora.”

Primrose blinks. “Hoping to be blessed by Patience is nothing like gambling–”

“Yeah, but you only lose if you stop so really I think it’s quite similar.”

A beat.

“I can’t argue against that.”

Ashes thinks he can get used to this, planting flowers aside. He’s learning quite a bit in regards to the Heavenly Embassy and a bit about Cherubuns. He hopes that this whole plan is worth it at the end, really.