What's Good; What's Left - pt vi

Vesta headed up to the Embassy early again the next day. She had mustered the courage to schedule a new appointment with Ponder, but he couldn’t take her at their usual time. Primrose had invited her to help process the ambrosia, and while she had implied she’d be arriving later in the day, she figured he wouldn’t mind if she came early.

Of course, she was right. Primrose was in his home with the ambrosia flowers strewn about his counter. They were sorted into three piles: stems, petals, and leaves, ready to be processed. That was as far as he’d wanted to go before Vesta had arrived; he knew how much this project meant to her. She didn’t speak much on it with him, but he could tell that some sort of weight had been lifted over the course of the last few weeks.

When she knocked at the door, he ushered her in with enthusiasm. He guided her over toward the kitchen, and promptly began instructing her on how each piece of the flower should be used.

“Let’s begin the process of drying the leaves,” Primrose said, following his lengthy explanation.

“Let’s,” said Vesta, who had started to tune out and wasn’t quite sure what the last thing he said was.

Her eyes widened as he procured the largest tome she had ever laid eyes on from a shelf otherwise decorated by cookbooks. The thing had to be a minimum of five thousand pages, and was wide and long to boot.

“Of course,” he said, his voice straining from the effort of heaving the behemoth onto the counter, “we can’t really dry them instantaneously– I have a rather large book that I press them in for a week or so.”

“I can see that,” she said. “What kind of book is it?”

“I’m not sure– I’ve never read it.” Primrose used all his effort to not drop the thing. “It’s mostly utilitarian.”

“Hm.”

Primrose showed her how he pressed the leaves with a chunk of pages for space (as it turns out, the pages were also extremely thin! Who had the patience to write this?). Otherwise, the pages and leaves got all stuck together. It was a recipe for disaster– but one that he had, fortunately, learned before falling; before his resources had become scarce.

“Did you bring this book with you when you fell?” Vesta asked.

“Heavens, no! It’s so heavy, I would have fallen through the clouds,” Primrose replied, arranging the leaves as efficiently as possible. “We used a series of encyclopediae in the Meadow. We used to have a lot more…” He looked dismayed for a moment, but then straightened up. “Oh, well. I’m certain that, within a few years, we’ll have gardens as plentiful as we used to.”

Vesta nodded.

“Let’s switch places,” Primrose said, moving out of the way so Vesta could arrange a few pages.

Before too long, that part of the process was finished.

“Next, we’ll be scraping the stems,” he said. “Unfortunately, I no longer have access to a centrifuge, so we have to do this by hand.” He put on a pair of disposable plastic gloves, and offered a pair to Vesta. “The sap will stain your hands, so I find it’s easier to wear these.”

Vesta nodded and put them on. Primrose gave her a demonstration on how to scrape the sap from out of the stems, and once he felt she had a good grasp, left her to her devices.

“Can’t you find sap in leaves, too?” she asked.

“This is a more efficient way to use the whole flower,” Primrose answered. “The leaves don’t hold as much; furthermore, they have a natural sweetness to them, which makes them good for grinding into a powder. The stems– and sap– are much more bitter, but once refined into syrup, provide a very unique depth of flavour.”

Vesta nodded.

Scraping the stems took longer than she expected– but by the time they finished, they had a sizable bowl of sap.

“Now, we’ll set this to boil while we tend to the petals,” he said. He procured a large pot from his cupboard.

“Do you need a pot that big?” Vesta asked.

He looked down at it. “I… suppose not.” He turned around and put it back, before taking one that was of a more appropriate size. “I’m used to working with larger batches. Sometimes, we’d need two or three pots that size. Now, this… this is all that’s left.”

Vesta offered him a soft smile, and delicately took the new pot from him.

“That only means we have to cherish it all the more,” she said. “We haven’t lost anything.”

Primrose returned her expression, and nodded. “You’re right. I’m just… sentimental.”

“Believe me, I understand.”

They scraped half the sap from the bowl into the pot, and set it to boil.

“Let’s move onto the petals,” Primrose said.

The pair headed back over to the counter.

“For now, I only want to mash them,” he told her. “We’ll just add these petals to a mortar with some water, and grind them down into a pulp.”

Vesta nodded. Primrose procured two mortars, and they each got to work.

It was harder work than she was expecting– and Primrose was strangely quiet the entire time. She didn’t say anything herself, though; she liked the quiet.

By the time they finished, it was almost noon, and her arms hurt. She’d switched back and forth a few times to try to alleviate it, but it hadn’t mattered much in the end. She noticed that Primrose was still quiet, as he made his way over to the stove. He stirred idly at the sap for a moment, and then added the half they hadn’t used.

“I can finish up,” he said. “You have something to do this afternoon, don’t you?”

“I do,” Vesta replied. 

She hesitated, though– she could tell something was wrong. She didn’t know whether she should touch on it, or whether he wanted to be left alone. After a quick mental debate, she decided that the worst that could happen was that he wouldn’t tell her. She could live with that.

“What’s the matter?” she asked.

“It’s… nothing,” he replied. “I know how you feel about the Meadow. I’m just reminiscing.”

“Alright,” she said. “Well-”

“I just can’t believe how quickly we got through this ambrosia,” he continued. “It used to take weeks to process it all– with a full team working all day. The two of us have finished it all in one morning. I don’t mean to sound as though I don’t cherish what’s left, I just… I can’t believe this is everything.”

Vesta tried to think about what she could say or do to comfort him, but it all felt shallow. None of it really expressed properly that she really, truly understood where he was coming from; and even though she did not miss the Meadow and he clearly did, she’d felt exactly what he was feeling.

“I’m glad we got to do this,” she finally said.

Primrose nodded. “Me too.”

Vesta sat back in a familiar chair in a familiar office, feeling a bit weird about being there on that day and at that time. She sat up straight, a bit nervous to see Ponder again. It had only been a little over two weeks, but she felt different. She was ready to talk about the Meadow– but first, she wanted to talk about her experience growing ambrosia.

“We finished that project today,” she said. “I had to go, so I couldn’t help finish the sap, but I finally learned how to process ambrosia.”

“That’s great!” Ponder said. “Did you get to take any with you?”

“I… didn’t think of that,” she replied.

“Next time?”

Vesta nodded. “Next time.”

“So, what did you want to talk about?” Ponder asked. He clicked his pen, ready to jot notes on his yellow notepad.

“I… I wanted to talk about the Meadow,” she answered.

“Great!”

“First, I want to clarify something: I don’t regret falling. I’ve never regretted falling. It was the right thing– the only thing– for me to do. I also don’t feel bad for hating it there.” She took a deep breath.

“Do you feel bad about something?” Ponder asked.

“Yes, but that’s not… quite what I’m trying to articulate.” She searched her mind for the right words. “I don’t… I wasn’t happy there. I didn’t like anything there. I don’t miss it.” She paused again. “But… working with the Embassy, making ambrosia, doing deliveries… I did like all of that. I feel as though… I feel as though there is a sentiment of you never knew what you had until it was gone, but… I’m not sure I ever had it in the first place. Does that make sense?”

Ponder nodded slowly, because while what she said made sense, it also contradicted some of the other things she’d said in the past.

“The last time you spoke, you said that you were fixated on a particular phrase: this is all that’s left,” he said. “Do you have any more insight on what that means to you now?”

Vesta thought for a moment.

“I think… I think it felt like a threat, at the time,” she replied carefully. “It felt like a warning. I hated the Meadow, so while I was first starting to engage with the Embassy, I… it…” She trailed off.

“It felt like you were just going back?” he offered.

“Yes,” she said, “sort of. Not so much literally, but I think… I think I was afraid. I don’t really know why. Maybe losing a part of myself? Or maybe…” Her eyes flitted to the side as she thought. “Maybe I was afraid of regretting my choice. So when my mind told me, this is all that’s left, I…” She frowned. She was not articulating herself well at all.

“Let me try again,” she said. “I think I was afraid of regretting my choice to fall, so I’ve spent all my time in Burrowgatory avoiding the Embassy.”

Ponder nodded.

“When I finally went, I helped Primrose plant an ambrosia flower seed,” she continued, “and that was the first time I had that thought. I think… maybe I misinterpreted it. As soon as I had the thought, I went, mentally, up in arms. I… I didn’t want to care, I think. I really, really, didn’t. Who I was, what I did, up in the Meadow shouldn’t matter, because I have the chance to be someone new in Burrowgatory. Well, not… Not new. I never wanted to be new, or different– I wanted…” She frowned, her words failing her once more.

“A clean slate?” Ponder offered.

“No– I just wanted… all I want is to be.” The words startled her as they came out of her mouth. She had finally come to the eye of the storm; she had found the truth for which she had longed, but never knew how to seek. “And- and coming to Burrowgatory… now I can.”

Ponder nodded again. “So, falling, coming to Burrowgatory, really seems to have given you a safe space to explore topics that you didn’t like otherwise.”

Vesta nodded. “I think that there’s a difference between gardening because it’s one of three things to do that you won’t be judged for, and gardening because you’re helping a friend; or even to help preserve a culture.”

“That is definitely true!” Ponder couldn’t resist the smile that came across his face. He was so proud of the progress Vesta had made– he was glad that she had decided to open up.

They continued to talk for the rest of the hour. Vesta still nervously avoided some topics, but promised to talk about them in the future. She had only just started feeling comfortable even thinking about the Meadow-- she wasn't necessarily ready to dive right in. For that session, she really wanted to focus on expressing how she felt while cultivating the ambrosia. She really wanted to focus on what was good about what was left.