hollywoodhangar:
“. . . ”
Perhaps the blankness of her expression spells out the thought process she’s having: Her mouth a triangle, her brows high. She almost has this stunned air to her, especially with how quiet she gets while the mind processes the information once, twice and thrice again just to make sure she heard it properly.
“..Y’don’t know what a weed is!?” Mey-Rin’s panicked tone ushers, keeping low as so no one outside of the room can hear her. “You’re the gardener and no one’s explaint it to ya!?” While dumbfounded, the fact alone isn’t surprising. Finnian’s story is one that involved never seeing the sun before - how the bloody hell WOULD HE KNOW WHAT A WEED IS?? How knowledgable in gardening is he if he doesn’t know what a weed is!? Well the garden always looks very lovely so he has to know what he’s doing, but?? But???? BUT?????
“I’ve tried to figure it out but I don’t get it! It just seems to be - I don’t know, like people randomly pick different plants and say it’s a weed. There’s no like. It doesn’t make any sense to me, so I wish people would tell me, oh Finnian get rid of all of these types of plants instead of just giving me a Oh Get Rid Of The Weeds because I don’t know what that is!” Her panic spreads easily, and Finnian is aware of it as his voice gets louder. He tries to be more quiet.
“Like dandelions are a good example, everyone says those are weeds, but don’t they look kind of flowery and pretty.... I think they’re pretty.... And so I think to myself - ok what makes it a weed. It’s a weed because it spreads so well? Dandelions are very resilient, and so, I dunno, it makes sense to me to think of a weed as a plant that is maybe taking resources of other plants? A weed is something taking all the good food and it makes more of itself real easy and takes over the garden?”
“So like, ok, I start thinking. That’s what a weed is, it kills other plants, we don’t want that, we don’t want a plant that will hurt the roses, so okay, get rid of those types of plant. So then I take a look at cuscuta plants, they spread really well, they’re resilient, people call them strangleweeds! Because they strangle out the other flowers, so okay, I get rid of the cuscuta, WHAT HAPPENS, I GET Y-”
Don’t yell. This is supposed to be a secret meeting. Semi secret at least.
“I get yelled at! And there are other plants like that. Morning glories.... plants in the cuscuta family are technically morning glories! And they have all the weed qualities. But I bet if you get rid of the morning glories you’ll get yelled at.... So what I’ve been doing is getting rid of some of them but not all of them and I haven’t gotten yelled at so far... Same with the lilies of the valley, I think everyone likes them but. I get rid of some of them because they. Keep growing and...”
He doesn’t need to share every specific struggle. Don’t ramble. Get to the point.
“So then if you think ok no flower makes it a weed, if a plant has no pretty flower it’s a weed it just. Doesn’t work like that because beautiful flowers have times when they’re not flowering and just ugh. You seem to know what a weed is so explain it to me. I’ve been trying to figure this out for years, and when I get asked for more specific instructions, I just get told get rid of the weeds....”
