Pamela "Ivy" Isley Twenty-three *Part horticulture enthusiast *Part mad scientist *Part femme fatale *Part eco-activist ALL POISON {Closed RP blog for Novus Academy group.}
Ivy couldn’t take it any more. Everything about this place was suffocating her, and the fast-approaching autumn weather did nothing to help her state of mind. Who was anyone kidding? She didn’t belong here. She had a different agenda from anyone there, and any way she looked at the situation, staying in this place wasn’t going to further it. It was just another cell; another cage. She had her plants this time, yes, and she didn’t take that for granted...but she wasn’t free.
Before she even made a conscious decision, she had already bought plane tickets: a commercial flight to get her out of the country, and a small charter to get her to the remote island she’d been eyeing for months now. Right off the coast of Panama; small and tropical. Just what she wanted. Peace. Freedom.
There was, however, one fault in her plan.
The night she left, she came upon her greenhouse with the small bag of clothes she had packed in haste. Her plants - her friends, her children - had grown so big since their initial sprouts. And there were so many of them. The sight made Ivy’s heart swell and sink at the same time.
“I’m sorry, darlings...” she whispered with every fiber of her body. “I can’t take you with me.” The pain was almost too much to bear. When the agents found out she had slipped right out from under their thumb, there was no doubt in her mind they would just hack the entire greenhouse to pieces and find some alternative use for the space. The thought made her nauseous. What kind of mother was she to run away and leave her children defenseless against her captors?
But...
Breath almost left her as the realization formed in her head. She didn’t have to leave them defenseless. Focusing on the plant closest to her, she put out her hands and coaxed it to grow. The roots began to thicken and tug up, unfurling and lightly crackling with new growth.
“Listen to me...all of you. Each and every one of you are stronger than anyone else on this campus. Some of you came before them, and all of you will outlive them. I want you to show them...how strong you really are.”
At this point, her words and brainwaves were spreading out to the entirety of the greenhouse. She felt positively ethereal. And the plants were responding; growing and snaking and bulging out of whatever container they were planted in. Several of them dwarfed Ivy completely after only a minute. She could hear the groan of the glass begin to break with the sheer volume of pressure against it. The plants became almost unrecognizable due to their size, snapping and writhing, but Ivy kept urging them. Bigger. Stronger.
“Grow, darlings...be free...don’t let them hurt you. Show them your strength. Mother Nature is a force to be reckoned with.”
When Ivy walked out of the thicket of leaves and broken windows that was left of the greenhouse, almost the entire campus looked like a single, unanimous organism, pulsing with vines and flowers that covered and weaved through the buildings. Stray bricks littered the ground. Pipe systems were uncovered and sprayed like fountains. Spores floated through the air like snowflakes, and Ivy could hear them cry out, in tiny little voices, More! More! More!
“I wish I’d known right from the start / That I was dancing with the dark / You better run, run, run, run~” Patsy bounced around as she danced in the bathroom, singing loudly in the echo given by the tile. “Run Devil, run, run, Devil, run run~”
Ivy entered the girl’s room with caution and a raised eyebrow. “Should I come back at another time...?”
It wasn’t that Phryne didn’t want to be at the academy, although she would have rather been finishing off her degree, she still just wanted to get to know the place. These people were new, the environment was new, she didn’t know what they wanted, she didn’t know what to do.
“That doesn’t sound like the type of insinuation I’d like to be involved with. Surely it is not a far walk, is this place not built around the academy?”
“If the downtown area’s what you’re looking for, you can walk there no problem.” Ivy tossed her hand to indicate the main pathway leading west. “But I assumed you wanted to actually get off campus and head into real town.”
She wasn’t entirely sure just how sincere the other student was being with her words, but something told her it was most likely less rather than more. “I didn’t no, they drove me in. Not that I have a car of my own to bring in.” There was a gentle frown resting on her forehead as she spoke, “I was told I would be able to visit it. Have you any form of transport?”
“No, I don’t. Not while the world continues to run on gasoline.” Ivy sat up a little straighter, subconsciously trying to figure out the girl’s story. The new environment must have really been doing a number on her if she wanted to already get out to town. “But there are plenty of others around here who would probably be more than pleased to give a girl like you a ride.”
“Well, At least you have your greenhouse.” He reached out and after heasitating for a moment, placed his hand on her shoulder. “ And, the tree is healthy so you know that it will survive the winter.” he trailed off for a moment. “Is there anything i … Can I do anything to help?” this being a friend thing was harder than he was expecting.
“I don’t suppose you can turn time back six months?” she proposed dryly before running her fingers through her hair. How long had she been sitting there? Her whole body felt stiff. “No, there’s nothing. I just...have to bear with it.” Ivy brought the leaf to her lips before letting the wind carry it away.
The academy seemed to remind the girl who walked through so much of the convent she was once so used to, despite the many obvious differences. It still felt strange to be back in a place like it, or at least so soon in her life.
All the same Phryne wandered around, not for one second getting lost at a turn, walking through with all the confidence of someone who knew the way.
That was until she stopped the first passerby she saw, “I don’t suppose you know the way to the town do you? Everything just seems to be another turn to the dorms.”
“Now there’s a truly radical thought,” Ivy mused dryly, eyes remaining on her book. “Wonder why that is...” Biting into her apple, she marked her page and glanced up at the girl. “Don’t suppose you brought down any sort of transportation?”
Harley took a step in, dead leaves crunching behind her. She wondered, briefly how this time of year made Ivy feel. The blonde knew that her best friend was really into nature so the fact that everything was dying really had to get to her.
A wicked smile rested on her face when she heard Ivy’s voice. Something about that just made Harley feel more at home, more like herself. Wrapping her arms tightly around Ivy, she let the hug last just a few seconds longer than usual.
“Thank you darling.” Harley slurred out, giving her a soft kiss on the cheek. “You’re looking lovely yourself.”
Ivy’s heart fluttered at the kiss, and she tossed her hair over her shoulder. “Ugh, I doubt it,” was her reflexive response. “I feel like hell. But better now that you’re back.”
She could hear the plant behind her whining with neglect. “Yes, sweetheart, just one second...!” Scooping up the shears, she pruned one last twig at the base of the plant. “There we go. All finished.” With a relaxed smile, she turned back to Harley. “Have you been feeling all right?”
Zatanna nodded, “I guess I can make that exception for you.” She winked playfully and started it up. She did have to fight the urge to take off in a flash, “Hold on.” She called out to her as they zoomed out of the area and into town trying to keep it at a cruise speed. “Ahh I just fee so free on an open road like this.” She sighed.
“If you say so,” Ivy mumbled from the back, clutching Zatanna’s midsection tighter than she cared to admit. All she could think about was the bike suddenly losing balance and both of them skidding against the road in a bloody, gravelly mess.
Tippy suddenly hopped from her lap and darted across the grounds. Doreen watched her for a few seconds then turned back to Ivy, “Winter is definitely not my favorite,” she twitched her tail and looked back at it disdainfully, “Squirrel fur is not made for cold. That’s why they bury their nuts so there’s no need to go out in the cold. Blech.”
She nodded and looked up at the trees, “As far as I can tell, I’m limited to squirrels. Other furry animal dialects are way different,” she was about to describe the one time she had tried to strike up a conversation with a sewer rat but may have accidentally called it fat and then a group of rats and cockroaches decided it was time for Doreen to never go near a manhole cover again… When Tippy bounded back, a pine-cone in her mouth. She stood up on her hind legs on Ivy’s lap, offering the seed to the red-head.
Ivy nodded along. It was interesting information, but didn’t exactly surprise her. Each of her plants had slightly inflections of communicating with her, and animals were far more complex creatures scientifically speaking. She almost smirked at the little squirrel and cradled the pine cone in her hand. “Your little friend is very kind.”
Doreen smiled and sat down cross-legged in the grass across from Ivy, “Tippy-Toes said you looked sad, and she was worried. She also hopes that’s not your favorite leaf but if it is she wants to help you find a new favorite leaf when spring comes.”
The squirrel talked to Doreen again for a minute, then looked back up at Ivy. Doreen nodded and smiled, “She also says.. She has an all-time high record of finding the most nuts that she buried so she is a super-finder squirrel.”
Another chitter from the squirrel.
“She also says it’s a very nice leaf if it is your favorite.”
“It would be too difficult to pick a favorite...but it still doesn’t make it any easier when the time comes...” She huffed a thick sigh. “Spring feels like a millennium away at this point.” Ivy straightened up a bit, careful not to disturb...Tippy-Toes? Was that the actual name?
“So...” she nodded to the girl. “Is it just squirrels or can you understand all animals? Or something in between?”
“Um…” Peggy frowned as she glanced around her desk before noticing a bright red stapler on it. “Oh, here actually.” Giving the woman a smile she held it out to her. “I don’t believe we’ve met.”
“You may have just saved me.” With a gracious sigh, Ivy snatched up the stapler and fastened her papers together with a finite click. “I’m Ivy, and if you haven’t heard about me already, you will soon enough.”
Falcon said nothing as he sat down beside Ivy, instead he watched her for a moment . “ I take it Fall isn’t you favorite time of year. Either that or that leaf was special to you.” it wasn’t judgmental , or patronising, which for falcon was slightly odd.
“I’d say both,” Ivy murmured in response, allowing his presence but not exactly engaging him, either. All leaves were special in her eyes. It took every bee to make a hive, and it took every leaf to make a tree.
Tippy crawled into the girl’s lap and looked up at the sad girl. She looked from the downturned face to the dry leaf, and put a small paw on Ivy’s fingers in an attempt to ease whatever pain she seemed to feel.
Doreen rubbed the back of her head as she approached, “Uhh, sorry, you just seem to have my squirrel,” she offered with a bright smile.
Ivy drew her head back on reflex when there was suddenly a rodent in her lap, but she made no move to push it away either. Especially when it touched her hand as she stroked the dead leaf because, let’s be honest, she had seen weirder things at this school.
