Flower Boys

Keen

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Nov 23, 2016
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((This takes place before the March Virus Event.))

Bags of soil laid about inside Henghai's car, though the reasons why he wasn't too sure of. There were bags in the front, back, and some in the trunk. This all seemed a bit excessive to have so much delivered to some classroom at Starlight Academy, and at such a short notice too. Maybe it was some sort of giant class project, or the person, who called themself Bara, just really liked gardening, but not much else was ordered. There were some standard gardening supplies and plants, but they didn't match the amount of soil that was ordered.

When Henghai parked he once again felt a sudden dread. Bara was supposed to meet him in the parking lot to carry things. Earlier Henghai at least had his husband and son to assist him, but even that was a struggle at times. Assuming they would both being carrying things Henghai animated the plants he wasn't delivering to Bara and had them pick up the gardening supplies. Next he shape-shifted into his cervitaur form and threw a bag of soil over his back—making sure it didn't get in the way of wings—then picked up a bag of soil in his arms. Bara wouldn't have much else to carry now, just some bags of soil and plants. If need be Henghai would just send his plants to do a second pick-up. Now it was just time to wait for Bara to show up.

(( @Kait )
 

Kait

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When Bara realized the time, he ran out of his lab and down to the parking lot. He still looked as impressive and scuplted as usual, but he seemed harried. If one of his most important projects was not at risk, he would have been much more annoyed by his own failure to look his best. All this stress was unbecoming.

The big, buff plant-man hopped out of the door just in time to see Henghai and -

He stopped in his tracks. Anthropomorphic plants? Walking around, carrying things? They looked like Bara did, before he started caring about his appearance and getting better at shifting.

He needed to say something.

"Ah, Mr. Mei Henghai I presume? I'm Dr. Bara. Let me help you with that." He was strong enough to carry the rest. "And may I have your names as well?" he addressed the animated plants.
 

Keen

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Nov 23, 2016
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Henghai wasn't expecting a tall, muscular humanoid plant. It was like looking at his own animated plants, but instead of them still looking like plants with legs and arms, they were instead oddly attractive beings that looked very similar to humans, and could speak. Quickly, he shoved that thought out of his mind, his brown cheeks turning a light yellow. He knew it was okay to admire other men as long as he didn't act on it, but it felt awkward admiring a plant similar to his own creations.

"Ah, yes. You can just call me Henghai, Dr. Bara." He tried to hold back a giggle at that name. Wasn't that a name of some kind of porn genre? More specifically, one featuring large, muscular men? He wondered if that was intentional or just a bad coincidence.

When Bara tried to ask the plants for names Henghai finally let out his giggle. "They're not sentient. They're sort of, uh, robots that are telepathically connected to me. No need to act like they're like you and me."
 

Kait

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"Oh. Alright!"

Bara's disappointment was undetectable. All of his emotional expression was artificial, displayed only through conscious effort. It was hard for him to let go of the hope that he would meet someone like himself - someone who could understand him the way that humans understood each other.

With a perky demeanor, he led Henghai in through a side door. A vine slipped between leaves covering his back, and it moved to hold the door open for Henghai and his 'robots.' "Thank you for coming on such short notice. A growth potion I was working on is doing its job way too well, in case you were wondering. Also, I really like your hair. It's a good look."

Henghai's hair resembled leaves. Bara would have to try emulating that hairstyle sometime.
 

Keen

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Nov 23, 2016
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"A growth potion?" Henghai asked. "What did you intend on using it for?" Using a growth potion for food sounded like a very nice idea, but there was also some controversy about modifying food for it to be bigger or smaller. In his opinion, as long as it was safe and wasn't harmful there shouldn't be any issues. However, how Bara said that it was doing its job too well disturbed Henghai somewhat. What was the potion doing? A paranoid feeling arose in Henghai, making him come up with all sorts of ways things could have gone too well. A growth potion for food probably would end up taking up too much space, but what if someone digested the food? Would it be possible for the food not to digest correctly and just keep growing inside of their body? Perhaps the person would end up growing instead.

Being complimented on his hair by Bara helped soothe him a bit by distracting him. "Oh, thank you. And please, no worries. There hasn't been a lot of business lately. It's nice to finally get out and deliver something," he responded, a slight blush appearing on his cheeks. Those worrisome thoughts still lingered in the back of his mind as he followed Bara. Hopefully, the situation wasn't as gruesome as Henghai imagined, and perhaps he could lend a hand if possible. He didn't have anything else to do later, and he wanted to get himself out more: meet new people, make friends, act like he had a life outside of his family and work.
 

Kait

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Bara smirked when he noticed Henghai's blushing. It was a deliberate response - Bara thought this sort of flirtation made himself more alluring.

"It's for the agricultural district, actually. Some of the magic we use here can break the laws of conservation of matter or energy - or at least they appear to. There are already some farms that do that sort of thing on island."

As he talked, he led Henghai down several flights of stairs. They were in the basement of the building now.

"The growth formula I'm working on would be a cost effective, energy efficient, and environmentally friendly way to increase yields. But I have a couple kinks to work out."
He led them farther down a hallway.

"And of course there would be homunculus testing so we can be sure it's safe to eat what it grows."

It began to occur to him that many people outside of his discipline would find bioalchemy work grotesque, or horrifying and unnatural. So it would probably make Henghai feel better to know that all alchemically modified foods are fed to twitching, non-sentient models of human bodies for the purpose of testing their safety.
 

Keen

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"That reminds me of GMOs. I don't understand the issues surrounding them some people have, I think it would be helpful if used appropriately." Then again, he came from a society where magic was used on food. His understanding of humans and their modified food was probably inaccurate. Whether with magic or science, he still stuck to his feelings that as long as they were used appropriately and weren't harmful in any way, there shouldn't be an issue.

As Henghai followed Bara and listened to him speak, the term "homunculus" interested Henghai. He hardly heard of that word, and mostly just saw it online, doing little research on the topic. He tried to hold himself back from asking, Oh, homunculus, like in that one anime? and instead asked, "How do homunculus work? I've only heard some stuff about them. Don't their bodies still work differently from humans?"
 

Kait

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GMOs. Bara would have laughed, if he did such things reflexively. He had read about that controversy. If only those people knew what farmers did to food on Manta Carlos - their heads would explode!

Instead, he said only: "I think the same way. Though I make my living doing unnatural thibgs to plants, so I might not be the best person to ask." He grinned at Henghai like this was a joke they were both in on.

As for homunculi - "They're models of how humans work. They have everything except a functional brain, so you can do most kinds of animal testing on them wthout hurting anything alive. At least, that's how the ones I work with are made. I know there are some citizens who are tecnhnically homunculi, but they have minds, so they're people. We'd never do any testing on them."

They rounded another corner, and one of the doors farther down the hallway had crisp, brown, shriveled roots extending out of it. Bara ran over to the door and threw it open.

"It broke out of stasis!" he announced, sounding delighted. Inside the room sat a number of bizarre-looking plants and flowers, but what stood out among them was the shriveled bean plant in the center of the room, surrounded by soil and broken ceramics, shriveled light-brown roots spreading across most of the floor. The floor also had a long and deep rectangular hole in it, with pipes for automatic irrigation, but no soil. Some of the other plants were in similar little plots. The room was well lit, and the light appeared to come from a blue, sunny sky where the ceiling and upper half of the walls should be - but there were definitely walls there. It seemed like glass walls separating them from the outside, or perhaps like a painted sky, if paint could give off light.

Bara dropped the soil he was carrying by the door, and he was examining the bean plant, along with a small metal rod that had been in the pot with the plant. He was amazed.
 

Keen

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Nov 23, 2016
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"Where I come from, we also use a lot of magic on our plants. It's the only way to make sure they're available to everyone in all places without them going bad." Earth oricenta were the primary choice for farming, and those farmers also had to make sure that their crops didn't go to waste. They had to make sure their vegetables and fruits were burnt by Fire oricenta, or drowned in water by the Water oricenta. "We have to make sure they aren't easily burnt or soaked. Lots of magical enhancements are involved; it's such a struggle. Now that I'm here I don't use those as much."

The homunculi interested Henghai more than the plant discussion. He got enough of those types of talks at home, particularly when he was teaching Junchi how to run a garden. "Sounds like a more advanced version of my plants then." He patted a nearby one that had the appearance of a sunflower. "I hope to train my magic more so they can become bigger and more developed. They're like chil—" He quickly cut himself off. He already had to explain to people that his plants were real, sentient beings. Comparing them to children could easily be taken as him using child slaves he made.

There was no need for Henghai to attempt to finish up his explanation, Bara was darting towards a door with vines growing all over it in a panic. Henghai followed, yet kept a distance, waiting to see if it was alright for him to get near. He nearly asked if everything was alright, but Bara sounded... happy? Walking closer, as well as his plants, Henghai tried to get a look at what was causing Bara's excitement. He made sure to be careful with not knocking anything over or stepping on anything. "What's going on?"
 

Kait

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"I don't know." Bara's eyes sparkled when he looked back up at Henghai. "But it will be a blast to find out. Unexpected results are my favorite on projects like this."

He got back up and set his bag of soil by the wall. "It's too late for this guy, but I'll find a use for the soil you brought at some point."

He looked at Henghai's entourage again, longing eyes behind the mask. Henghai thought of them as his children. More than almost anything else, Bara wanted to create more of his own kind, and it looked like Henghai had come very close. No sentience, as Henghai had said when they met, but still.

"Since I'm not exactly in a hurry anymore, can you tell me more about your plant-robot-children? It's so rare for me to see anything even remotely similar to myself. I'm very curious about them."
 
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