Green Thumb [2430-1-2 Thur 1:00 pm]

[Persephone Ruspoli]

"And now we just put them under the sunlamp." She picked up her own pot, waiting for Skye to pick up hers, and lead her over to one of the larger lamps in the greenhouse. There was plenty of room underneath, and she set her pot on the ledge. Then after a moment, she dialled down the brightness a little. You didn't want too much heat, or it would just dry the dirt and the seeds wouldn't sprout at all.

"And that's it." She told Skye once she placed her pot down. "Now we just have to wait for them to grow. They'll drink the water and eat the soil, and when they've got their roots pushing into the dirt, they'll stick their heads on out and look for sunlight and carbon dioxide to eat. That'll be in five or six days time."

It would be sooner, but that would give her enough time to get other seedlings going in case something went wrong with these ones. She was going to make sure that when Persephone took her plants home, they were alive and able to grow.

[Skye Thompson]

The word “sunlamp” was unfamiliar to Skye, but she decided not to ask about it just now. She’d already asked too many questions today. Besides she could pretty much guess what the word meant. As she stood up and followed Persephone, Skye glanced over he shoulder at Titus. He wasn’t there. For a moment she panicked. Where was he? What had happened? Then she saw him through the glass walls of the greenhouse, standing a few feet away from the door. Skye sighed with relief. He’d just gone outside.

Shaking her head, she turned her attention back to Persephone. Stupid girl. This is the Top. Things like that just don’t happen here. Persephone placed her pot under what looked like a much newer, shinier version of street lamps in the Below. Of course, this was a sunlamp. Skye bent forward and placed her pot next to Persephone’s. She stared at the dirt expectantly. Soon there would be beautiful, green, living things growing right up from the pot in front of her. But Persephone’s next words surprised Skye. Five or six days? It would take the plants that long to just grow up out of the soil? “Wow.” She murmured, “Plants grow really slow.”

[Persephone Ruspoli]

Persephone laughed good-naturedly, amused by Skye's impatience. "A little, yeah, but they're still faster than humans. In six days, you'll have a sprout, and in three weeks, a flower. With a human, you'd be eight months away from anything sprouting, much less flowering."

Titus was gone. He'd lasted longer than she expected, which was nice. He was really putting forth an effort for Skye, and Persephone appreciated that. The girl deserved a good brother, and while Titus had never been very good at being good, at least he was trying. She smiled a little to herself as she looked at him, then glanced back at Skye, "Go ahead and look at the plants if you want. There's nothing dangerous in here, so you can touch any of them."

[Skye Thompson]

Skye joined in with Persephone’s laughter, thought she didn’t know why. Partially, it was because she didn’t want to admit that deep down, she knew why she was so impatient for five days to pass. She still wasn’t entirely sure she’d be in the Top that long. But eight months was even longer. Skye wasn’t sure exactly how many days to a month, but she knew it was a long time. That meant it took eight long times for a human to sprout. Then again, humans didn’t “sprout,” they were born. Skye had seen babies delivered in the Below but she’d never realized it took such a very long time. But of course, there were a lot of things she hadn’t realized before.

Persephone’s next comment made her feel both excited and wary. There were hundreds of bright, green, living plants in here, just waiting for her to explore. On the other hand, she had never realized plants could be dangerous. She tilted her head at Persephone. “How can there be dangerous plants if plants don’t move?” As she asked the question, Skye turned to the plant in front of her. It’s stem and leaves were thin and spindly, but from it’s top burst several bright red shapes. Skye reached out and touched them gently, with a feeling of awe. “Are these flowers?” She asked softly, not really knowing or caring if Persephone heard the second question.

[Persephone Ruspoli]

"Some of them are poisonous." Persephone explained, more than happy to talk about plants. "In the wild, they had to find a way to keep from being eaten by herbivores, so some of them evolved to be poisonous. Most of them are fine to touch, as long as you don't eat the leaves or fruit, but some plants are deadly to the touch. Others smell bad."

She found her geraniums and tapped them. A second later, a noxious smell suddenly appeared in the greenhouse. It wasn't awful, but it was unpleasant, and Persephone grinned at Skye. "They've got all sorts of defense mechanisms. Just because they look pretty doesn't mean they can't fight back."

[Skye Thompson]

Still focused on the flower, Skye only heard part of what Persephone was saying. Thus she was rather surprised when a strange smell filled the greenhouse. Unlike anything she had so far experienced in the Top, it was rather unpleasant. Skye looked up at Persephone, confused. "What's that? Is it coming from the flowers?"

Persephone's next words partially answered her question, but they also made her nod. Yes, there were many things in the world that looked pretty, but could also be very dangerous. Somehow, however, it frightened her to find an example of such in the Top. Those things were not supposed to happen here. This was the Top. It was safe here. She was safe here. Wasn't she? Suddenly she felt frightened, exposed. Trying to force the panic away from herself Skye turned to Persephone and tried to think of something to say. "Ummm..." she murmured, "Ummm... How... How long did you live in the Below?"

[Persephone Ruspoli]

The Below? Well, she should have seen that one coming. Skye had asked about most everything else. The only thing left on the list was how Persephone and Titus knew one another. That one was going to be an... well, an interesting conversation.

"Well... I lived there about eight years total, but those were spread out over fourteen years." Persephone smiled, thinking about it. "Every fall, my father would come to fetch me and I'd go with him to the Below and live there for six months, and then in Spring, my mother would fetch me and bring me back to the Top."

Some of her earliest memories were riding on her father's shoulders as they went out into the Below, wearing dirty looking clothes and soot on their cheeks to disguise the healthy pink glow. She'd seen so many things down there: the hoverbike races, the old freeways where the Public Transit Armed Vehicles took people here and there around the globe, gangs made up of girls only a little older than she was. There had always been something new for her father to show her, though he still hid the darkest sides from her until she was an adult.

Persephone thought about joking about how her name wasn't an accident, but Skye probably didn't know the old myths. That would just confuse her even more. So she brushed it aside and carried on. "It was nice. I got so spend so much time with both parents, and it was always an adventure to go into the Below. It wasn't until I was older that I realized that it wasn't an adventure for all the other children I saw."

[Skye Thompson]

An adventure. Life in the Below had been far from that. In fact, it had been just that, life. Not adventure, not a story, real, to real. Persephone’s experience in the Below was an unusual one, perhaps truly unique. Her life had been similar to Skye’s in many ways. She had lived in the same place. She had seen the same things. Yet there was one small difference that changed everything. Persephone had been safe. She’d never gotten caught in the middle of a fist fight, or been beaten by her father. She had never wondered if she was going to starve to death or freeze from the cold. Persephone hadn’t lived in the Below. She had observed life there from the safety of her father’s arms. A father who loved her.

Unfair as she new it was, Skye found herself a little angry with her friend. She tried to fight down the feeling, but it wouldn’t go away. “No. It wasn’t an adventure at all. It was torture, actually.” Skye’s voice came out hard, and a little louder than she’d meant it to be. This conversation wasn’t really helping to distract her from her earlier thoughts.

[Persephone Ruspoli]

It wasn't the first time someone had been angry at Persephone for learning about her life. Persephone didn't blame people for that reaction. She'd been a tourist where they'd actually had to live there, day in and day out, barely surviving. Add in an abusive father, and whatever other nasty things that Skye had lived through, and it was really a wonder that Skye hadn't hauled off and hit Persephone.

Still, the emotion caught her off-guard. There seemed to be something else behind it besides the usual anger. Maybe all the excitement had stressed her out. That seemed likely, especially if Skye was used to things being much slower. "Skye, do you want to sit down? I can get you a glass of water."

[Skye Thompson]

As quickly as it had come, Skye’s anger faded. What was she thinking, getting mad at Persephone, of all people, who had shown her so much, done so much for her? And what if Persephone told Titus that Skye had been acting up? What if Titus decided she wasn’t worth the effort and threw her back down into the Below? But Persephone wouldn’t do that. Which was all the more reason why it wasn’t fair of Skye to be angry with her. But all the same she couldn’t help but feel a hint of jealousy.

Skye sat back down on the bench and nodded. “Yeah. Thanks.” Yet she reached out for Persephone’s arm, not wanting her to leave. “Persephone, is… is this what it’s like… to have a sister?” Skye didn’t know why she said it. Her voice was so quiet, she couldn’t even be sure Persephone had heard her. And of course, how was Persephone supposed to know what it was like to have a sister? To the best of Skye’s knowledge she didn’t have one.

All Skye knew was that she desperately wanted an answer to that question. She’d never had a sister, but she’d heard that sisters fought a lot, got jealous of each other, the way she was jealous of Persephone. Strange though, that she’d never felt that emotion in relation to her brother Adrian. Maybe that was because Adrian hadn’t had anything for her to envy.

Or maybe it was because Adrian hadn’t been her brother, not really. Biologically he had been, but in the real and true sense of the word, he had been her father. Where did that leave her real father, Jack Thompson? Skye already knew what he was, she had known for a very long time. He was a monster, an insane creature that had clawed it’s way up into her life. In her heart, Adrian was her father. So why couldn’t Persephone be her sister?

[Persephone Ruspoli]

"Well... I'm not sure. I don't have a sister to judge it by." She told Skye, sitting beside her on the bench. "But most sisters I've seen are like this. Maybe with a little more fighting, but otherwise pretty close." Actually, a lot more fighting, but then again, most of the girls she knew with sisters would have defended them to the death, even as they talked about how much they hated them. Love made you take care of a person even when you couldn't stand them.

It reminded her of playing with other girls when she was little, pledging to be best friends and sisters until the end of time. Persephone smiled at Skye, feeling that burst of nostalgia warm her heart. "I'd love to be your sister, if you're willing to be mine."

[Skye Thompson]

Persephone’s answer was very similar to what Skye had expected it to be, although the part about fighting more often surprised her. She smiled at Persephone, eager to join together in a bond even more everlasting than the one that had come before it. Yet suddenly, she wasn’t so sure. If she became Persephone’s sister, would that mean they fought more? Would Skye’s earlier burst of anger begin to manifest itself into real, solid hatred and spite? The thought frightened her. She never gotten this angry at someone she cared about before.

At her father, who had hurt her, at her mother, who had abandoned her, yes. But never in the sixteen years of her life could she remember feeling such anger at someone like Adrian, someone she really knew and trusted. But then again, she didn’t really know Persephone, they had only met the day before.

Had it really been such a short space of time? Well, if in that time she could learn to trust Persephone, to feel like she knew her, then why couldn’t she make sure they didn’t fight? Skye thought back her earlier realization. There was no fate. Nothing came because it was deserved. There was only what happened and what didn’t happen, what people chose and what they didn’t choose. She would simply choose not to fight with Persephone. “Yes, I do want to be your sister. I’m more than willing, as long as… as long as when we become sister’s it doesn’t mean we stop being friends.”

[Persephone Ruspoli]

"Of course." She hand a hand over Skye's hair, smiling at her. It was funny how quickly she'd grown so protective of Titus' sister. But Persephone couldn't help herself. She'd always let her emotions get in the way of everything. "I'm pretty sure we can be both."

Poor Skye. What a roller coaster her emotions had been on lately. It only strengthened Persephone's resolve to make sure she didn't get so stressed out. She would have to talk to Titus about that and make sure she didn't do too much, not until she was ready for it.

"Come on." Persephone stood up and offered Skye a hand, "Let's go inside. We can get something to drink and relax."

[Skye Thompson]

Warmth spread through Skye’s body from the place where Persephone had touched her hair, making her feel blissfully at ease. Yet at the same time there were dark emotions swirling inside her that she couldn’t even begin to describe. It was a feeling part anger, part sadness, part fear, and part giddy, reckless excitement. Though mostly, it was sheer and utter disbelief. Skye wasn’t sure where it came from, all she knew was that it had been building inside her since she’d first stepped inside that elevator which had taken her to the Top. She hoped it wasn’t going to overflow. A month ago she would have been sure she could control and hide this emotion, but now she wasn’t so sure. Then again, she wouldn’t have had this emotion a month ago.

Nodding, Skye stood up, ready to follow Persephone back inside. “Yes, that would be nice. I’d like that.” As she headed for the door she glanced at Titus, but figured that he’d just come if he wanted to. She didn’t want to disturb him. He was probably thinking about something important. People in the Top, she’d been told, often did that.

[Persephone Ruspoli]

Something more restful would be good for Skye. Maybe they could watch another movie, or just talk. There were plenty of things that could be done to keep her mind off of whatever was eating at Skye, and to keep her from having a breakdown.

Titus was standing off to the side when they exited the greenhouse, staring off into the distance. He looked thoughtful, but Persephone knew what that expression really meant. That was the thing about dating an assassin. You quickly learned that those wonderful thoughtful expressions were just them trying to decide where the best location to sit with a sniper rifle would be.

"Titus?" She called out to him, "We're headed inside for drinks. If you're not coming in, would you like me to send something up?"