Ryn of Avonside

Catherine

Ryn was in my grove for once! We were both sitting cross legged on the grass of my island as the ocean breeze tugged gently at our hair and leaves. Yeah, since we were alone and there were no pesky humans to stare at us, we’d gone plant mode.

My mage-sister’s magenta flowers shone like jewels in the sunlight, distracting me with their colour. Meanwhile, I was all dark bronze vines that wove around my limbs and through my hair. My leaves were a lighter shade of the same colour, while my flowers were a vibrant orange, the colour of a campfire at night.

I was a little jealous of Ryn’s colouration, to be honest. She was so beautiful, both in form and in the way her smile lit up whatever room she was in. Funny thing was that she didn’t realise it, she just kept on going like she was a normal person. Meanwhile, everyone else treated her like a particularly down to earth and personable goddess.

By contrast, I just looked like a nerd that had been shoved under a buffing wheel for an hour. Shiny, but my glasses were still massive circles on my face and I was still shy and hesitant. I didn’t radiate power and beauty like her.

Well, either that or I just really looked up to her. I mean, nobody had outright said that stuff, so maybe I was just alone in my thoughts.

“You need to change this part, I think?” Ryn said uncertainly, drawing me back out of my head and into the conversation. A while back, Ryn had designed a spell that gave us a visual aid to create spells. A sort of holographic workspace like Tony Stark had in the iron man movies.

Concentrating on the task at hand, I focused my attention on where she was pointing. Something was wrong with the roots?

We were working on the T producing ginseng plant, and so far we’d managed to do some fairly basic stuff, like making it grow faster because ginseng took literally years to grow. Sadly, when it came to the biochemistry stuff, we were stumped.

Ryn gave a long groan and began to spin the holographic display with an idle finger. “It’s crazy how complicated it is to do things at this micro scale. I had an easier time creating gravity defying energy daggers, for crying out loud.”

“I guess this is why the ring mages don’t really do this stuff often,” I mused. “We have basic scientific knowledge from high school and we’re still stumped. I can’t even imagine a mage native to the ring trying to do this shit. I guess we need to go and ask for help from the Avonsiders.”

"Probably," she agreed, and followed up with a wry smile. "Hopefully they’re willing to help. I think we intimidate them."

“Just a little,” I said, surprising myself with a giggle. Goodness, it was very strange when I did something incredibly feminine like that. I couldn’t tell if it was my new body causing it or just that I was allowing myself to express my previously hidden femininity.

A hand came down on top of my head, Ryn smiling behind it. “Cutie,” she accused, fluffing my hair again. She liked doing that. I think it was to assert her tallness.

“Let’s go find that one lady who was really excited about plant magic,” I grumbled, standing up and turning before she could see my heating cheeks.

“After you,” she laughed.

****

Professor Rivas was the head of the horticultural department, and she was somewhat terrifying, despite her size. She was one of those people who you could tell was immensely intelligent without her even opening her mouth.

We found her in a small laboratory garden behind her department, on her hands and knees, hands covered in soil. She was frowning down at a sapling that had only barely pushed through the earth. A quick magical inspection revealed the plant to be a modified apricot tree, but it wasn’t doing so well.

“Professor,” Ryn greeted her, coming to a stop with an amicable smile. “What’s the problem here?”

“Rynadria,” the woman said, standing and wiping her hands on her work trousers. “What a pleasant surprise. This is an apricot, specifically one from earth. It was previously a snack eaten by someone in our office, but now it is a conundrum.”

“Yeah, little buddy isn’t doing so well, huh?” Ryn observed, crouching down to touch the floppy little wannabe tree. To Rivas, she asked, “What’s the problem?”

“We don’t know,” the older woman shrugged helplessly. “Originally, we could grow plants that originate from earth. Everything was fine, but in the last month or so they’ve all been dying off and we can’t figure out why. No detectable pathogens, the soil appears to be good. Nothing should be wrong, and yet… this sapling is dying.”

“How about a trade then?” Ryn asked with her characteristic cheeky grin. “We help you with this, and you help us with our problem.”

The small indian woman narrowed her eyes at us, considering. “And just what problem is it that you are having?”

“This,” my sister said with a flourish of her hand, producing the holographic spellworking tool thingy. We really needed a name for it. Ryn was good with pageantry though, she’d probably think one up soon enough.

The Professor hid her surprise quickly, but you could see the keen interest within her dark eyes. “This is…?”

“It’s a spell,” Ryn said with a grin. “Or rather, a blueprint for a plant that under normal circumstances would become a spell. In this case though, it is just a modified ginseng plant.”

Rivas nodded and stepped closer, turning her head this way and that to get a look at the hologram. “This is remarkable. What are you intending to use this for?”

“Testosterone,” I said quietly. “There are people here who can’t produce it themselves, but need it. We’re planning to do the same with estrogen and oranges.”

“I see, and you need my help with that?” she asked, although her tone implied it was more of a statement.

“Yup,” Ryn said with a nod.

“Well, that is definitely within my realm of knowledge. Follow me, I’ll need the help of some references but I’m sure we can manage something,” Professor Rivas replied with a happy smile. “Hell, I might even throw in some designs for other commonly needed compounds, if we can have a few to grow. I’ve been waiting for a chance to work with the both of you.”

****

The professor was true to her word. Together, the three of us sketched out what we needed, then went through the various methods that we as mages could use to modify the plant. With the goals set and the tools laid out on the metaphorical table, we got to work.

It was complicated, intense, and tiring… and I loved it. It was so interesting the way plants did things at a cellular level. I mean, us humans and stuff did things the same way, but we were talking about plants here. Protein folding made my head hurt, but that was probably more because my brain had turned into a vacuum cleaner for all the knowledge that Rivas was dropping. Damn she was smart!

The ginseng was relatively simple in the end, once we had Rivas’ help. A little bit of messing around with the process and we had what we wanted. She even showed us how to get the plant to store it all in the roots so people could make tea and other things with it.

The estrogen producing orange tree proved much more difficult, but we got through that one too in the end. We also moved on to creating more complex trees for stuff like ibuprofen.

Once the two hormone plant plans were finished, Ryn split off to work on the earth-original plants and their weird dying problem. I had no idea how that turned out, I left while she was still grumbling and frowning over the small sapling.

I was off to find Troy and have him test out the new ginseng!

The journey into the Garden and then into Ryn’s grove took a little while, and when I arrived at what we were calling Eleos town, I stopped to gawk. They had really been busy!

Radiating out from a circular central plaza were four cobblestone roads, one leading to the lake, the other towards the entrance to the grove and another up towards Ryn’s inner plateau. The fourth one led towards a growing forest that would one day be the home of wild deer. So far there were only a few buildings finished.

One was the barracks, although it felt a bit weird to call it that now since Ryn had convinced Troy to give each recruit their own room. The next was the workshop, a large building where Bray ruled supreme. Last I’d seen him was like three whole days ago, which was coincidentally the same time that the forge was finished. I guess he was having fun, considering what I knew of him. We hadn’t really spoken properly yet, so… yeah.

The third building that had been finished was the storehouse, which was packed to the rafters with materials for building and food. Kind of crazy how much they had managed to do. Ryn’s buns were industrious, that’s for sure.

I found Troy in the dusty area that had been cleared of grass and that Troy had dubbed, the training area. He was creative like that.

Ginseng in hand, I was about to approach when my brain processed what my eyes were rather frantically reporting. Troy… he had the buns lined up. Oh my god, he was training a contingent of buns! There must have been like fifty twitching noses, each one watching with unnerving concentration as Troy went through some basic polearm moves.

When he was done miming out a blocking action, the buns all picked up their little spears and began to copy what he’d done. It was the most terrifying and adorable thing I’d ever seen.

“Where are the uh… human recruits?” I asked when I stepped up next to Troy.

Glancing sideways at me, I saw the corner of his mouth quirk in amusement. “They are running.”

“Oh, okay,” I replied dumbly, still marvelling at the bunnies with their little wooden training spears. “You know, I really don’t miss this.”

“Should I get you running too?” he teased, looking down at me.

“Not if you want a regular supply of this,” I pouted, holding up the bag of ginseng for him to see inside it. “We got it done. Now all you have to do is learn how to make tea with it.”

Relief flooded his expression in a wave, and he reached down to gently take the bag from me. “Thank you, Cate. Thank you so much. Seriously.”

I gave him a big grin. “Anytime, Troy. I’ll make sure to keep you stocked. Ryn says your dose should be a chunk about the size of the end segment of your pinky finger.”

“Life saver,” he sighed, breaking off a small chunk and popping it in his mouth. “Literally.”