secrets between the trees

“Is it really that hard to tie your shoe?” Sebastian said in annoyance. He gestured at the students around them. “We can go around, but we shouldn’t have to. The shortest distance between two points is still a straight line.” The boy knew he was absolutely making more of an issue of this than was socially acceptable, but he hated weaving around people. They already walked slow enough despite their longer legs, so he it was even more annoying when people slowed down in confusion around obstacles. Sebastian snorted in disbelief. “Seriously, a little flower? What type of bleeding heart hippie shit is this?”

“It doesn’t add more than two seconds to take the steps needed to go around me. It’s not like there’s anything blocking you from going around me on either side.” Nicky said, waving his arms out to emphasize all of the empty space around him. “You might not appreciate it, but it’s important to me and I’m sure there are many students whose day could be cheered up by seeing one of the first blooms of the spring. It’s not like we live in the most warm or welcoming place.” Sure, the school did what they could with spells to keep the school liveable. But no matter how much they did, at the end of the day they were living on an island in Alaska. Winters were long, cold, and dark.

“Yeah, I’d clearly be making tall jokes,” Sage pointed out. He did have a point, as giants were quite intimidating, but she knew when to shut up. “You’re welcome. Great, that will be helpful.” Sage thought about his suggestion. It was probably less awkward than carrying him in her hands at least. Or like a baby, which was a freaky picture. Nodding, she replied, “Sure, but don’t scream in my ear. I could hear you from a hundred feet away.” She reached down to grab him around his torso and slowly lift him up like a doll.

“Thank you.” Nicky said, glad that they were able to work something out that allowed him to keep at least a bit of his dignity as he was carried across campus. It was a bit weird to be picked up like this, but he went along with it. “I promise not to blow out your ear drums.” Nicky promised once he had settled himself onto her shoulder. “I’m Nicky, by the way. And I really, really appreciate this. I know I’ve said that, and I probably will continue to say it, but it remains the truth.”

“No, sorry,” Ciara replied, slightly confused. No one just carried around cones, or any sort of empty cylinder either, except maybe reusable water bottles. Oh, so he was protecting the weeds. “It’s just a flower,” she couldn’t help but point out. While she well understood the importance and balance of nature as a biologist, she wouldn’t ever go out of her way to protect something that wasn’t sentient.  “Is it really only the first? The winter is too long up here.” Thankfully the vampire wasn’t much bothered by the cold, but she hated the low sunlight in Alaskan winters and didn’t care much for snow either.

“A flower is never just a flower.” Nicky told her. “Flowers are symbols of hope, and joy, and love. They’re signs that winter is coming to a close, that spring is coming. The world is thawing, new life is blooming. And that’s just in nature. That’s not to mention when someone brings you flowers because of an accomplishment, or because they love you, or because they were thinking about you. And tending to flowers is their own joy. It’s the joy of taking care of something, seeing your efforts made tangible and getting a reward for them. Flowers are so important.”

Sage snorted at the indignation of the supposed giant in his squeaky little voice. It was honestly a nice change from the usual booming voice of giants. “Sorry, sorry, clearly, you’re a giant.” She then dramatically looked up and then down. “How tall? About this tall?” she held her hand at about her chin with a playful smile. Maybe she shouldn’t be ragging on a stranger this hard, but it had been a stressful day. Also she just loved being tall, so it was funny looking down on a giant. Basil will never be allowed to forget that inch she has over him.

“Okay, okay, I’m done now. I don’t even have many good short jokes queued up,” she held her hands up in surrender. “I can definitely carry you as a big, strong dragon, but what will be the least awkward way to do this?” She knelt down in front of him. “And I don’t know where the greenhouse is.”

Nicky knew that he looked, and sounded ridiculous, but he wasn’t going to stand for this sort of teasing. “Very funny.” He said, huffing. “You wouldn’t be joking like that if it was normal sized.” Hopefully they got to the bottom of this mishap soon, because while it was fun to see the world from a different perspective it was exhausting. He supposed that now he knew how folks felt when they visited a giant city.

“Thank you, it’s appreciated.” He said, thankful that she’d agreed to stop. “I can tell you where to go, I could probably find my way there blindfolded.” At least when he was a normal height, maybe not so much now that he tiny. He looked her over, squinting against the sun. “Your shoulder, maybe? So that way you can actually hear me?”

          “It’s okay really. I’m very short.” And that was the truth. Shiloh was much shorter than Nicky and not just becuse she was just a wix and he was a giant. She was short even for regular human standards. “No, no, I really am fine. Trust me. Happens all the time. I’m really quiet.” And she was typically one of the quieter students in the school. She looked at Nicky and hoped that he was here for something interesting. She didn’t know what project he was currently working on. She had her own section of the greenhouse since she was younger. “What are you working on?” they asked, tilting their head to the side. She was more curious about that than she was about having been bumped. “I’ve got some new hybrids I’ve been working on.” 

xx

Nicky nodded. He’d take her word for it, for now, but he was going to keep an eye on her, just to be sure. “If you’re sure. Let me know if that changes?” He requested. “Oh, I’ve got a couple of different projects going on right now, would you like to come and see?” He said, his eyes lighting up. He had a couple of research projects going on right now, and a rather ambitious personal project, as well.  “Oh, hybrids, how exciting! I’ve been trying to get some flowers to produce a specific color, but I haven’t been having much luck.” Part of that ambitious personal project that he had going on. “I’d love to see them, if you wouldn’t mind showing them to me?” He loved to see what everyone else was up to in the greenhouse, he really only got to see what he could observe as he walked over to his own section, and it seemed rather rude to just snoop about someone else’s plants when they weren’t there.

          She was tired of this. Feeling so rundown. She didn’t like the weather here either. It was spring. It should be way warmer, there shouldn’t be snow. She wanted warm weather. Why did she even decide to come to a college up north? Honestly, this felt a bit like a mistake. The college stuff was a lot for her. School was never her strong suit. Sitting on the table, she found herself with all her work spread out around her. She did wonder how she was supposed to get all this completed when she didn’t have time for everything. “Then what am I supposed to be doing? I can’t fit all of this into a whole day. I have four papers due and a test coming up.” She had tones of piles and they made sense to her, so she supposed she was organized. “They don’t teach you those things when you’re homeschooled,” she shrugged.

xx

Oh, this poor girl, she was in way over her head. Nicky could tell, and his heart panged in sympathy. It was hard to adapt to college, the transition wasn’t easy for everyone, and it was hard for those who were struggling to reach out for help. “Well, let me see if I can help you figure some of it out. I’m Nicky, by the way.” He said, giving her his friendliest smile. He knew that he came off as intimidating, just based on his size alone. “The first thing is, that you’re not supposed to be doing it all in one day. And most assignments aren’t meant to be done in a single sitting, either.”

While Sage had thoroughly freaked out upon being blue and full of lightning this morning, she was calm enough near lunch after talking to her brother to venture out and grab something to eat and see what was going on. She found the main campus to be a bit too full of chaos, so she chose to jog through a quieter section of apartments. She noticed a sign on a stoop and came over to check out what it said, only for there to be a little dude next to it. Sage couldn’t help but squeal at the cute little guy standing under a foot and wearing some sort of napkin toga. It was just too adorable. “Oh my god, I didn’t know fae could actually shrink that small! Are you stuck from the magic?” Sage gestured to the blue scales covering her own neck. She’d seen that shifters were also having trouble with shifts, so it tracked that fae could also be stuck in their other form. “So, do you need a ride to the greenhouse?”

xx

Nicky wanted to be upset at the squealing, but he supposed that he was certainly a sight to seeing, dressed as he was. But being mistake for a fae? That wouldn’t do. “I’m a giant, not fae.” He said, crossing his arms over his chest as he looked up at the person. The person who had scales all over them. So that was something. Whatever the spell was, it wasn’t just shrinking everyone. He was a little bit disappointed, actually. Maybe he didn’t want everyone to shrink, but maybe if some of the non-giants had grown to giant size, there would be better accommodations for the giants around campus. “I woke up like this. I promise you, I was much, much taller when I went to bed last night.”

Miraculously, Nicky had managed to not only leave his bedroom, but his apartment as well. He’d only made it as far as the front step of the building before he could go no farther on his own, however. Which is how he found himself sat on the stoop, sitting on one edge of his sign to keep it from blowing away. He knew he looked ridiculous, wearing a toga made from a pocket square, a paperclip and thread draped over his shoulder, thumb tacks tucked into the makeshift belt around his waist. But he’d needed tools to aid him on his journey, and they were really the only things that he could reach. Dominick had stopped him from making some kind of pack and filling it with bread and cheese. He’d been fond when he’d stopped him, however. And he helped him write the sign, asking for help. In need of assistance, would like to go to greenhouse. With a drawing of a frowning flower, because why not?

          Whenever Shiloh was stressed, she ended up at the greenhouses to do some work. She liked the school’s greenhouses and the botany program was really good, but she like her own gardens. Things were just always so tense at home. Even now she felt like she had to go between her parents. They always asked her for one thing or another and it was a bit exhausting. After a grueling day dealing with some of her annoying classes, she was looking forward to getting some time in at the greenhouses to destress. Shiloh understood the general education classes had a point, but it was annoying having to deal with them when she knew what she wanted to study. They didn’t really want to deal with the weird students in some of her classes. 

          Not paying attention to where she was going, Shiloh ironically didn’t see the giant in front of her. Lost in her own world, she’d been paying more attention to the plants she had in her hand than the other people in the greenhouses. It was too late to move out of his way, so she fell, doing a quick spell to keep the plants from spilling soil all over the floor. “Oh, no. It’s totally my fault. I, uh, didn’t see you.” She sat up, rubbing her arm. “I’m okay.” 

xx

“I didn’t see you, either, and I’ve got the higher vantage point. So why don’t we say that it’s either both of our faults, or none of them?” Nicky offered, holding out a hand to help her up. He narrowed his eyes when he saw her rubbing at her arm. “Are you sure you’re alright? I promise you won’t hurt my feelings if you tell me you got hurt.” In fact he’d really prefer it if she told him, and not just because he felt bad that she got hurt because of him. But because it was hard for him to judge his own strength sometimes, at least around non-giants. He was still getting used to it, in fact. He was always having to think about it, keep it in the back of his mind when he was moving through the more crowded areas of the school and it could be exhausting. But it was better than accidentally hurting someone and getting expelled and giants banned and starting another supernatural war.

Ciara approached the giant with concern. She knew that there was no chance of someone not noticing him and stepping on him, but he could still be hurt to be leaned over like that. She doubted that she could help him up though, even with her vampire strength. “Oh, okay,” she responded to his dismissal, feeling unsure. She moved around in front of him to see what he was hunched over. Just grass and weeds. “Do you need help with something, or…”

xx

“I don’t suppose that you’d have a cone or something of that nature on your person?” Nicky asked, looking up hopefully at the vampire. He really couldn’t afford to sit guarding this plant all day, but he couldn’t just leave it to be trampled, either. And of course his lovely husband wasn’t responding to any of the messages that he’d sent to him, which left him in this position. “There’s a flower, first one I’ve seen this spring. It would be a shame if someone stepped on it. Hence, this.”

The quad was a main thoroughfare through campus, and everyone cut across it, so much that there were a few established paths through the grass. Which left Sebastian quite confused and annoyed that someone was just sitting hunched over where people needed to walk, disrupting the flow of traffic. “Hey, you’re blocking the path,” he called out as he approached. “This is the quickest way to the student union.” It was only when he got close that it was apparent just how big this student was. Even squatting, this giant was taller than his fae form, and it stung Sebastian’s pride.

xx

“I’m aware that I’m blocking the path. I said to go around me.” Nicky said, shifting so that he was a bit more comfortable. This position really wasn’t good for his back. Dominick was going to be insufferable when Nicky inevitably complained. He’d help him, but he would be annoying about it. “It’s not like I’m sitting in the middle of the sidewalk, so you really can’t get mad at me. There’s nothing in your way that’s stopping you from going around me on either side. And, you see, I can’t move.” He shifted so that the other student could see the delicate bloom the he was protecting. “If I move then it’s going to get trampled, and that’s just a shame.”

He made his way carefully over to his station, all the way across the greenhouse in the back corner. He was singing a tune softly (at least softly for a giant) as he walked, thinking that he had the place to himself. Of course, the moment he turned a corner he realized that that wasn’t the case, knocking another student to the ground. “Oh, hey Shiloh, sorry, I didn’t see you there.” He said, taking a few steps back so that he didn’t crush the young wix. It wouldn’t do to crush the headmasters child. “Are you alright?”

“I’m okay, I promise.” He said, not looking up to see who it was that was approaching him. “Just go around me.”