#garderning

Today was a warm and bright day, perfect for relaxing in the garden with the sun warming your skin while a gentle breeze brushed your hair from time to time. Alma breathed in, filling her lungs with this warmth as she lifted her face to look up at the sky. Today was just a perfect day to relax and forget about everything while she worked leisurely in the garden.

For several months, she hadn’t had time or opportunity to visit the place, the arrival of a baby always brings with it the exhaustion of free time and if we add the two new “babies” in the family that arrived, well... That kept her fully occupied.

But not today. Today she would be planting, cleaning and pruning some branches without stress.

She heard something behind her and when she turned to see what it was about, there was nothing. She shrugged and went on with what she was doing just to hear something again but this time in the bushes. When she looked up, again nothing in sight.

Alma ignored the sound again and continued to hum to herself a random music with a sweet rhythm while she made several holes to place various flowers.

There was no need to give it much importance, surely there were several birds fluttering around. Yes, that must be it.

"Why do humans have these things in their gardens?"

Or maybe someone had decided to follow her instead of staying home with GIR as he had promised. Zim was on top of a bag of substrate watching a gnome figurine with interest.

“Hello Zim, what are you doing here? Aren't you supposed to stay at home? " Her tone was calm and cheerful, she would have preferred to spend time in the sun but now that some of "her babies" were with her, she was not going to be bitter about it. Zim might be tiresome but she never perceived it as a bother. Well at least not most of the time.

"ZIM CAN GO WHEREVER ZIM WANTS!" he screamed firmly and confidently. Although Alma had learned to detect certain tones that showed some nervousness.

"Yeah, sure. But I don't think Oko would like to see you around her territory ”

"Yeah yeah whatever, I do not care about what that drone would or won’t like" he waved his hand dismissively in obvious disinterest toward the subject, returning back to the visual study of the reddish-cheeked garden gnome.

"Do you like garden gnomes?" It was quite interesting how Zim got lost in such mundane things as a colorful statuette, animated shows for children or even watching two flies circling in front of him.

"No, I think they are stupid like a lot of stupid things that stupid humans stupidly enjoy. Why do humans put these things on gardens anyway?" Zim patted the gnome's cheeks, causing him to sway to one side ready to fall to the ground only to return to its original position.

The woman next to him just shrugged.

"It's probably just a silly decoration, although I think the original reason was to protect the gardens from monsters or something like that, I'm not sure." with this new information, the irken quickly grabbed the cheerful little statuette.

“THIS? FOR PROTECTION? HA! THESE STONE THINGS DON'T PROTECT AS MUCH AS MY ROBO-GNOMES DO! " Alma raised her eyebrow at the mention of robo-gnomes.

"Tell me more about it" And I came back as the wise option to do, since now Zim would be focused on talking about his wonderful robots.

That's how it happened, they were like this all afternoon. Alma worked leisurely with the plants and Zim kept talking about how amazing his robo-gnomes were and how many times they got rid of threats (most of the time Dib or some unwanted salesman).