ximilia | video; un: toxicodendron

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video; un: toxicodendron

[The woman who appears on the video feed is new, and notable for a couple of reasons. First and most obvious, she is fairly notably green. Not just a little green, either. Her skin, eyes, even her lips are clearly and distinctly chlorophyll green. The second, and somewhat less remarkable, is her expression which falls somewhere between irked and uneasy.

If you guessed she's not much of a public speaker, you'd be right. A fact which becomes abundantly clear when she addresses her audience.

Don't you feel smart.]

Hello. Hi. I know there's a bunch of us who just showed up and started filling up your network with, I don't know, I'd call them introductions but I'm not really sure what some of these assholes are doing. Anyway, I'll try to keep this short and no more awkward than necessary.

[Her tone is dry, and the words clearly enunciated and a little louder than natural. As though she's worried the people watching will have a hard time following and she doesn't want to repeat herself.]

I am Dr. Pamela Isley, a.k.a Poison Ivy. You can call me Ivy. I'm not here to stand on formality or wave around my degrees.

[Time to find out if anyone has heard of her. There's no way they'll be lucky enough that no one has heard of her, right?

Deep breath, and:]

I bring it up because I'm a botanist and a biochemist. Trying not to step on any toes here, but I'd like to find out a few things.

One—who can I talk to about using the lab? Are we like assigned space, or is it a free-for-all in there? I don't want to touch anyone's ongoing projects, because I know how I'd feel if someone started poking through mine without checking with me first.

Two—similar question, this time substitute "hydroponic garden" for "lab." You might have noticed... plant theme. Botanist. Like, my thumbs are literally green. It's sort of my brand. If I could get in on that, it would be aces.

[She is trying very, very hard to play nice where the garden is concerned. Ivy is smart enough to know she's not going to get very far making enemies on her first day. So sort of the opposite of prison. Or boarding school.]

And speaking of plants, three—if anyone has any seeds or any cuttings or starts I could persuade them to part with, then I would owe you a favor.

[Each of those last words is drawn out deliberately, her voice growing quieter as she hesitates between words. When she follows up, it's light in contrast:]

I would kill for a spider fern for my room.

[She's joking, but like, is she joking?]

And that about covers it. Just, reach out to me here with any answers. Thaaaanks.

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Short on seedlings or any answers about labs and the like, but I do have access to tea and tea is a plant. Can I offer you a cup?

[ He's like a cat. The more you narrow your eyes and look away, the more he takes it as a sign that you want his presence in your life. ]

Oh. It's you again.

[He does seem to have that cat aptitude.]

Not the kind of plant I was looking for this time.

What kind of tea?

It's a pleasure to connect again! [ Oh, he knows what she meant with those words, but his smile is in his tone and he just doubles down on the good mood. Much the way he had the first time they met. ]

I've unearthed something that promises to be close to a pu-erh when steeped. I was going to give it a try and see if the packaging could be trusted. Come and help?

[Goddamn it, that does sound like something she'd like.]

That's a lot to promise. Not going to get my hopes up over advertising, though.

[Oh, she's grumbly about this.]

You better not be bullshitting me, kid. If I show up and you're serving me some Lipton stems, I'm going to take it personally.

Have I yet to fail delivery on a promise? [ Has he actually promised anything? Eh, just ignore that fact. ]

How about I brew up a pot and bring it to the sunlight room? I've been meaning to visit there myself, just haven't had a moment yet.

It does sound like there's some bonsai trees in there I should check on.

[Slowly. This isn't because he made a good first impression. She'd hate to give Lockwood the wrong idea.]

If you're there, we'll probably run into each other anyway.

[ No worries here, Ivy. He's well aware of the impression he can leave on people. He might like to live in the land of wrong ideas, but he's surprisingly grounded in reality.

He's not looking for them to be bestest buddies. They need to be able to work together, and he recognizes that working with people may not come as easily for her than working with nature. He can't turn himself into a plant, but perhaps by exposing her to lots of little doses of his company, he might grown on her. Like moss. ]

Sounds splendid. I hear there is a stream in that room. Think that would be the perfect spot to sit and have a cup. I'll bring a tray.

[ There. A peace offering. If she genuinely wants to avoid him, she can still come to the sunlight room and just avoid the brook. Otherwise, now she knows where to find him. ]

[She doesn't respond again via the network. Was she supposed to? Should she have signed off to let him know she got the message? If it were a text message she would have sent a little 👍 to show she got the message without just leaving him on read.

A little later, though, she does show up in the sunlight room, and she does happen to wander that way.

There's no reason to waste tea.

Assuming it's any good.]

Are those cookies?

[Other important questions.]

[ He hadn't held any specific expectation, and luckily for her he comes from a world that has never known cell phones so he has no understanding of 'left on read' culture.

His long tailed coat is spread out under him, lanky limbs artfully arranged so that he manages to look casual and unconcerned, rather than watchful. Though he hadn't held any specific expectation, he still smiles broadly when she appears, quickly and gracefully bounding to his feet to be polite. ]

Hello! Cookies? [ Give him a minute to translate that word into 'biscuits' and the smile beams brightly. ] Oh yes! I found a package in the pantry and thought they looked a good compliment to the tea.

[ Plus it meant he didn't cook anything, which was a win for both of them.

Stepping aside, he motioned towards his coat, folded on the ground. ] Please, have a seat.

[ Yes, yes. He understands she might be offended by the offer and tell him to shove it, but that will be her choices. For him, manners must. ]

[Ivy looks at his coat, her brows twisting to say really without saying really.]

How old are you?

[Because he looks like a kid, but then he goes and pulls something like this. Maybe it's less that it makes him seem old, and more... British. Like the tea.]

Or maybe I should ask when you were born.

[She doesn't sit on his jacket. None of this is real, and even if it were, Ivy would rather be in the grass.]

[ Though he hadn’t expected she would take him up on the offer of his coat, perhaps a small part of him had hoped. Only from the perspective of trying to make a friend.

The question about his age earned Ivy a smile that managed to be polite and hollow in equal measure. ]

I’m not sure our timelines would have any value to one another, though I promise I was born in the age of motor vehicles, telephones, and indoor plumbing. [ The words came with a wink, and no further information about his actual age.

Taking a spot of grass for himself, he wasn’t going to offer his coat and then take it himself, he reached for the tea pot and began to pour. ]

What is the world like, where you come from?

So the twentieth century. Or something like that.

[Ivy takes the vagueness of the answer instride, not so much out of tolerance as because if he doesn't want to tell her, then she doesn't want to waste her energy on prying.

It doesn't hurt that it gives her more time to process the idea of being in the same place as people from other worlds and timelines. Theoretically, she knows shit like that can happen, but it's not really her territory.]

Dirty.

[She takes a cup of tea, looking at the liquid inside instead of the cup rather than Lockwood.]

We're pumping poison into the air and the water and the soil, destroying what's left of the natural world so a few dozen billionaires can add another zero to their net worth. We have disposable everything and it all has to go somewhere, and mostly it's going everywhere. At this point, kids are born with enough microplastics in their bodies, it's amazing they're not shitting mastercards. Forever chemicals too. Doctors are having to go back to blood samples from eighty years ago just to find an example they could look at that doesn't have teflon in it.

[Sorry, he put in the quarter and now he has to listen to the whole song.]

We have species going extinct every day, most of them plants and insects we haven't even discovered yet.

[Ivy is serious as she speaks, her voice becoming more expressive and her face and hands more animated as she continues.]

And it's all because we're too stupid to figure out we're destroying the thing we depend on to survive. Might as well put a hole in our own life raft, because that's what we're doing.

That's what things are like where I'm from.

[She frowns as she finishes, and takes a sip of the tea.]

[ Okay. That was ... a lot. Certainly more words in one go than she'd probably said to him in the whole of their conversations, and it all held a lot to unpack.

There was the obvious, of course, which was the state of her world and the challenges it faced. Quite honestly what she described sounded horrible to Lockwood and he was city boy for the most part. He knew of the trash and debris that floated in the Thames from his association with Flo Bones, so he certainly couldn't cast stones on the idea of a dirty city, dirty rivers and who knew what the ash from the furnaces contained. But the hopelessness in his world stemmed from the struggle against the Dead. If anything, animals and plant life were flourishing as humans destroyed themselves in this war of the Dead verse the Living.

He felt a touch of empathy the political climate she shared. It seemed the attitude of the rich, destroying all they felt beneath them in the quest to get richer, was unfortunately universal. He could understand that anger and even join her in it, even though he did not have her same zeal for the natural world. Abuse of power was abuse of power; period.

Finally, it was the expression of that frustration that did exactly what he'd been hoping for when he made the conscious decision to keep popping up in her space. It helped him frame, in his own mind, an understanding for her prickliness. He'd never considered taking it personally, after all usually people got to know him before wanting to wring his scrawny neck.

Sipping from his mug, he gave her time to drink her tea, take a couple of breaths, and settle her armor back into place before he broke the silence. His tone was low, genuine and there was an apologetic kind of empathy to it. Lockwood was high energy much of the time, but he had his moments when he remembered to dial it back a notch or two and apologize for all his EXTRA. ]

I cannot imagine how difficult it must be, to possess a passion for life and the natural world as to dedicate your life to botany, biochemistry, and then have to face the kind of uphill battle you describe.

[It would be hyperbole to say there was only one thing that could get Ivy to come out of her shell and talk that much, but environmentalism definitely tops the short list, especially when it comes to laying out there for strangers who she is and what she's doing.

The fact Lockwood doesn't immediately get defensive helps her unbend just slightly. Not that it earns her trust. Ivy doesn't trust easily, and as she takes in his answer, there's a part of her that's still suspicious. Does she believe in his crumb of empathy?

File that under results TBD. She doesn't immediately disbelieve him, which is something. Thank Harley for that.

After she's collected herself:]

Congratulations, Lockwood. The tea you found isn't complete shit.

[Faint fucking praise, and grudging, but it's as close as she'll come to admitting she'll stick around for tea and snack.]

[ Faint praise it may be but he beams all the same and takes it at face value. ]

It isn't? Well, win one me! [ Yes, he will take pride in this tea fact. His experience with adults is such that when one isn't actively trying to incarcerate, kill, or torture him, he takes the win. ]

Don't get too excited about it.

[Even walking that back, she doesn't sound too standoffish about it. Mostly just tired.

Tired and lonely, because she's used to being surrounded by plants, and here things are all but barren. It's a feeling she associates with being in prison. The little alien plants nearby are only a small (pardon the pun) comfort.

She reaches for one of the biscuits.]

It's just nice to find something here that isn't a complete disappointment.

[ He can't and probably won't ever be able to completely understand how it is for her to be cut off from the natural world, the way she must here on this station. Even when he eventually wraps his mind around the idea of her powers. But perhaps it's enough that he can hear the sense of loss in her voice? ]

Our regrets are often defining moments of our lives. [ Lockwood's voice was pensive and it was his turn to stare down into his tea as he spoke. ] I believe I would be suspicious of anyone offering to undo my regrets, unless there was quite a lot of sacrifice involved.

[ Or in other words. He may not be thrilled about some of what he's encountering on this station, but the promise to undo his regret? He knows it's worth fighting to deliver his side of the bargain. Even if he is doing so from a position of blind faith.

Glancing back to her, Lockwood arches his eyebrows in a curious expression. ]

Is the recovery of nature, part of the regret you are hoping to undo?

[ His question serves multiple purposes. She might, actually answer it and he'll learn a little more about her. Or she might use the invasive question as a good excuse to snarl and lash at him, which ... instinct tells him would be better for her emotional well being, than to be left with the exhaustion he feels weighing on her. ]

Oh no, we're not playing open up about that. We're not talking about regrets and feelings.

[It would be simpler if that were the answer. And the thing is, that's not not the answer. Ivy's goal to create a better, more harmonious world with nature isn't unrelated to her regret.

But it would be a lot simpler if she were just here to terraform Gotham city or even never give up Project Edin in the first place.]

Besides I don't know if I think some magical space knick knacks are powerful enough to fix all of that. I signed on for this mission, so apparently I think there's some slight hope that it will work.

But I'm keeping my expectations smaller scale.

[ Her response made him laugh, whether she intended it to or not. It wasn't a laugh at her response precisely, but rather at his gambit getting caught out and smacked aside; as he'd intended.

He briefly considered sharing that for himself, he had to believe in the magical space knick knacks to deliver. Not just because of the nature of his regret and what it would mean were it to be undone, but because he'd effectively abandoned Lucy and George to come here. But all that strayed into the realm of feelings and more importantly Lockwood was busy mentally avoiding his own emotions on the subject. Forget trying to share.

So instead he brightened up and grinned. ] I'm not sure the rest of us can shrink any further in your expectations, least we risk disappearing out an airlock frame. [ As he spoke, he picked up the plate of biscuits and gave a peace offering. ] But I've got faith in our ability to show up; when it counts.

[ He means both in her esteem and also in her to have their backs; even if she currently acts like she'd like to grind the lot of them into compost to feed to plants. Sorry Ivy, he's thinking good of you. ]

You're a weird kid, you know that?

[She throws thorns in his direction, figuratively speaking, and he just keeps coming back for it smiling the whole time. Not a lot of people have been able to do that in her life.

And even fewer of them who weren't supervillains.

It doesn't stop her from nibbling on the offered biscuit.]

I don't think I have a lot of expectations one way or the other.

[Aside from that she'll be let down. So like, he's right. She just doesn't want to admit it.

Seems rude when she's trying to be a team player.]

I've always found 'normal' to be overrated. [ Lockwood exclaimed, that cheeky smile still intact. Though, for a brief moment there is something old and tired in his dark eyes before he blinks, it's gone, and his attention is on the cookies.

Picking one for himself, he set the plate down and let a companionable -at least he's trying to make it companionable- silence fall between them. Sure, he could sit there and try to encourage her to 'give people a chance' and 'teamwork makes the dreamwork' until he was blue in the face and she wanted to gouge her ears out.

But more words weren't going to do the job. It was going to have to be actions, and those were something he couldn't just make happen. ]

Lavender. [ He says after half his cookie is gone. ] It's the only plant with which I have any experience. Ghosts are repelled by it, so people grow and keep it all around their houses.

[ He glances towards her and this time his smile is a little rueful. ] If I'm quite honest; I've grown to hate the smell of the stuff.

You'd be in the minority.

[Spoken like someone who survived being green in high school. She has more than just one reason to dislike people.

The silence is easier, though. Ivy doesn't have such a hard time enjoying her tea. Holding the cup in her hands is grounding and the warmth soothes her. As much as she hates the fakeness in here, the sunlight does her good too.

When he experiments with a new topic, she takes to it with some curiosity.]

Lavender? [Lavender has a long history in folk medicine, much of it based on real chemical properties. She's not sure why any of that would bother ghosts, but she's never had much interest in the magical applications of herbs.] Is it the smell that keeps them away, or just the presence of the plant?

Thank you. [ Was Lockwood's response to the claim that he was in the minority, but there was the barest edge to his tone. Because he does understand her feeling of having to survive the judgements and expectations of people. He likes to claim that he just doesn't give a shit, but the truth is it still hurts, and it will still make him angry. He's just learned to harness that hurt and that anger into a stubborn desire to prove all the naysayers wrong.

He does appreciate that the quiet between them felt easier this time, part of why he'd offered up the subject of lavender. ]

The smell.

My friend George would be able to give you an more detailed answer about the history and the science, my experience is more for the practical use. [ Lockwood glances down at the sword belt strapped around his waist, looking for something but exhales a little sound of defeat. ] I usually keep a vial of lavender water on my kit, but I must have used it in the fight before I got here.

People also hang dried sprigs in their homes, burn it at night, some have plants around their homes. It's really only effective against weaker ghosts, but every little bit counts.

At least it should be easy to restock, if we need to. Lavender is highly accessible.

[At least, it ought to be. Maybe not so much in space. On the other hand, she doesn't imaging there will be many ghosts wandering the halls of Ximilia either.]

Or maybe you're in luck. You can have a break from all that lavender while you're on this little collection mission.

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video; un: toxicodendron

audio: Lockwood

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I feel like I should apologize for this.

Never change, Ivy. Never change

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