Crumbling walls overgrown with vines stretch out in every direction. This place has been abandoned for long enough that trees are growing out of the roads and nearly every roof has caved in.   A deer bolts at her sudden appearance.  

The Rahi is weird-looking enough to distract her for a moment, but the plants are more interestingly unfamiliar. Hey, tree right there, you poisonous or theoretically edible?

Not poisonous.  Whether or not its edible depends on how you feel about leaves and wood.

She's not surprised the tree's not food, really, most aren't. Unfortunately, since she doesn't recognize its species, she can't use it to guess where the Rahi teleported her.

She'll follow the road, oh, left. Are any of the plants more than superficially familiar?

Nothing here looks familiar.  

The plant walking out of one of the old buildings looks especially unfamiliar.  It is inhabiting an elaborate frame of finely carved wood which give its vines the support to stand upright.  They push and pull on the frame like muscles, propelling the plant forward in long, slow strides.

It freezes as it notices the stranger, then raises one of its frame's arms in greeting.  

What. What. That is an extremely weird Rahi. A plant Rahi? Are those a thing? They could be a thing.

She'll... wave back. Probably it's friendly, and if not she'll bolt.

It - she? - speaks in an unfamiliar language, the sound coming from somewhere inside the torso.  

"Hi there!  That's a strange chassis - how do you see with your leaves hidden like that?" 

She sounds cheerful.

Uhhhh. Processing, please wait.

"I'm a Matoran," she manages after a moment. "I don't, um, have leaves."

"I've never heard of those.  Do Matorans live around here?  Does that mean you have 'eyes' instead, since you can still..." She bounces excitedly for a moment before remembering herself and cutting off the questions.  

More formally, "I am Wovenveil, apprentice archaeologist and anthropologist.  My mentor and I are studying these human ruins."

Gavi blinks. (Her eyes are a solid, faintly glowing lime green, visible through her mask's visor.)

"Gavi," she says, gesturing to herself. "I don't know if Matoran live nearby. I was tele-- teleported here by a strange Rahi."

Wovenveil considers this for a moment.  "That doesn't sound like anything we've come across out here, but maybe Elsecall knows about them.  She's in charge of the expedition.  We have some maps at the camp, too."

Gavi nods. "Maps, sure. What dome are we in?"

She begins leading Gavi a bit further down the road.  

"Dome? We're on the northern hemisphere of Tle," she answers, taking her best guess for what dome might mean.

Gavi follows. "I don't know what you mean by, um, hemisphere. Or Tle. Dome, as in..." She shakes her head and waves a hand at the sky. "You go high enough, you see the stars are giant lightstones in a curved roof."

"The sky here goes on forever, and the stars are giant balls of burning gas that float in the void far away.  Our sun is a star that's close enough to still look really bright from here, and its planets revolve around it."

"Tle is the planet we're on.  They're big spherical balls of rock, with 'down' being at the center.  This one has air on the outside so people can live on the landmasses and oceans on the surface.  There are two other planets circling our same sun - Muur'Kari and Netarin.  The gods claim that there are other intelligent beings living on them, but we don't have good enough space ships to visit them yet."

Gavi absorbs this information. Eventually, sounding unsettled, she says, "Okay."

They soon reach camp.  Many of the plants have been cleared away, and a large section at the center is criss-crossed with string into a grid.  The cleared squares reveal a mosaic.  Over to the side is a brightly colored tent and a mud-splattered truck.  

The dryad working on the dig stands up as they approach.  She's over twice as tall as Wovenveil, with metal in her chassis.  "Where have you been?"

"I was, uh."

"Well, it was a good thing I went out.  I found someone in the forest."

She summarizes their conversation.

"I see."  

"Welcome to the camp, Gavi.  Unfortunately I suspect our maps won't be very useful, though we will do what we can to help.  Is there anything you're still confused about?  I admit I am quite interested in learning more about your people and lands.  Most pressingly, do you require food, or sleep, or other such things?"

"I, um." She falls silent for a moment and rubs the back of her head. "I sleep. Food--" She seesaws a hand. "Can get energy from... plants, meat? Don't eat. Do drink. Water. ... Don't need any of those right now."

After another pause, she says, "Sorry I am... slow, right now. I am easily overwhelmed."

"Take whatever time you need."

Nodnod.

She'll just... sit down somewhere that looks out of the way and examine the nearest plant in excruciating detail for a few minutes, then, with both her regular senses and her Bo-Matoran ability. That's always soothing.

Wovenveil is sent to clear a space in the tent.  Elsecall gets back to work on the mosaic, removing dirt with a tiny brush.

After a little while Gavi feels like she can talk properly again, and wanders over to Elsecall. "I have questions," she says.

"What would you like to know?"

EVERYTHING

"How do people not... fall off planets? If-- if they're balls?"

"Our basic understanding of the phenomena called 'gravity' is that things with mass are pulled towards each other.  It takes a lot of mass to make a noticable amount, but it's always there.  Planets are extremely large - big enough that unless you're very high up or looking out over the ocean it can be hard to tell they're round at all - and therefore have enough mass to pull things down to them."

"The way that moons revolve around planets, and planets revolve around stars is also related to this.  Unfortunately, as gravitational physics weren't relevant to archaology I did not learn the equations."

"In turn, I'm curious how your domes work.  You seem to move normally in Tle's gravity - what causes 'down' where you're from?"

Gavi nods slowly at this explanation. "I do not know what causes 'down' in the domes. It's just towards the flat bottoms. All domes I know of are-- hemispheres, or like that but for ellipses.

"Gravity, as I know it, is an element. Matoran of it are..." She frowns in thought. "Very resistant to pressure, I think. Toa of it can... manipulate it, making things light enough to float, or too heavy to move. Things, or people, or in an area. I think they can change the direction, too-- so 'down' is towards a wall or a ceiling."

This takes her a moment to consider.

"How many elements are there?  Does each Matoran have an element?  Also, what is a Toa?"

"There are... fourteen known elements, and two mythical. All Matoran have an element. I'm a Matoran of Plant Life.

"Toa are--" She shrugs. "Protectors. Heroes. Sometimes a Matoran is destined to become one. They can use Great and Noble Kanohi--" Gavi taps her mask-- "un-- unlike Matoran, and create and control their element. They're about... twice as tall as Matoran, usually." Gavi is maybe three and a half feet tall.

That sounds like some kind of magic system to Elsecall, though not one of the familiar ones.

"How is travel between domes possible, and is there anything in between or outside of them?"

"There are tunnels between domes, leading to gates in the walls of the do-- the domes they connect. There's... I think sometimes miners hit an impenetrable layer if they go too deep underground. I don't know about the domes' roofs, or in the connecting tunnels, or if there's anything outside them."

"Are Matoran - and Toa if you consider them seperate - the only sapient species on your world?"

Gavi shakes her head. "There's a lot. I can't remember most of their names. And a few species of Rahi are pro-- probably sapient, I think. Whether Matoran and Toa are separate..." She shrugs. "Toa are the same people they were as Matoran. --And there are Turaga. Toa who've fulfilled their destiny can give up their power and become one. They can use Noble Kanohi, can use their element... a little, but much less than Toa, and are wise elders."

"We know of two on Tle, as we count species.  

"Dryads are the species Wovenveil and I belong to.  Mobile plants which use artificial chassis as skeletons.  We grow steadily over time, eventually getting too large to stand and needing to either trim off memory-holding branches to send to a Grove or graft ourselves wholly to one.  Groves are the final form of our kind, city-sized forests of Dryads whose minds have been merged together.  They lead our people, function as our homes, and produce the seeds to grow new Dryads.  

"Humanoids are an animal-like species - I infer that 'Rahi' is a term for animal? - which have 3 sub-species:  Humans, who once lived on most of Tle's continents but are now effectively extinct.  Ray-Solon, tentacled amphibians who live in tropical swamps.  Merfolk, who live and breathe underwater.  Theoretically they can all inter-breed to produce viable hybrids, which is why they count as a single species to us."

Gavi thinks this over. "Rahi are animals, though I... think, a long time ago, 'Rahi' just meant 'not a Matoran'.

"Only Rahi and plants breed to create more of themselves, in the-- in my world." If she had a nose to wrinkle she'd be wrinkling it; instead it's just in her voice. "Well, maybe some sapient species I don't know much about do."

"Dryads can also divide themselves or grow new saplings from cuttings.  It has the benefit of giving them the initial personality traits and memories from whichever branches were used, instead of risking getting an..."

She pauses to consider her words.  Wovenveil had been slowly scooting towards them, avoiding her job to listen in, and was already bristling a bit.

"Well, it is usually avoided these days to make sure we have better disease resistance in the species as a whole.

"How are new Matoran created?"

Gavi is totally oblivious to how her being somewhat grossed out by the idea of breeding could be offensive.

"On the landmasses where most Matoran live -- the Southern Continent, where I live, and Metru Nui and the Northern Continent -- in some-- in a few central locations, there's these... machines. I don't know how they work, but when too many Matoran have-- died recently in an area, or left, new ones come out of the nearest machine."

Wovenveil sits down near them.  If Elsecall is going to edit her remarks to try and avoid offending Wovenveil, that's practically an invitation to listen in officially.  She is still annoyed, but most of it is in Elsecall's direction.  

"What do most Matoran do with their time?  Either with work or leisure."

"Lots of things. I'm a healer, and I garden, and for-- for fun not in my garden I paint. My village has a militia, who guard against Rahi attacks and have other duties too. Some places have dedicated guards. People fish, build... sculpt or carve things... make tools or weapons... mine... sail boats... people are shopkeepers, or trade between settlements... I think most places have a Chronicler, not usually as someone's sole duty. Matoran up in Metru Nui sometimes have jobs as scholars studying all-- all kinds of things.

"And we dance, sing, make music and art, play games and sports. I like a game called Bohiva that my friend-- my friend Iza taught me."

"The Groves like their Dryads to spend most of our time out in the wilderness.  Archaeologists, animal and plant researchers, shepherds, traders, explorers...  We get to spend time in a Grove when we need to design a new chassis or have other reasons to be there, or if we're delivering things between areas intra-Grove.  

"Art is pretty common, especially stuff we can carry around."

"Oh, some people study or, or take care of Rahi, sometimes, too. And most Matoran like to stay close to home. Explorers and-- and wanderers aren't weird, exactly, just uncommon."

She frowns in thought. "Where do you keep your minds, if, if you're plants?"

"We're decentralized.  Everything which would normally be in an animal brain is instead spread out through each branch.  That has a number of implications for us, in being able to graft ourselves together, split into multiple individuals, add or remove memories or personality traits... Suddenly gaining or losing memories and traits is disconcerting enough that most of us avoid it, however, other than when we're ready to join a Grove.  

"I'm curious about your composition as well.  You seem very different from both us and animals."

Gavi nods at that explanation.

"Matoran are-- mostly mechanical," she says, "like almost all non-plant species in my world." She raps her knuckles gently on her forearm armor, and there's a soft clang. "We have muscles, and I... think our lungs are organic too, so they can expand properly. But at least... 80 percent, about, is various kinds of metallic protodermis."

Elsecall nods, having expected at least some mechanical parts from Gavi's appearance and where Matoran come from.

"Protodermis is... circuitry?" she guesses, "Or a catch-all term for mechanical parts?"

Gavi shakes her head. "Protodermis is... everything is made of it, but it comes in... so many varieties that there are-- common names for the types. Liquid is water, except when purified and heated it-- changes form to molten, which cools to solid, metallic. Solid also comes in... raw or stone, crystals -- some of those glow or radiate heat -- frozen raw or pure liquid protodermis is-- also solid, called ice or snow. And there's organic protodermis, which is-- plants, muscles, internal organs. Oh, and I think, I think heated raw liquid protodermis turns into steam. And miners get-- impure metallic protodermis from the ground as ores.

"I'm not quite sure the plants here are made of protodermis at all, they're so... strange-feeling."

"That... that doesn't sound like the chemistry I'm familiar with.  Water is liquid when at a medium-temperature and can be heated into steam or frozen into ice, but never becomes metallic.  I'm not any more equipped to explain chemistry in depth any more than physics, unfortunately.  There are about a hundred elements that can combine into other things.  Living things are a mixture of carbon and other things.  Air is mostly nitrogen and oxygen."

Gavi shrugs helplessly. "I don't know. I'm a-- a gardener, not a chemist or materials-- materials scientist. Those all live up in Metru Nui, doing-- brainy things."

Sounds like they all are.  At least she can brush dirt off of ancient mosaics while thinking.  

If a total novice is acceptable help, Gavi will totally pick up a brush and get carefully dusting.

Elsecall occasionally gives instruction, or mentions facts about the types of pigments the humans used, or takes soil samples.  They finish the square they're on, then there's a break to photograph it from a number of angles, with and without measuring sticks. 

Eventually the sky starts to get darker.  

Gavi works quietly, following instructions accurately but sometimes slow to process them.

Evening comes on sooner than she expected; it wasn't that late in the day back home. But then, she's nowhere near home. She's somewhere far, far away, maybe outside the Great Spirit's reach entirely, and now she's wondering about what lies beyond the domes. And she misses her plants. Her poor, probably totally crushed plants.

She's stopped what she's doing to mope; that's no good. She sighs and looks around to see if the sky getting darker means the dryads are winding down work.

Wovenveil, having the least patience of the two dryads, is already cleaning the dust off of her chassis and stretching.  Elsecall sets up the camera again to take pictures of the in-progress square.  

"How much food-energy-stuff and sleep do you need?  There's a bunch of things that humans used to grow for food around here that I could show you to, to see if they're something you can absorb.  We normally sleep all night, but if that's more than you do we have lanterns and drawing supplies.  Or I guess you could read Elsecall's archaeology logs."

"Matoran sleep about six hours, a... third of the night. I had some bula berries last week, but I should look. Most-- most plants don't have that much energy to absorb."

Wovenveil tries to do math.  Six... third...

"We might have different length hours, or maybe days.  But sleep when and as much as you need to - we have lots of lantern oil and paper.  It's summer and we're pretty far north so nights are short, too."

She indicates the direction to the gardens and sets off.  

Plants are very important. What do the plants in these gardens look like?

The garden may not have been tended in over 300 years but that didn't mean the plants stopped growing.  If anything, the chaotic nature and lack of carefully-weeded rows make it look more verdant. It's a large clearing, with regular mounds beneath the plants that might have once been raised garden beds.  

There are some large white flower bunches, and smaller white and purple and red flower of different types.  Lots of plants with large leaves sprawling everywhere, some of which have yellow flowers. 

What was once a path through the center of the garden has mostly been taken over by a low plant spreading out horizontally with hundreds of runner roots, growing reddish fruit-like objects covered in seeds.  

A number of vines cling to the walls.  A few have bean pods hanging off of them.  Others have flowers and tiny red berries.  The decorative hedge has devolved into chaos, growing small dark fruit.  

She stops and stares for a moment. It's... it's beautiful. A wild sort of beauty-- she's already itching to bring order to it -- but beauty anyway.

Okay, Gavi.exe back online, time to totally sedately run walk around and examine all these plants.

... On a first pass, just focusing her attention on how much she would recharge herself by absorbing their energy, none of the plants are nearly as potent as bula berries. She could definitely live off them, but it would be much easier if she replanted seeds and bred the plants for higher yield. And it was very easy to notice that those tiny red berries are poisonous to ingest and probably weren't meant to be in a food garden for people who eat.

She returns to Wovenveil and gestures at the garden. "Are-- are you preserving this, or can I... I'd like a garden. If I'm going to be-- stuck here."

"Do what you want with it."

Nodnod. PLANTS

"I'd like a lantern. And-- writing supplies. For planning."

They head back to the camp.  The lanterns and paper are in the tent, along with the makeshift bed Wovenveil had tried to make earlier, and some other stuff that needs to be kept dry.  

Okay, a lantern, a few sheets of paper, and... are those sharpened sticks of wood with grey cores for writing with? Well, this one makes very readable marks on the paper, so she'll take it.

"Anything I can use for a, a writing surface? Plank of wood or, something."

Wovenveil looks around.  The normal surfaces for writing are all meant to be stood at by people much taller than Gavi.  She pulls down a large plastic bin from the stack and sets it on the tent floor.  The top is smooth and flat, and makes a solid table at about the correct height for a Matoran.  

"You can stand here, or take the lid off to use somewhere else."

"I'll take the lid."

If there's nothing else, she's going to be cataloguing types of plants in the garden clearing until it's nearly dawn or something interrupts her.

Elsecall has already gone to sleep near the mosaic, standing in place like a statue, and Wovenveil joins her.  

Nothing interesting happens overnight.

That's a little weird, but then they're plant people, not Matoran.

By the time she's tired enough to want to sleep she's distinguished a lot of kinds of plants, by both visual traits and what she can sense about them.

Bunched-White-Flowers grows an energy-rich tap root. Big-Leaves-Yellow-Flowers grow gourds. Pod-Fruit-Vines and Pod-Seed-Vines give the most energy-rich produce. Runner-Roots-Inverted-Fruit is going to need to be cut back just so she doesn't have to step so carefully around it. Large-Leaves-No-Flowers are noticeably more energy-rich than most leaves, but not nearly as much as the fruits. Red-Poison-Berries is definitely going as soon as she has pruning shears. Beyond that... well, some of the plants with smaller flowers would have strong tastes if she wanted to eat them, but she's not a Skakdi.

Now. That all done, she's going to be very asleep in the tent for the next six hours.

The dryads begin moving again when the sun comes up.  Various archaeological activities are done.  

Gavi wakes up, stares at the roof of the tent, and seriously contemplates rolling right back over and going back to sleep.

... But she has a garden, and it's her responsibility, and just because it's finally hit that she's very, very, very far from home doesn't mean she can slack off. She has a duty to take care of herself, if nothing else.

Still, the dryads might notice she's kind of mopey today.

Wovenveil gets distracted from the dig once again, now that Gavi's awake.  Oh no a sad Gavi.  

"Is there anything I can help with?"

Mope, mope, m-- oh, Wovenveil. Gavi blinks up at her, frowning. "I... don't think so," she says after a moment. "I'm just... homesick."