what was I made for? | Glowfic Constellation

...

So. There are in fact books on gardening, as explained in a 'how to for dummies' sense, in that they should be put in the ground and watered regularly. However, there are not books on, say, plant types, classification, genetics, native regions, and care requirements. The best anything she can find offers is... season, as in the season that the plant should be grown in, and only for the most basic and common plants, of which there are like. Six. That's uncharitable, it's more like twelve, but Yvette still feels that this is an absurdly small number. The most interesting and useful, if deeply bizarre, bits of information is from one of the advanced gardening books (ie: one of the ones that recommends weeding and fertilizing the plants) that mentions grafting. She... was pretty sure that grafting was mostly in regards to fruit trees, but apparently this is not so in this world. A basic grafting example, and in fact the only one given, is making grapes, from grafting... bluebells with strawberries. The book presents this as immutable trait of the world, as if it's not blatantly batshit crazy.

Obviously, Yvette has to go try it immediately.

She can buy seed packets online. She cannot, for some reason, buy specific seeds, only packs with such labels as 'vegetables' and 'fruits' and 'flowers,' in which a somewhat random assortment of seeds fitting that description are contained. Like some kind of seed gacha system. This is personally offensive to her sensibilities in particular, but it's not really a problem, exactly. She'll just... buy a lot, she guesses? The gardening books also recommend walking around and looking for plants to harvest outside, and did (vaguely, without any examples given) mention that different neighborhoods sometimes have different plants. So. She guesses she's going to go floating around to see if there are any flowers to pick, since she's already here.

Out she floats, to explore the great outside (still as a ghost), looking for plants. Heeeeeere, planty planty planty, she just wants to take you home where she will lovingly make sure you grow big and strong, before she attempts to do mad gardening science to you by systematically cutting off bits of you to attach to other plants~

There's grass! And grass! And some grass. And, really, a whooooole lotta grass. It's amazing how much grass she can f—oh that's a snapdragon plant. And more grass.

Snapdragon plant! That is exactly like what she's looking for!

Now, how to steal the plant from out of the ground. Hm. Consulting one of her libraries of nebulous otherworldly knowledge (the mostly incorrect, but very detailed set), she might be able to get a cutting from it. She's going to need to look for nodes on a newer, leafy green part of the plant, and cut below the node. ... Except, she doesn't have any clippers or anything. Fortunately, this is a solvable problem. She can just change into a Gardening Outfit, which just so happens to have a not-entirely-decorative set of garden shears hooked onto her belt. Is this a thing she can do with the powers of bullshit?

Sure is. Here are some shears.

Eeheeheehee she is so clever~

Her tools acquired, she carefully locates a node on one of the newer green stalks of the snapdragon, snips below it, wraps it in... hm, part of her Gardening Outfit includes a handkerchief around her hair; she removes that and wraps it around the cutting, then gently puts it in the pocket in her (very cute, for the record) overalls. Her nebulous knowledge informs her that she should try to keep it from drying out, and makes a note to herself to stop by a sink next time she uses the bathroom in order to dampen the handkerchief and keep the cutting moist during travel. Even with that, though, she doesn't think it growing roots and surviving is entirely guaranteed. The whole plant itself would have a better chance. She could spin change to a slightly different gardening outfit with a not-entirely-decorative spade, but she's not entirely sure what would happen to things contained within her clothing.

And she is a ghost right now. Can she just reach through the ground, and attempt to spread the ghostiness to the plant, and pull the whole thing out?

She can!

...and something more than that, actually.

Well, she sort of focused on ripping it out of the ground so as to plant it elsewhere instead of exploring her ghostly options, but... maybe next plant. This one also gets bundled in the handkerchief with the cutting, tucked away in her pocket, and then Yvette is back to floating around looking for more plants!

There... aren't many. There's, like, different types of grass? Some stuff that might not be grass? That might be a lily plant but there's no flowers so it just looks like more grass.

Yvette squints at it consideringly. Hmm. That does look like a plant, yeah, on account of how the grass is kind of weirdly regular and that plant is not. She might as well give it a shot.

She is willing to explore her ghostly options this time around before she attempts plant butchery or kidnapping! What weird things can she do to this plant?

She can make it... better? Healthier, somehow? More lively? Or Distinctintly Not That™.

Why would she want to make the plant less healthy? That would be silly. Sure, she can give it some extra life.

It visibly perks up, though only a little bit. But she feels tired all of a sudden, or, well, something that's like feeling tired, except it's tired elsewhere, not in her body or mind.

... Interesting! She possibly fed this plant with her digital soul or something, which is maybe a little alarming, but on the other hand: hooray! Plant powers! That is going in the pluses pile for being a ghost. Not that she wants to be a ghost permanently, or anything, just: if she did die, she would get to give her plants little pick-me-ups. Which would be a decent consolation prize for death, she feels.

This experimentation done, she gets to acquiring one (1) cutting from the plant, and then for good measure also ever so gently rips it out of the ground. But this neighborhood is pretty, uh, not plant friendly, as far as she can tell, so it's probably best to stop here and head home. Also, her handkerchief can't hold much more. She floats over to a nearby bathroom to moisten the handkerchief in a bid to keep her little charges alive, then: it's time to call a cab to bring her home.

Here's cab! She could ride it to get home. That would probably involve being inside the cab as it traverses space to get her from point A to point B.

Yes, that is typically how this goes. She doesn't think she can float as fast as a car can drive, so: yep this is the way to go.

Does this cab driver want to chat? Even though she's a ~spooky ghost~?

The driver screams when they see her. Then they proceed to act as if nothing happened.

They're not very chatty, though.

...

People sometimes screaming when they see her is going in the downsides column. She apologizes, even if they act as if it didn't happen.

Then she'll leave the cab driver be.

A brief while later it's an hour later.

She gives the cab driver a thank you, then floats out to see about sticking her little stolen plants into the ground around her house. The cuttings in particular she'll need to be careful to keep moist, she doesn't have any pots or anything. How'd they make it from the trip?

The cuttings are alright, hanging on; the uprooted lily looks as fresh as if it were still in the ground; and the uprooted snapdragon flower is very much not.

...... wow, uh. That. Is not what she expected?? That ghostly green thumb sure was effective. And ripping it out of the ground without it was not.

She's going to go plant them all, though. (First the cuttings get their nodes carefully sliced for a better chance of propagation, no she does not know why she has this much botanical knowledge pre-installed, she doesn't have this kind of knowledge about, say, cheesemaking or something.) Even the uprooted snapdragon flower which looks kinda dead. ... Actually, can she fix that? Go in with a ghostly touch and see if she can perk it up a bit? It might be too dead for that, after the cab drive, but she'll give it a try anyway.

Too dead, unfortunately.