you're the sun that breaks the storm

Chapter 1: the bounty of the rain, the bounty of the spring

WX-78 made a face as their foot sank into the mud a little further than on most steps, for the sixth time since they'd started their trek to Wormwood's camp. "WATER IS TERRIBLE."

But they was on a mission, and however unimportant that mission seemed, WX was not one to fail to complete a task when they had already started running the processes. The others had felt that the plantling would need more stone and nitre and spider's silk, and Warly had wanted to give them stuffed pepper poppers and some soothing tea as well. He had offered WX not one but two butter muffins if they would make the journey, but in all honesty...

They would have volunteered to make the trip themself. They had found themself curious about Wormwood, a truly strange creature for an organic, since they had shown up at the main base's campfire at the start of winter, trying to be close enough to get warm without being too close.

Organic life was terrible. Most of what WX had run into seemed eager to make itself a threat, either immediately or eventually. Eventually, in their mind, was worse. Unpredictable. But it was impossible to read any threat in the plantling, who didn't seem inclined to hide any emotions they had the moment they had them, who was honest and open and cheerful and other things that did not grate on WX as much as they'd thought they might.

Maybe it was their eyes, which shone with a moonish light, or the gem in their chest that served as an inorganic CPU.

In any case. They had taken the muffin bribe, as it was always better when one of the organics made a request or an exchange instead of a demand, treated them as a person who could say no instead of a machine to take orders. Them treating even the non-sentient machines that way irritated WX sometimes, though they knew that was irrational. It was fine. That was fine. WX was reluctant to admit it in case it changed the moment their guard was down, but these organics were... not that bad.

They had taken the muffins and all the supplies and an extra rain hat, the latter at Webber's sudden insistence. Wormwood's camp wasn't that far, and some of the others had even made the trip recently, but no one had seen Wormwood when they had. Still, Wilson had reasoned, they had no idea how big Wormwood's base was in the trees; they'd based in a fairly sizeable forest and at least in there the worst of the rain would have been kept off of them as they worked on... whatever.

WX hadn't made the trip. Yes, an umbrella was good, but the dirt became mud and it was aggravating exactly like this -- they yanked their foot out again with a highly synthesized "UGH!" -- and there had been bees on the path, which... they was starting to notice were gone. That was strange. No one had talked about making bee boxes, and spring was a terrible time for that.

WX's mind went to Wormwood again. The last they'd seen of them had been when the snow had been starting to melt, the chill in the air starting to fade, and Wormwood had looked up as if catching some kind of pleasant scent or sound and smiled with a jack-o-lantern's jaggedness.

"Feeling bloomy!" they had crooned. They had a voice deep enough to rumble, with a hollow effect that Wilson had enthusiastically theorized was because Wormwood was hollow, inside all those vines wrapped up in a bipedal shape. They'd asked Wilson for rocks, "burnt rocks," and "little yellow stones" then, and had scampered off away from camp with a cheerful, "Thank you, Wilson! Goodbye, friends!"

WX had meant to investigate that. Could the plantling really feel that spring was coming, that the organic life on this dirtball would start growing again?

Then it had immediately started raining. And it had rained almost without pause for a full week. When seasons lasted fifteen to twenty days in the Constant, that was a ludicrously long time. It had thrown off their and Maxwell's efforts to get a shadow manipulator set up; they now had more than enough nightmare fuel mostly due to WX voluntarily being struck by lightning about twenty times, but hunting down treeguards or "totally normal" trees was difficult when it was storming.

...If there were either in Wormwood's forest camp, that would be... convenient as well as frustrating. WX sighed in quiet, private relief when the trees came into view. "I HAVE SEEN FAR TOO MANY OF YOU BY THIS POINT," they informed the trees when they came into... well, what would reasonably be considered an audible range for organics with ears, "BUT YOU WILL BE USEFUL TO ME."

Any thought that Wormwood might not have been doing well because they needed to be fed as well as watered could be discarded once one passed into the forest itself. It didn't take many steps (on somewhat firmer ground, thankfully) to spot that the forest floor was absolutely littered with growing crops as well as flowers -- enough that it almost gave WX pause, even though they had been here a few times before during winter, when Wormwood was first setting the camp up. They had seen the plantling planting seeds! But not this many seeds, and it was incredible to think that they might have caught this many butterflies in such a short time. It was crowded enough that they found themself carefully trying to avoid stepping on anything in their surprise.

There was the occasional lightning rod set up among the trees as well, WX noticed. And then they came upon the small clearing that Wormwood had chosen as the central point of their camp, which had been expanded slightly to fit not only the alchemy engine that Wilson had gifted them, but also a few tilled fields, a crockpot and fridge (where had they gotten gears?), and several backpacks scattered around. No chests. Was Wormwood using backpacks instead, to avoid using too many logs?

At the very center of the clearing was a lantern, which made that seem more likely.

"PLANTLING?" WX took a few steps past the clearing and heard the distant buzz of bees, and decided against going further. Instead they raised their voice and called out. "ARE YOU PRESENT, UNIT WORMWOOD?"

"Robot friend?" Wormwood's voice came from a distance away, off somewhere to WX's left instead of ahead. "Hello! Coming, stay please!"

They considered moving to meet them partway, but lingered near the clearing instead, just under the trees in case it started raining again. The sky seemed inclined to behave right now, though.

There was movement in strange colors from the direction Wormwood was in, pink and blue among the green. "CAUTION: UNKNOWN ENTITY APPROACHING," WX half commented to themself, half warned Wormwood wherever they was, reaching to grab their spear.

"Oh! Friend?"

Probably not. A sudden new entity was rarely a friend. (Though WX knew that telling Wormwood that would not stick; they seemed to want to treat everything as friendly until proven otherwise, which was perplexing in general much less in the Constant, and admittedly they themself had been a sudden new entity and overpoweringly friendly.) But WX paused before saying it as the entity, and Wormwood, came into view as one in the same, and their spear sagged from its readied position, pointing instead to the ground.

Feeling bloomy had been more literal than they had realized at the time, but they saw what Wormwood must have meant now. More than simply a vine creature with some leaf growths, Wormwood was now covered in leaves and petals, blue at their cheeks, pink in the large flower that bloomed on their head and at their lower body in what was almost a skirt. They shone with water droplets like they hadn't bothered with an umbrella a single day of that rain, and something in WX recoiled at that idea, though... oddly... not at the wild organic growth on the plantling or the way they now noticed flowers blooming wherever they walked. Their steps towards WX bloomed with vibrant spring growth in seconds. Wigfrid would undoubtedly have called them some sort of deity, or blessed by one, but WX was mostly realizing that this explained how many flowers were around, in a detached sort of way as they simply... watched them approach.

"Don't see it," Wormwood said, looking around, and WX refocused. When had they unfocused?

"ERROR: DID NOT RECOGNIZE UNIT WORMWOOD WITH NEW GROWTHS," they admitted reluctantly. Not recognizing allies or enemies was not a weakness they liked or wanted to admit, and they might not have admitted it with all of the other survivors. Wormwood was... different, however, and they tried to calculate why to explain their relative lack of hesitance.

UNIT: WORMWOOD. ORGANIC PLANTLING. THREAT LEVEL: NULL. CONCLUSION: ACCEPTABLE.

"Oh." Wormwood accepted that easily after a moment's thought, nodding. "Happy to see friend! Want belly stuff?" They gestured to the forest in general, which, given the state of the vegetation all around, was fair enough.

"NO." WX saw some potatoes, and immediately amended, "PERHAPS LATER. I HAVE BROUGHT SUPPLIES FROM THE OTHER ORGANICS, INCLUDING FOOD AND DRINK FROM THE CHEF UNIT. HE BRIBED ME WITH MUFFINS."

Wormwood made an odd rumbling sound, very reminiscent of the sounds that the catcoons and kittykits made sometimes. WX had privately interpreted it as a growl, but that didn't seem right in Wormwood's case. "Yum! Thanks, friend!"

"...UNNECESSARY." Despite the chill that was still in the air, thanks to the damp, WX felt unusually warm, but when they scanned their systems they presented as nominal. "I DID NOT MAKE THEM."

"Brought stuff, though." Wormwood watched with apparent satisfaction as WX dug through the bag for all the supplies, handing over the peppers and tea first, which Wormwood consumed happily and handed the teacup back. WX exchanged the cup for Webber's gifted hat, which Wormwood took with sudden bemusement.

"Rain taker hat?"

"FROM THE SPIDER CHILD. IT WILL ALSO PREVENT YOU FROM BEING HARMED BY LIGHTNING," WX explained, realizing abruptly that lightning might be a problem for Wormwood more than most of them, if it set them on fire like it did other plants.

"So nice." As if summoned, however, a low roll of thunder sounded after Wormwood's voice, and rain started pattering down again. WX scowled and moved towards the trees again.

"NATURE CONSPIRES TO VEX ME."

Wormwood made a low crooning sound of sympathy that... WX also detected slight amusement in? They squinted at the plantling, but Wormwood simply followed them over to the trees and held out the rain hat, settling it onto WX's head.

"WHAT ARE-- THIS IS YOUR HAT."

"Using it, though!" Wormwood argued. "To keep friend dry. Looking good, WX!"

WX huffed out steam; they could feel what little water had gotten on them evaporating before it could do any harm. They could also feel the flowers growing up around their own feet, with Wormwood so close. Strange, but not terrible, and nor were the leaves that they found grasping at their own fingers.

"I ACCEPT YOUR OFFERING." No, that wasn't quite what they meant to say. "IT IS... WELCOME."

Closer, anyway. Sometimes the words were difficult, but Wormwood didn't seem to mind, making that odd rumbling sound again and stepping closer to stand with them under the tree, to wait out the storm.