"Secret Garden"- skekGra/urGoh
“UrGoh! Come look at this!” skekGra’s voice comes shrieking from the other room.
It takes at least five minutes for him to actually make it over there- but in his defense, the herb he’s been burning all morning was particularly potent, and the subtle pattern woven into the curtains around his loft was very distracting. He finds skekGra hunched over a crate,oddly damp and covered by a blanket he’s peeled back to reveal the contents. He peeks in to find...mushrooms.
“.....Mushrooms?” he asks obviously. SkekGra rolls his eyes.
“Yes, mushrooms! This has been here for weeks, didn’t you notice?”
UrGoh did, but he shakes his head, mostly just to hear skekGra’s tea kettle noise of irritated despair.
“The Dousan claim that this one induces sleep,” skekGra plows on ahead, pointing at a ruffly red one, growing in small clusters. “But I wouldn’t try it, they were a bit, uhhh, vague on how long the sleep would be.” A pause. “I just liked how they looked, they may or may not be of any use.”
He falters a bit, and urGoh realizes he’s looking for approval, almost like a childling with their first painting. It’s sweet. But more than that- he realizes as his once-murderous half tenderly smooths the soil- it is significant to see a creature once so devoted to death choosing to nurture life, no matter how small. The changes in him have gone far deeper than the surface, farther than merely abstaining from violence. It was always in him- urGoh had known it far longer than he had- but it also confirms for him that nothing is hopeless. No one is hopeless.
He’s been quiet for too long, and skekGra’s face falls a bit. “UrGoh? I can get rid of them if they bother you.” UrGoh shakes his head and chuckles, not bothering to hide a tender smile. .
“I…..like them. Can I…...help?”