Chapter 5 #2
Anyway, Lensis explained all of this in a speech that could be summarized down to, “Don’t touch or get close to anything, and for the love of magic, don’t eat anything.”
The greenhouse she showed me felt more like a botanical garden than the rows of tiny plastic pots I was used to seeing at Home Depot. Everything grew fast and large because of magic to the point that I would have gotten lost were the way through anything more complicated than a straight path.
“These are my favorite,” she said, pointing to a small tree with dozens of gray bulbs hanging upside down from its thin branches.
“These are called sorrow blossoms, and they only grow on the graves of elves. They bloom on the anniversary of that person’s death, so the herbalism club holds a small service every year to commemorate that person.
The dirt is just from the grave, by the way.
No corpse here. Funny thing is no one knows who he or she was.
The records got lost or something, so it’s kind of like an annual funeral for the forgotten. ”
Her eyes twinkled with admiration as she gazed at the flowers. This was another goth cliche, to be clear, but her love for that plant was so unbelievably sincere. It was sweet.
“You’re really pretty right now.”
She spun. “What?”
“I don’t know. Seeing you love something so much is kind of beautiful.”
“You’re an unusual freshman,” Lensis mused, playfully squinting her eyes and tapping her chin. “This way. My summer project is over here.”
We stopped in front of something akin to a rose bush that wasn’t in bloom.
“That’s a lashing briar,” she warned. “I get so cut up taking care of it, but it’s also really freaking cool. Their thorns are kind of like vampire fangs. Not as extreme, but similar principle.”
I held my hand out.
“Don’t!” Lensis cocked her head. “First of all, you’re such a boy trying to touch the thing I just said was dangerous to touch. Second of all, why isn’t it attacking you? Are you playing a trick?”
“This isn’t normal?” I asked. The plant hadn’t moved in the slightest, and I was less than an inch from one of the branches.
“Maybe it’s sick?” She reached toward my hand, and the lashing briar promptly raked a row of thorns down her forearm. “Shit! God dammit! What the fuck, man?”
“I’m not doing anything!”
“The plant ignores you because you are undead. Move on from this topic.”
Nice to know Byron was still chaperoning my date, but I also appreciated the urgency.
“Let me see,” I said.
“I’m fine. It’s normal.”
The scratches weren’t deep, but her arm looked like a cat with a bad case of the shakes clawed her. Little droplets of blood started to push their way to the surface.
“That was just so fucking dumb of me. I’m embarrassed.”
I gently took her hand to inspect her arm. In my mind, I asked, “Should I use my Heal spell?”
“Yes.” He sounded like he made an attempt to hide his true tone. What he really wanted to say was, “Yes, for fucks sake.”
I activated Heal.
Her wounds closed. When she wiped the blood with her thumb, it smeared, revealing only healthy skin beneath.
Lensis’ eyes were wide. “You never told me you could use healing magic.”
“I’m supposed to keep it a secret.”
“Yeah, you blew that one, but… thanks. Usually these scratches burn for like 3 days straight. I don’t feel a thing now.”
“You’re welcome.”
“I won’t say anything,” Lensis said seriously. “I mean that.”
“I know.”
“Do you have more secrets?” she asked.
“Probably.”
She nodded, her gaze lingering on me. She blushed and turned, already walking away. “Want to feed it? We have feeder mice in the shed. It’s really cool to watch.”
I laughed to myself and followed.
“Don’t worry. The mouse doesn’t suffer that much.”
“Thank you for the reassurance.”
We stepped out the back of the greenhouse to a storage shed just on the other side of a small footpath. Lensis lifted the latch and pulled the door open.
An elf with ears so long they were like the handlebars on a bike gripped an upper shelf of potting soil.
She arched her back as someone I couldn't quite see rammed her from behind, closing her eyes in ecstasy.
Her long hair flowed nearly to the ground, and her breasts swung like heavy bags with every thrust.
“The fu-”
“Sorry!” Lensis said, slamming the door shut.
She grabbed my hand when she sped by, and we ran all the way through the greenhouse to where we came in.
“Oh my god,” she said, giggling between gasps for air. “I can’t believe that just happened.”
“You made my first time meeting an elf memorable.”
Lensis laughed harder. “Glad I could be of service. God, that’s so embarrassing, and she’s a TA for one of my courses this semester.”
“At least you know her extra credit policy already.”
She backhanded me in the stomach. “I guess it’s true that elves have intense sex drives.”
“Is that something people say?” I asked.
With a shrug, Lensis answered, “That’s what I heard. They used to have their own plane, kind of like the fae. It was destroyed in a war, and the ones who managed to escape to our world are duty-bound to repopulate or something.”
“A whole plane?”
“Ate itself, basically.”
“Jesus.”
Lensis nodded that she agreed. “I had other plants to show you, but we’re not going back in there tonight.”
“That’s okay.”
We lingered awkwardly in the night quiet, neither of us knowing what to say.
“Give her an innocuous reason to invite you to her room.”
“Are you into music?” I asked.
“I’d say that I am.”
“Take me to your room and let me hear your favorite stuff.”
Lensis stepped away from me as if to hide her face as she thought. “This way.”
+1 Will point.