kaolinandbone | Tea in the Gardens and Antechambers

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As the many multiversal guests are gated in, singly or in groups, a crowd slowly begins to form in the entry hall. Lioncourt looks up from her meditation break and claps her hands twice: in moments, a dozen automaton servants file out from the adjoining rooms, hands of gleaming white porcelain holding equally elegant china tea-sets. A pair of the automatons open the doors at the far end of the hall, revealing a tiered rose garden, the stone benches dotted here and there ringing a large central clearing.

"Tea is served, either here or in the gardens: I would appreciate it, however, if some of my guests might proceed onward so as to reduce crowding."

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

From:

calledtoventure

"Probably not, then. Maybe we'll end up buying it from you."

From:

aestrix

"Maybe, yeah. But this is kind of an expensive dress, so..."

From:

calledtoventure

Ahrotahn shrugs. "Maybe." She sips her tea.

From:

aestrix

Prism has no tea to sip, alas.

"Is your lifespan really just a century or so?" she wonders. "I saw it on the forum but it seems kind of ridiculous."

From:

calledtoventure

"Less than a century, usually. A few people – humans, sorry – have lived to be a hundred and ten, maybe a hundred twenty, I forget exactly. The average is somewhere in the high seventies, I think."

From:

aestrix

Prism winces and looks incredibly pained.

"How do you get anything done? That's awful, I'm so sorry!"

From:

calledtoventure

"I'm not sure how it works in your society, so I'm not sure how to compare. Sometimes a lot of people work together over several years to do something big, like designing a large building or a complex machine, and of course we have books and schools and such, so we can learn from the people who came before us, and build on their knowledge for the future. What do you do that it seems like we wouldn't have time for?"

From:

aestrix

"There are some things that take centuries, though! I have a friend who has a garden, it takes thirty years or so for most trees to grow, and then that's half of your lifespan and what if the tree doesn't look right where it is? What if it catches fire and burns, you don't have time to grow another unless you start when you're ten and you can't do a lot of things when you're ten. And - I was an idiot when I was seventy! I didn't know anything about anything!"

From:

calledtoventure

"Okay, trees take a long time to grow. If we're just doing gardens for aesthetics, we usually choose plants that grow in a single year; flowers and bushes, mostly. Grass. There are people that grow trees for a living, and you can buy a tree for transplanting where you want. And... if it looks really terrible you can always cut it down? I guess we just don't really have strong opinions about trees, mostly. Or not really detailed ones, anyway. And it's possible to influence how a tree grows, somewhat; it's not just a matter of waiting to see if we like a totally random shape. Or it doesn't have to be, anyway."

From:

aestrix

"I don't know. It still doesn't seem like enough time to get things done. It'd be like - I wake up, I just get used to figuring out about my life, and then - boop! Death." She shudders.

From:

calledtoventure

"I'm sure if we had more time, we would discover all sorts of things to do with it. But... people adapt, you know? No matter what, in any situation, we find ways to get by."