Current Date: June 22, 2059
Character: Tiberius Daishi
Race: Halfling – Celestian / Demon / Human
Age: 44, physically about 22
Current residence: Atheria City, Eresiel
I don’t know what it is about plants, but I’ve never been comfortable around them. It’s not like I’ve ever killed any—not that I’ve been around that many—and as far as decorative plants are concerned, any that I’ve brought inside have been fake. They look so real, you wouldn’t be able to tell the difference. Live plants? I leave those to Bast. If there are any in the house—I know there are a few—they’re his to take care of. I just don’t want to touch them.
It’s not a life-or-death fear that I might do something that will ruin any of those plants, it’s just a strange feeling in the pit of my stomach that makes me uneasy about caring for anything of the sort.
I still tend to the garden. What little of it needs to be tended to because most of the garden is slow-growing shrubs and flowering trees. At most, I have to trim the shrubs just barely and even that is only once every other year or three. I don’t mind cutting the grass as need be and we do have a patch of the yard that is just growing wildflowers, but I also leave it alone. The flowers do their own thing year after year, though we do throw some seeds in now and again if it does look a little patchy but that’s about it.
That patch attracts all sorts of beautiful birds, butterflies and pollinating friends. It’s the one reason I don’t mind the presence of that patch in the yard.
When I stop to think about it, I don’t even really know why I don’t care about the idea of taking care of plants. I do remember watching a movie when I was a kid about this murdering alien-like singing plant that needed to be constantly fed but I don’t know that this is why I’m the way I am. It’s not like I’ve ever been around anyone cultivating things like evil plants if evil plants could even be a thing. I know I don’t have to keep an eye on anyone or ensure that said evil plants don’t turn on that person.
So, I just don’t know.
It’s one of my many quirks, I don’t think Bast minds that much, and if he did, he probably would have told me at this point; I’d try to change for him. I know that’s probably not a healthy thing to say but it’s true enough. I know that left and right everyone says that the person you love more than you love life itself should love you as you are, quirks and all, but I still would be willing to try and overcome this issue with plants if it was a problem for him.
I’m not saying that if it was an all-encompassing fear, say I’d be terrified of heights and it made me so sick to my stomach that it made me physically ill to just be a couple of feet off the ground—which, not the case, I like being high up, I’m just being hypothetical—and it bothered him to the point where we couldn’t be together, then I’d just sort of let us go, if we had to, but I know that won’t happen.
This discomfort around plants isn’t something that’s life-changing for me, I can be around them, I just don’t care for the idea of having to water them and take care of them as they might need. Taking care of myself and Bast as he might need it; it’s plenty on my plate and plants don’t need to be added on to that.
I don’t care what anyone else might say; I mean, I am the way I am, I’m not going to judge someone for wanting to surround themselves with so many plants that green is the dominating colour in their surroundings. They’re free to do what they want and I’m the same. I feel like I’m a pretty simple guy, you could ask Bast.
Let’s be real, I’m more about making sure he’s happy with all he has in life than anything else, so what does it matter that I leave the care of green things to him?
I still remember the first time we really met, it nearly got me in trouble at home; he’d been kept back at school because his tail was being a problem, I walked him home, and walked myself back home after that—several streets down in the opposite direction—and I promptly told my parents that I wanted to sit by him in class because I was sure his tail was misbehaving because he was being kept apart from all the others.
Dad cautioned me against the idea; if I got in trouble because he did, I would have to deal with that as it happened. I was perfectly fine with that, and the rest is sort of history at that point. I had been right about his tail, too. We’ve made it far since that day and I wouldn’t change a thing.
Works of JD Beckett 