"It's not that hard."
It was.
"Since you desperately want to move around, this will help."
It did not.
The following day had started just the same. He had brought Elise her breakfast –a bowl full of strange but pleasant-tasting porridge mixed with various evenly cut sweet fruits and nuts– and had told her to meet him at the east side of the hill.
When she went there, he had already started working on a small patch of plants she had never seen before. Those plants were lying close to the ground and had around four to five large reddish-orange, sturdy-looking leaves surrounding a squishy yellow blob in the middle, about the size of a human head. They were glowing like small suns.
Elise crouched next to him and watched as he worked on one of them. He was using a small knife to scratch the surface of the squishy blob and remove a thin membrane. He put the membrane on the ground next to it and mixed it with the soil.
As she looked at that perfectly round, bouncy-looking blob, she felt a sudden urge. "Can I touch it?"
Her question was answered with a sharp side eye from the old farmer. "Never touch its core."
"But you just did."
"I touched the outer layer only. If you touch it directly, it will stick to your finger and tear open, spreading its seeds all over."
"Then why do you remove the outer layer?"
He took an exhausted breath and stayed silent for a while. Elise thought that maybe she had pushed her luck a little too much. This man was living here all alone without anyone to talk to. He must have been disturbed by her sudden questions. It was a common occurrence for her.
But he answered. "This plant is called Slomera. It opens at dawn to absorb and store sunlight. Its core has tiny seeds floating inside a sticky hot plasma. Every night, when it closes, its leaves coat the core with a slimy layer to prevent it from sticking as it opens again. If not removed, that slimy skin solidifies as layers and forms a thick shell, blocking the sunlight and limiting its growth, but also lowering the chances of tearing open with the slightest contact."
Elise watched him in awe as he spoke. So, he knew how to speak more than a few words. "So, you regularly remove those to make them grow larger... since there is no danger around to make them pop?"
He kept working on the other Slomeras instead of giving her an answer. There was a total of eight of them spread across two rows of four, with generous spacing between them.
"Can I try one?" She asked, but he just gave her a sharp look as an answer.
Elise waited there for a while, to be ready if he needed anything, but he just kept working silently, leaving her knees aching from the inconvenient crouch. As he started working on the last one, she couldn't stand the boredom and decided to ask. "What should I do then?"
He finished mixing the slimy skin with the soil before answering. "You..." he slowly stood up to look around. "...will wait and watch." He slowly headed toward another patch of weird plants. "I'll tell you when I need you."
Elise took a deep breath as she stood up to follow him. This was going to be a long day.
***
It really was.
Elise followed the old farmer as he worked on various plants and trees. She watched everything he did, just as he asked. For every different patch of plants, he was using a specified method. Even the plants she recognized required their own unique care. From gently tapping them to collect their seeds, to making precise cuts on their leaves to make them spread wider. From entangling them with each other, to creating paths with smelly liquids for them to follow while they roam –yes, they were slowly roaming. He didn't even let her come near some of the patches, telling her that she would disturb them.
Keeping all of that in mind was hard, but not impossible. The real problem was that he was also using Energy in a form that Elise had never tried before. He was infusing them with it, circulating it from top to bottom, and releasing it to the ground. She didn't sense any intent from it, and she was unable to tell what difference it made to the plant.
She was bored out of her mind and thought that a small conversation wouldn't hurt anyone. "What do you use the Energy for?"
The old man, again, waited for his work at hand to finish before answering. "Just checking them." He said plainly. Elise waited for him to explain further, but he just kept on working.
This whole gardening thing was starting to get boring. She had hoped that they would at least connect at some point while working together, but she was just watching as he worked while she was doing nothing. She knew that he was an extraordinary swordsman; she had seen it herself, and she thought even being next to him would teach her a thing or two about the sword, but except for the moment he stopped her from hitting the tree, he had not done anything swordsman-like at all.
As she was deep in these thoughts, they arrived at the last patch, if she did count it right. The plants in this one were quite ordinary compared to others. They were up to her waist, and had some relatively small fruits hanging on thin green branches. The fruits changed color with size, and they were half-hidden beneath leaves around the stem.
They were not in order like the ones in the other patches; they seemed randomly planted and mostly neglected. Maybe this was how they needed to be tended; she had no idea, and to be honest, she didn't really care, at this point. But the old farmer had other plans.
He handed her a small knife from his belt. It was similar to a carving knife but with an even smaller edge. "Take this and harvest the red fruits." He held one of them in his hand and slightly removed one leaf to show its stem. "Don't just plug them; their seeds will fall on the ground, and you'll have to pick them up one by one." He took another small knife out of his belt and made a quick cut to cleanly remove the fruit. "Also, don't cut the leaves around its stem, or the whole branch will wither and die."
He threw the fruit into the empty basket next to the patch and put one hand on one of its branches. "When you are done," A small current of Energy traveled through the plant, all the way to its roots. "Check if its inner flow is disturbed."
He turned his back and started walking away toward the forest. Elise noticed that the sun was starting to go down. It was time for his evening strolls in the forest. She looked at the small knife in her hand. This old man seemed quite devoted to his garden. Was he really fine with entrusting it to her just like that?
"What if I mess up?"
"Try fixing it."
"What if I mess that up, too?"
"I don't care," His voice started to rise as he kept going further. "I planted them so, do whatever."
"But..." She wanted to ask more. What if its Energy flow was disturbed? What if she made a mistake and cut one of the leaves? Who could she even fix those?
But she knew inside that he wouldn't bother answering. She had watched him work all day. This was one of the easiest patches. She should be able to figure it out. How hard could it be?
She picked the first fruit by cutting it, as the old man had shown. It was not as clean as his; it was uneven, and she left a lot of flesh on the branch, but at least, she didn't cut any of the leaves or drop any seeds.
For the last part, she held the branch with one hand and absorbed a small amount of Energy to send it to the plant.
But nothing happened.