After he finished writing, he came up with something that would hypothetically work.
He grabbed his shovel.
He then started digging in a grid pattern.
Then started planting the seeds, one, two, three, until the sixtieth seed was planted.
After twenty minutes, he was done.
He let out an exaggerated sigh to show exhaustion, but in reality, he was more excited than tired; he didn't want to show it.
After he connected the copper pipes to the river and the newly planted seeds, he waited.
The water came through with a gurgle.
He watched it flow to each plant, and then they all started to take on a subtle golden color.
After a few minutes, the water had fully gone into each of the seedlings.
Sera then decided it was finally time to wake up.
"Good morning!" she said.
But he didn't reply; he was so focused on the seedlings' growth that he ignored her entirely.
She was about to ask how it was going, but decided he was best left alone.
She went to talk to the refugees; they were still outside the fence. Some were occasionally stepping inside, but after a few seconds, they went back to the fire, which was still strong—almost as if it had unlimited fuel.
She saw the boy he was talking with and the old man. She went closer and saw him drawing something.
She wanted to ask what he was drawing, but decided to let him be; she would ask later.
After ten minutes, she finally decided to ask the old man what the drawing meant.
"Um, excuse me, what—" she was suddenly cut off.
"Hey, come look at this," she heard Arthur say.
"Oh, I'll be right back," she said, going to see what Arthur wanted her to see.
Instead of glowing a golden color, the seedlings were a bright red.
"So what does this mean?" she asked.
Not looking at her, he said, "Well, that's what I'm trying to find out. The first forty seeds I planted glowed a golden color; now these are red. Do they have special properties depending on what color they are?"
He seemed genuinely interested.
"Okay, did you figure anything out?" she said. A pause, then she added, "Are they edible now?"
He looked at her, then looked back at the seedlings.
"I'd hope so! The golden ones acted as mana filters; I'd think these would act as food, but that's just a hypothesis."
"So you aren't certain, but hoping it does," she said.
"Correct."
"Okay, so how are we going to test if they're edible?" she said.
"I'll just have to experiment on myself."
"You're going to eat it?" she asked, worried.
"Better idea?" he said while writing in his notebook.
She stayed silent.
He looked up from his notebook.
"It better not kill me," he said.
"Hopefully it doesn't," Sera said.
They had to wait five days for them to grow into a size that is considered adult in plant years anyway. after the fifth day. The seedlings went from infant to adult and were ready to be picked and hopefully eaten.
Arthur kept tending to them every day, until the day finally arrived.
When he woke up, the first thing he did was to go look at the plants.
They were exactly where he'd left them.
He crouched down, pulling one from the soil. It came out clean, almost too clean, like it wanted to be picked. It was roughly the size of a large radish, deep red, and firm when he pressed his thumb against it.
He turned it over in his hand.
Then he bit into it.
Sera, who had apparently been watching from a few feet away, made a strangled noise.
"You didn't even—" she started.
"It's fine," he said, still chewing.
"You don't know that."
"Not yet," he agreed.
She stared at him. He stared at the plant in his hand. A few of the refugees had drifted closer, watching with the quiet attention of people who had nothing better to do and no particular expectation of good news.
He chewed. Swallowed. Waited.
"Well?" Sera said.
"Give it a minute."
She gave it a minute.
"Well?" she said again.
"It tastes like a beet crossed with something I don't have a word for." He looked down at the remaining half. "Not unpleasant."
"That's your metric? Not unpleasant?"
"What do you want me to say?"
She opened her mouth. Closed it.
He took another bite.
After about ten minutes with no visible signs of internal catastrophe, he pulled out his notebook and started writing. Sera sat down on a rock nearby and watched him with the look of someone deciding whether to be relieved or annoyed.
The old man had wandered over at some point. He looked at the plants, then at Arthur, then said something in a language neither of them understood.
"What did he say?" Arthur asked without looking up.
"I don't know," Sera said. "I don't speak whatever that is."
"Useful."
The boy translated, unprompted. "He says the red ones are called Ashroot in his language. They used to grow near the old cities." He paused. "Before."
They were exactly where he'd left them. "What else does he know about them?" Arthur asked.
The boy said something to the old man. The old man replied at length, gesturing occasionally at the plants, then at the sky, then at his own chest.
The boy turned back. "He says they don't just grow anywhere. They need dead soil. The more dead, the better."
Arthur looked at the ground around the plants. Then at the wasteland stretching out beyond the fence.
"Well," he said, "we have plenty of that."
He stood up, brushing dirt off his knees, and walked the length of the grid he'd planted. Sixty seeds. He crouched at the border between the two sections, where the color shift happened, and pressed two fingers into the soil.
"Ask him if he knows why some are gold and some are red."
The boy asked. The old man's response was shorter this time.
"He doesn't know. He's never seen the gold ones."
Arthur wrote that down.
"Does he know if they're safe?" Sera asked. She directed this at the boy, but glanced at Arthur, who was still very much alive and showing no signs of changing that.
Another exchange.
"He says his people ate them. A long time ago."
"Good enough for me," Arthur said.
"That is not good enough," Sera said.
"It corroborates my hypothesis."
"You've been conscious for fifteen minutes and you've already eaten an unknown plant and called it corroboration."
"I've been up for an hour. I checked the plants first."
She stared at him.
He looked back at his notebook.
"The golden ones filter mana from the water," he said, half to himself, half to whoever was listening. "If these grow in dead soil and the old cities had them—" He paused. Tapped his pen against the page. "They might be pulling something out of the ground. Not just nutrients."
"Pulling what?" Sera said.
"Don't know yet."
"Helpful."
"I've had them for five days, Sera."
She had nothing to say to that, so she didn't say anything.
The refugees had gotten closer without anyone noticing. A loose semicircle, quiet, watching the red plants with an expression Arthur couldn't quite categorize. Not hope exactly. Something older than hope. Something that had been set down a long time ago and wasn't sure it was allowed to be picked back up.
He looked at them, then at the plants, then did some quick mental arithmetic.
Twenty plants. However many people were outside that fence.
He closed his notebook.
"We're going to need more seeds," he said.