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A new fad has a large section of Grace’s private garden replaced with sand. It is a gift. A pretty ornament for an ornament. Like lighting in a gallery, some minor care is taken to seeing that Grace is surrounded by subtle beauty. Most of it exceeding what her actual rank warrants. It is not hers. So she can not object when it is changed.
Worry stays mostly in the Fade, a comforting presence at Grace’s side, as both of them watch the plants being removed. Grace with sadness, Worry with concern for her sadness. But Fret hisses under her breath, insulted by their passivity, and stalks outside. Neither hears what Fret says, but soon the gardeners are transferring some of the plants to pots and bringing them inside.
Quickly three walls of Grace’s dance space are lined with flowers and herbs and large bushes fill sections of her living area. It is bizarre and Grace should not like it as much as she does.
Fret radiates smugness as she walks back over to them and Worry’s concern shades into exasperation.
“He is right,” Grace tells Fret. “That was dangerous. What if one of them had taken offense?”
Fret sniffs. “They were more concerned with upsetting you. You are important to those of importance.” Worry flashes and Fret interrupts herself. “Yes, she is important for herself most of all and to us more than them. But she can’t use her connection to us. The world will walk on her if she lets it.”
“Better than to claim authority I don’t actually have,” Grace says.
“Ill treatment of you reflects upward,” Fret reaches over to move some of Grace’s hair, never happy unless she is fussing with something physically as well as verbally. “Someone must have seen to it you were respected when you served Sylaise,” the spirit decides. “If you draw those lines yourself, you’ll get more of what you actually want than if you let someone else do it for you.” Fret turns back to Worry. “So stop it. I am not overstepping.”
Worry says nothing, holding Fret’s gaze until the other deflates a little. “Alright,” she mutters. “I could have asked first. But she’s pleased with it.” Fret indicates Grace.
“It’s... unusual.” Grace looks back at her space, her hands wring together. “Do you think? Will others find it odd?”
“Artistic,” Worry says, his voice thin, but reassuring. “Not eccentric. You should keep it.” He does not add: if it pleases her; they all know that it does.
“For now,” Grace decides.
“Humph,” Fret turns away from them abruptly. “If that’s settled then, let us see what this new decoration is.” She pauses in the doorway. “Aren’t you coming?”
Worry snickers as he shares a look with Grace. Fret hates showing the she cares, yet her very essence demands it. And she cares for them both, very much. It is a warming thought. They follow her outside, little splashes of affection seeping from them that Fret pretends to ignore, even as her own emotional aura shifts in reciprocation.
The sand garden is framed with wooden panels that are, surprisingly, void of decoration. The sand too, while very fine and uniform in color, is surprisingly mundane. The rocks, for now on the sides, have minimalistic carvings.
Fret picks up one of the rocks and tosses it in. It lands with a soft “phaft” and they stare at it for a moment.
“Well, isn’t something supposed to happen?” Fret asks.
“I think you are supposed to draw the ripples yourself,” Worry steps to the side and picks something up. “Look, that’s what these rakes are for.”
“That’s barbaric,” Fret says
“It’s supposed to be meditative,” Grace shrugs when Fret looks at her. “That’s what is being said.”
“Drawing in the dirt is supposed to be meditative?! It’s dirty. Because it’s dirt. How is that meditative?”
“I don’t know.” Worry smiles, “Let’s try it.”
“You can’t be serious. Put that rake down!”
Worry doesn’t listen. “Throw another stone?”
“Oh fine.” Fret picks up one of the larger ones and heaves it into the sand with prejudice. “There.”
Worry begins raking circles into the sand around it. Grace and Fret watch him for several moments, Fret growing more agitated as he continues.
“So, you’re just going to draw circles until the garden is full of lines?” Fret glares at him.
“Or you could throw another stone.”
Fret scowls and throws a stone. Worry changes his pattern, letting the lines shift each other’s courses. Without prompting, Fret throws another stone. “You are getting messy,” she complains. “And the lines aren’t even.” She throws another stone. “You’ll probably get blisters.” Stone. “And track sand in.” Stone. “It will get into the studio.” Stone. “Grace will slip.” Stone.
“You’re throwing them faster than I can draw,” Worry tells her.
Fret throws another stone. “Then she’ll get hurt.” Stone. “Blood every where.” Stone. “She’ll die.” Stone. “They will shatter you.” Stone “And I’ll have to clean everything up.” Stone. Stone. Stone.
Worry stares at the sand garden, full of rocks and very few lines, in comparison. Consternation bubbles out of him.
“I think I can.... Yes,” Grace says, clapping her hands with intent. The sand starts to move, lines spiraling out from each stone as the spirits obligingly step back. Fractals take shape before her eyes, Grace absorbed in directing the flow of the pattern, making it more and more complex.
Fret grins. “Yes, thank you.” She turns to Worry, “That’s what I asked you to do in the first place.”
“It is meditative,” Grace says. “Making an expanding, repeating pattern that differentiates in scale with varying points of origins and interplay... it is quite different. Not at all like making regular pictures. Still complex, but the repetition of basic shape gives it a structure while still having directable fluidity.”
Worry gives up, setting his rake to the side. “You’ll have to teach me that spell,” he says.
Grace blushes. “It is nicer than I thought it would be. Would you like to try?”
Worry nods. “You two do not get to have all the fun.”
Fret sniffs. “I am not having fun playing with rocks,” she says. “I just don’t find the company of you two idiots completely intolerable.”
“We love you too,” Worry tells her. “Show us, Grace?”
“Of course,” Grace begins the spell again, explaining it this time.
Fret makes clean simple lines when it is her turn to cast, as minimalistic as the garden, but Worry’s patterns are even more complex that Grace’s. At first, she can not place the shape he is using as his base. She and Fret both grow still as the pattern grows and grows.
Dragon scales.
Worry draws with dragon scales.