In the early evening hours, with plenty of sunlight still available, Rune stands in the front yard. Specifically, she's walking along the stone-lined stream and looking up toward the trees near it. It's a guess, but since the princess didn't find one of her first-ever friends inside... she has a fairly good insight that he might be up here.
Whatever's prompting this search, it doesn't seem too dire. She has a quiet smile on her face. Not bursting with enthusiasm and energy, but certainly a tremendous step up from her typical mood when they first arrived on Earth a little over a year ago.
And sure enough, there's Gao, up in one of the larger trees. He's wearing a forester's work vest, and has a mix of gardening supplies and other tools, both from Earth and from Waldia. Rune might recognize what he's doing from one of her previous trips to the forest when they were growing up: training the tree to support and hide forester's nooks.
Gao looks over and sees his longest-term friend walking over. "Heya, Rune!" he calls with a smile. "You seem to be in a good mood!" The forester finishes patting a planting area into a fork of the branches, then pockets his tools for a moment. "Given your deliberate approach, what's on your mind?"
It's something that Rune takes a few seconds to notice, but she does raise an eye in recognition once she figures it out... and opts not to interrupt Gao's work until he speaks up. "Hey there... and yeah, I am. Don't know about 'deliberate approach', but... even if we still have some problems around Tokyo, I figure we've got good reason to be feeling alright now. Been thinking about that a lot, you know. How you,"
She nods up to Gao, "Have been with me the whole way. From living in a 'trash heap' store, to saving our home, to this..." She gestures an open hand around the yard, then digs around and produces her new phone, "to this. That's a pretty big turn-around, and now I'm seeing you cultivating a tree so you can climb it better. /That's/ huge."
She tries to climb up to join him, but will stop if waved off. "Alright if I give you a hand? I want to see this!"
"Sure!" Gao beams, moving over on the branch a bit to make a bit more room near the central branches for Rune. Some of the plants are still a bit too young for use as secondary foliage, but the main trunk is easy enough to climb.
"It took a bit to figure out Earth-equivalents for some of the plants needed for branch planters, but I think these will work," he remarks once Rune has made it up the tree. "A perennial vine with a clustered root, some bushy lichens to help hold the initial soil -- you can break them down from these large clumps into chunks about this size -- and then the branches can grow additional plants, which will help with making nooks."
Gao looks out towards the rest of the city. "It's nice being able to give some of my more constructive skills some use," he admits. "Saving home is great, helping to protect Tokyo is good... but sometimes being able to make something just for the sake of making it is nice."
For her part, Rune's attempts to 'help' amount to poking at minor things once she manages to climb up. What she's /really/ doing is watching and learning. She has tried to do this in the past, but living a highly sheltered life often meant new skills wouldn't sink in if they weren't related to magical duties.
And so as Gao lists plant types, she listens with raised and curious eyes. "Well, is it really just 'for making it'...? Sounds like you're going to get something fun out of this once you're done. Come to think of it, did you do this with any of the trees back near the portal? ...On Earth's side, I mean." A quick, perhaps important clarification.
Gaofele Doiru shakes his head. "It takes a while for these to firmly establish themselves," he explains. "They're like a conventional garden early on: somewhat demanding of time to make sure they grow well, and that distance was a bit much for putting in the needed time. Especially when we weren't planning on sticking around..."
He gives his head another shake, this time to put the past behind him. "These nooks are mostly going to be like small outdoor rooms once they're fully grown," he remarks. "These trees are comfortable enough as-is, but training them will make it easier to share the space. Like this bit here..."
He starts going into a somewhat more technical explanation of what the different parts of tree-training are for -- a gentle push here to make the foundations of an eventual floor here, a natural-seeming planter in the fork of upper branches to grow sheltering vines there.
It's possible that Rune has heard this explanation - or something similar - before in visits to the forest back home. If she did, they didn't properly sink in at the time. /Now/, however, she's following with more clear understanding. "Ohh... I get it. So it's a lot of work, and it pays off later rather than right away in any case. That's pretty smart! Though,"
She leans around to look at things Gao has been pointing out, then returns to an earlier point: "When you mean 'outdoor rooms'... do you have anything in mind for them?"
"Not in particular," Gao replies with a shrug. "It usually takes a dense stand of trees in order to make a room with a dedicated purpose -- for something this size, what we'll probably wind up with are small hidey-holes, big enough for a small group to hang out in."
He gives the trees an appraising look, then glances at Rune again. "Although... I might be able to make a covered patio area under these trees," he muses. "In fact, if we make one of those, we could use the trellises and such from the structure to make larger nooks."
Rune continues to twist and squirm about the tree area to see what Gao's talking about, and thinks she sees a similarity. "Waaaait..." The word is drawn out, then a more excited: "That's a little like the little table that was outside the store, isn't it? What you're describing would be kind of like that, only with a way to climb higher up too instead of the umbrella post being the limit?"
"Something like that, yeah!" Gao nods. "Comfortable seats that can stand the weather, with a structure of spaced boards and climbing plants to help provide shade and cover from rain. And with the structure there, we might be able to have actual rooms among the branches!"
"Huh... would that actually be okay?" Rune seems cautiously interested, gaze returning to Gao now. "I mean, doesn't that kind of make it 'less of a plant'? I'm okay with it if you are, but just wanted to check... because it otherwise sounds like a really neat idea!"
"It's more like the plants and the structure work together," Gao clarifies. "Some of the clan's outbuildings are made the same way: a basic structure at ground level, which gives added support to the branches and plantings further up. Walls among the branches come from creative trellis-work of vines and other plants, instead of extending from the non-plant structure underneath. The main reason it's not used as much is because the nooks are usually small and hidden, and the buildings beneath are harder to hide."
An important distinction, and one that Rune is now able to think about. Her mind's eye flashes back to some of the things set up in the forest back home, and the realization dawns on her face. "Ohhh... /that's/ what you meant! I get it! Okay, that's..."
Her gaze darts from point to point on the tree as she visualizes what he's proposing, then wide and excited eyes return to Gao. "That's a great idea! Let's do it!"
Gaofele Doiru beams. "Sure!" he agrees, looking forward to the challenge of building a structure to work in tandem with the nearby trees. "We should start by measuring the space for the patio, and figure out the design of the structure from there."
He taps a finger on his chin. "I think I recall seeing some chapters about patios in some of the landscaping books I read a few months ago," he muses. "I had been more interested in how plants worked with the landscaping, so I didn't pay much attention to the patio sections... but I recall that there was at least a couple of 'do-it-yourself' instructions for making patios. Should probably do more research over the next few days!"
"Measuring?" Despite her improvements in figuring these sort of things out, and despite obviously knowing what measurements are, Rune seems briefly surprised. "Wow, you're way ahead of me on that one. If you left it to me, I would have just started building and gone with whatever looked good."
She admits a little more quietly, "Going in with some kind of plan's probably better though, glad you caught that. A design, huh?" Her enthusiasm quickly returns, "Well, we can talk this out and figure out what everyone wants, right? What's good for you, for me, for Hinote and Fate and Vale and Sol too," she's definitely keen on being inclusive, even if it's possible some people might not know where to begin on what's wanted out of this; Rune can't immediately think of much herself.
"Well, it's less about what looks good and more about what works with the space," Gao points out. "Not to mention being sturdy enough to support what it needs to support, and being able to brace against wind and weather."
He boosts his legs up and over the branch, gently dropping down to the ground. "Come on, I remember getting a measuring tape when I was picking up some of these tools," he calls to Rune. "The sooner we start measuring, the sooner we can start figuring out the design!"