Gardening Leave

The weather was terrible today. With the boiling rain above you and the generally hot air around you, it was almost acceptable that things would suck here in the South East near Baltimare.

The whirling winds that blew his short mane were a nuisance as Whirlwind Sins stepped out of his small car. A scowl etched on his face as the car door gave a click as it locked behind him.

Before him was a large sprawling farm, full of cabbages that waved slightly in the wind and the soft pattering rain. Whirlwind stepped forward regardless, with a small datapad in his hooves as he stepped against the mud the rain had formed, with clothes the rain was staining wet.

The datapad glowed softly in its ethereal blue light as he passed the metal fences of the farm. His horn glowed as well, pushing the long gate door open. His hooves staining and mixing with the dirt that had been reserved for trucks. Sticky and disgusting.

The gate was opened slowly as he stepped over onto the property of the farm. The cabbages were now in his reach, and with an ever deepening scowl Whirlwind stepped over to a row of them. They waved softly in the rain’s wind as Whirlwind crouched down to look at them, hugging the datapad to his chest.

He knew how cabbages were supposed to be, with a healthy green that matched crayons and the digital colours datapads could make. But all Whirlwind could see on the closest sample to him. Were just the little curling of the leaves. Very little curling would not have meant much. But with the leaves turning from the colour of photosynthesis to the colour of the sun, Whirlwind knew with ease the issue that was destroying this little plant.

A frown coloured his face, dropping the scowl as Whirlwind’s magic softly grabbed and began to pull on the curled edge of the cabbage. It felt fragile, like the water in it had long since dried. Whirlwind’s nose twitched as he crouched and brought his head a bit lower against the cabbage as he looked near the bottom part of it.

The dirt was smellable now… even with the rain showering the land, some smell came to Whirlwind’s nostrils. The rich… rich, smell of dirt, and the soft distinct smell of the cabbage. It was slightly crisp. But that was not the full force of his attention had went. For just at the bottom of the cabbage’s leaf, near its centre, were a couple of small holes. Little, little holes that were chewed through.

Whirlwind looked back at his datapad, pulling it off against his chest as his magic unlocked. The soft jingle of it tingled his ears, interrupting the constant beat of the rain. His magic moved and manipulated the device, cold, inorganic, and straightforward unlike the life he was inspecting before him. His magic pulled up his notetaking application as he turned back to the cabbage.

The soft typing his magic made, joined in with the beat as his magic too pulled the cabbage a bit up. Giving him a clearer sight of the bottom of the cabbage. The dirt around it pulled slightly, revealing more soggy dirt where the cabbage had rooted. Whirlwind nodded slightly at that, as he turned his attention back to the top of the cabbage and its curled, yellowing leaves.

Slowly, Whirlwind brought a hoof off the dirt. Already dirty, he grabbed the top of the leaf as his magic held it in place. Like a surgeon, he pulled back the top of the leaf. His ears being privy to the little sounds of the cabbage letting out crisp crackles in its structure. If there were any doubts of its symptoms now, Whirlwind would know now.

He peered over into the first layer between the cabbages' most outside section and its interior with more leaves that he could see had been suffering the same. And the colours green, yellow, and lime, were joined by a more sinister grey.

Whirlwind squinted slightly as he looked into the very bottom of the cabbage leaf. Finding a mass of grey that clung to the cabbage. From that section, Whirlwind could still see the colours green around it… but past it, the rest of the leaf had grown yellowed and crispy. But where the grey mass held, green was still there.

Moving. Squirming. Chittering upon little legs of locomotion, Whirlwind recognized these little critters that were no doubt suckling the water out of the cabbage, killing it slowly and surely for them instead to prosper. And judging by how many there were, Whirlwind frowned deeper as he pulled himself away from the sight of these little creatures. His magic grabbed the second leaf and pulled it back too, letting out a similar crispy noise.

Once more, the same story repeats of crispy leaves, dying without water and turning yellow. And once more a mass of grey at the very bottom of the leaf as well. With little holes in the second leaf. No doubt allowing the little critters to move in between to the centre of the cabbage.

Whirlwind shook his head at the sight, turning to his datapad to note down the little details as he observed the plants to the right and left. They too, had the same little issues of this first little specimen he had observed.

The typing on his datapad clicked and clicked, at a pace faster than the rains pattering as his face looked up towards the farmstead. From there, he spotted a figure. The farmer of the residence waved at him and held an umbrella. The citizen who had asked for him out here.

A soft smile slowly crept onto his face as he began a trot on the dirt track as the farmer quickly came out to greet him too.

His hooves dirtied, his datapad typing away, and a soft smile on his face as he greeted the farmer.