“Well.” Jatydid stood in the corner of Noct’s smallest greenhouse. The glass cluster vines growing along trellises up above the ground, the leaves hanging just seven feet above the ground. It was golden hour, the sun light filtering through both the greenhouse glass and the clear leaves, creating mini rainbows. Jatydid had seen it before, but now there was something different.
Pure glass cluster vines created tiny seeds that were inedible, but these vines had been crossed with an Earth vine: for grapes.
Now large clear bubbles were hanging where the glass cluster vine seeds used to grow, nestled at the base of the leaves.
“Have you sent any to the lab?” Jatydid finally asked after studying the new fruit.
“Yes.” Noct reached up and used one of the suction cups on their tentacle to grab a fruit. “They say they are edible. Full of sugar water basically.”
“Great.” Jatydid plucked the fruit out of Noct’s tentacle and chomped down on it with their beak. The skin was hard, the beak clinked on the outside and the round bubble shot out the side from the pressure and then hit the edge of a flower bed.
Noct hurried over, picked it back up, and showed it to Jatydid. “It didn’t even crack.”
“Well.” Jatydid sighed.
“I guess this has a caveat,” Noct shook the little bubble, the liquid sloshing around inside. “Edible if you can masticate them.”
“Well,” Jatydid shrugged. “They do look quite pretty.”
“This is true.”
“But… where are the seeds?”
“Here.” Noct plucked a leaf from the vine. “Next to the petiole.” Down at the base of the leaf stem were four bumps, two were the clear petioles, and the other two were brown ovals. “They are slightly larger than the glass cluster vines, but still inedible.”
“Interesting.” Jatydid stretched their eyestalk towards Noct. “To a success of sorts.” They lightly tapped closed eyes together.
“To progress!” Noct shouted. “On to the next greenhouse.”
Word count: 326
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