Carla
The Fertile Grove Arboretum is a diverse collection of divine trees from various corners of the mortal and divine realms. Each tree represents a different aspect of nature and is meticulously cared for by skilled arborists and nature deities. Gods visit this arboretum to draw inspiration from the diverse tapestry of the natural world.
Amber
Olympian had grown much since the last time that Boreas had walked its streets. Back then, they were barely making the movement between horses and automobiles, only a few of the richest inhabitants having had the funds to secure such a luxurious move of transportation. Now, however, the things seemed to be everywhere, along with the massive buses and trains underground that seemed to unsettle the very earth beneath his feet. The North Wind was not, for all intents and purposes, a god behind on the times... Indeed, he was one of the few in the pantheon that spent most of his time amongst humanity. Watching their growth, being involved in their lives, nipping at their windows as he watched them tinker away at their little tools and gadgets.

He had quite enjoyed the invention of the car; he enjoyed things that approached the speed of the wind, allowing him to experience something akin the movement with which he was able to fly without actually relying on his powers. Planes used to provide a similar sensation, however with the invention of closed canopies, it was once again the convertible car, Formula car, or motorcycle that came closest to giving the god of winter something like that rush he used to much enjoy. The environmental damage was nothing that he'd ever expected from his favorite invention, though, even if he had expected the usual human tendency for destruction. As such, he found such a collection of vehicles out on the road to be... Distasteful. During those moments where his distaste slipped toward annoyance, he often found himself looking to other locations in the city for respite.

The section of the city dedicated to Demeter was such a place to walk. Especially the Arboretum, filled with its wonderfully diverse selection of trees, it offered Boreas an opportunity to enjoy nature during the day without the thoughts of human destruction... Nor the current divinely ordained destruction going on below. With a sigh, the North Wind continued to walk down the path, glancing up toward the boughs of a massive oak as he considered much of what has happened so far. Violent insurrection, terrible infighting, his quiet arrival into the city, remaking old connections... Seeing Aether again. Was that to be his fate forever? To see old enemies and friends from the past and rekindle the loves and rivalries that were present before? To eternally replay them out on the stage for humanity and the Three Kings to enjoy?

Unable to help it, Boreas let out a long, loud sigh. It was... Difficult to deal with such thoughts. Even at home, they were only slightly easier to bear thanks to the creature comforts he had to himself. There was no longer anyone there he could really share these thoughts with... Khione visited only sparsely, his brothers were no help, his wife and other children gone. The only distance connection he had was his adopted daughter in Aeolus, and even she was distant, dealing with the squabbles and movements of the other Anemoi. The North Wind sat, face a mask, as he stared up into the branches of the big tree. Where was Aeolus now? Was she fine? It was a wonder he could not answer at the moment...
Juan
Freedom was a thrilling thing, both alluring and terrifying. That was what Aeolus thought the first time she left the island named for her, an island that was both her pride and her prison. Living under the burdensome eyes of other Gods and Goddesses, used as a tool for their petty grievance and grand vengeance—she'd wanted so much to venture into the world and live among the humans. Yet, when finally offered that opportunity, she shrunk back, excited but fearful, cowering like a lost child. 

Yes, that was what she was, _a lost child_. The day she first stepped into the mortal realm, she found herself wandering within the Arboretum, dazed and aimless, paralyzed by the very freedom she always wanted. A step forward would mean new experiences, things out of her control; and a step back meant the stifling stagnancy she hated so much, but knew so well. And so, she had simply sat on the grass, staring at the dappled sunlight through the verdant canopy above. Her first day of freedom ended peacefully that way, surrounded by nature. 
`

Today, as she sat there again, the lost look of the past was gone, replaced by quirked lips in a perpetually cheerful face with light brown eyes. Aeolus gave a youthful, charming impression, one carefully honed over decades, maybe even centuries of pandering to others in the name of love. If she smiled, they would smile back, and if she acted cute, they would soften—that was the lesson freedom had taught her: _she had no freedom_. 

She glanced around carefully before her quirked lips slowly relaxed, her body laying prone on the grass with no posture or etiquette to speak of. There was no need to act here; the sheer size of the Arboretum meant a smaller likelihood of running into acquaintances. That was why it was the place she went to whenever her mood became chaotic, when the pretense began to crumble and her temper escaped her grasp. It was her hideaway, where there was only the breeze among the leaves and plenty of hiding places from which to observe the crushing world around her. How did others face the world? Maybe she could learn from them. 

Aeolus curled up in her favorite spot, surrounded by large oaks that hid her well, making the leaves dance on her palm through Zephyrus's blessing, the gentlest of her compatriots. A folk tune swayed quietly from her lips, from a time she barely remembered when she was a child locked in a cave with four primordial strangers. They were the only ones she'd known at the time, and the only entities to have ever given her a gift to date. A brief yet pleasant time when she still had confidants around that didn't gallop on all fours. 

_Who was it that taught her that folk song?_ 

An absentminded self-inquiry that she didn't care to delve too deeply into.
Amber
The sun was high enough at that point in the day that sunshine fell through the branches like party streamers that were just a little too long. For just a moment, the man many would call Old Winter stood beneath the ancient tree and tried to let the light shine on his skin, give him just a little bit of extra warmth as the day progressed, despite the fact that he knew it was helpless. No matter what other people felt when they touched his skin, the warmth of a live body and the pulse of a beating heart, Boreas was cursed forever to feel only the sharp cold of his own Northern Gale.

Perhaps that was why he hated Helios... The man had always spited him, never giving him an ounce of warmth or embracing him with some form of kindness. It had always been the cold, like the sun had denied him the most basic pleasure of the living. Yet another basic pleasure of the living.

With a sigh, the god turned his eyes from the boughs above him to the ground underneath him. He still needed to get his bearings in this city... So far he had met only a few other gods here, particularly Aether and Hyacinthus. Both were supposedly loyalists to the cause of Zeus, but the reality seemed to be a bit deeper. The average sentiment so far was that the war itself was unnecessary, just a bit more desperate dealing between the Brothers to see who could eek out a bit more power over the other. However, that was only two gods and, to be honest, two of the gods most likely to be opposed to war given their inclinations. Boreas was by far not a pacifist, as much as he was striving to change now, and understood that sometimes a conflict had to be fought... If the reasons were good enough. As of yet, none had given decent reasons for the war, and he himself could not piece them together.

The North Wind continued to walk down the path, slight confusion still plaguing his thoughts, mind up in the air about how things were going, before suddenly he slowed and came to a stop. There was someone laying out in the grass a distance away, someone that seemed to be a bit familiar. To be honest, the chances of running into someone out here were incredibly low so... Despite his more anti-social tendencies, Boreas decided that the chance was far too random to give up to pure luck.

After a few moments, the breeze around Aeolus would drop in temperature, going from a balmy thing somewhere in the high seventies to the low sixties. Wind would whip at the grass for a few moments, before eventually dying down... And a shadow would fall over her, something clearly imposing between the young goddess of the winds and the sun. That would be the moment that the North Wind's face came into view, a raised eyebrow clear on his otherwise stoic expression. "... Aeolus?" He asked quietly, not having directly seen his long lost daughter in some several hundred odd years.
Juan
Her sensitivity to the wind was unmatched, and Aeolus felt something the moment he entered her territory. It was a nagging, irritating familiarity, and her frigid, icy blue mount came to mind instantly. Her face wrinkled in a mix of affection and exasperation as she thought of the stubborn blue horse who had a nasty habit of tossing ice crystals at his Spring-born brother, whenever she so much as glanced poor Zephyr's way for too long. 

With those amusing thoughts in mind, Aeolus didn't think much of the shift in the winds—maybe she was simply missing her unruly divine horses? It was only when the warmth of the sun was abruptly interrupted that she quietly transformed from indolence to youthful vigor, a warm and sweet smile habitually gracing her features as she glanced up at the visitor.

"Hello! Did you need some... Thing..." The words died weakly on her lips, her pupils sharply contracting from the shock of Boreas's appearance. Her body instantly reacted, like a cat whose tail was stepped on, bouncing upright into a stiff, almost defensive posture. 

"B-Boreas!" She stuttered, her eyes wide and panicked. Her figure was reminiscent of a timid student called out by a strict teacher, shrinking and nervous, ready to bolt at a moment's notice. 
`

Aeolus couldn't help her instinctive reaction to this foster father of hers. The memories, blurred by time though they were, were still capable of raising her hackles. His guardianship always felt layered in expectation to Aeolus, and she always wound up feeling like she never could quite match up. As his absence grew more pronounced and she spent more time on her own, this feeling had grown and become rooted deeply within her. Now, she looked at him with complex emotions, her turmoil plain to see. She smiled, or tried to, her voice embarrassingly high despite her best efforts, "I-I didn't know you were here! Why... What brings you here?" 

Aeolus swallowed, feeling the tips of her ears burning hotly in shame at her instinctive timidity. It was like she was transported to ages past, a naughty, excitable child grounded in her least favorite cave by Boreas for being too wilful. Back then, she hadn't known who Poseidon was to her, only knowing Boreas, Zephyrus, Notus and Eurus. The longing for affection hadn't come yet, nor had the harsh reality of being left behind by them sunk in. She was only a child, relying on her four guardians for everything, beholden to their guidance and demands. 

Like she had suddenly realized she was no longer the child of before, Aeolus visibly relaxed. Her smile became more natural, its sincerity hard to gauge. "It's been a while, Boreas," She said softly, displaying once again how much she embodied the fickle winds she held sway over.
Amber
Seeing the way her shoulders squared, Boreas couldn't help but be reminded of the first time he met Aeolus. A mere child locked away on a distant island, a prison for all intents and purposes, after she was practically abandoned by her own father and given the legal dominion over the winds. To the four Anemoi, it was nothing more than an insult, the idea that they were supposed to bow and scrape before a mere child, that they were supposed to be her steeds for her to ride to the corners of the earth and direct the seasons. Like they were nothing more than animals, forces to be subjugated. Like Boreas had not spilt blood, his own and others, during the fucking Titanomachy to win Zeus his highly coveted throne. Like he and his brothers, with their own hands, helped cast down mountains and seas with other gods in the name of some grand new order.

A new order that would see them subjugated to a girl. Why? Because Zeus was frightened that the storms the four brothers could conjure would outpace his own power, surely. They needed to be *Humbled*, reminded of their place, brought in line with Olympus.

Needless to say, the fury that had run its course through Boreas was indescribable. Men and women in the north felt it for months on end, terrible blizzards coating the ground in feet of snow, storms that would rip oak trees from the ground, and biting winds that would freeze men solid in hours. However, despite their anger, despite *His* Anger, Boreas and his brothers could not avoid the reality that they now had a fifth mind in determining the movement of the seasons, and they could not simply ignore her. And so Zephyrus, perhaps ever the optimist, or ever the schemer in the North Wind's mind, asked them to simply attempt to raise her. To raise her as their child, a foreign concept to Boreas at the time.

He could still so vividly remember the way her shoulder squared when she was a girl, all alone on her island, and it was his turn to watch her. To teach her. The anger in his heart when he looked at her and yet... And yet, he had always had a soft spot for her, too. One that mellowed the anger over time, realizing that she was just as much of a victim as he was of the gods' scheming. And so he raised her, perhaps harshly yes, but Winter was harsh and fickle. It did not mean it couldn't care, it couldn't nurture when needed, that it couldn't provide... He could do all those things, albeit in his own manner. Just like any parent, he had tried his best.

As it was, however, he could not help but feel a twinge of disappointment as he saw that fake smile slip onto Aeolus's face. A smile that was, to him, so distinctly a sign of *Zephyrus's* Influence that it almost sent him into a rage. At the mere sight of it, he took a breath in through his nose, something not fast enough yet to be violent, and yet clearly on the edge. And then slowly, slowly, he let it out, settling it down. "... It has been far too long, daughter." He responded, trying to will himself to melt for the moment. To remember the good times, and not just the moments when he handed her off to his hated brother. "As like... Yourself, I would assume, I am here because of the current politics on Olympus. Poseidon and Zeus are once again up to their tricks."

The North Wind paused for a moment and, with an almost concerted effort, he sat next to the place where she had been sitting before. Glancing up at her again, he gestured toward the ground. "Sit with me. We should catch up, as the mortals say."