Elain Market Gardener/Researcher/Explorer Headcanon
Elain can do so much more with her Gardening knowledge. We know that she wanted to visit the continent to see the flowers there, that she can grow almost everything in her garden and isn't afraid to get her hands dirty. She can easily learn recipes and people enjoy her food. She is a capable reader and follower of instructions. During her time in the human world she was seen to be intelligent and a worthy match for any lord.
So using these things and inspiration from a picture - I give you Elain the Market Gardener/Researcher/Explorer who is just trying to rebuild the earth one plant at a time.
- After the destruction of the War with Hybern, the lands are still recovering. The people of Prythian are most concerned with food but Elain is slowly finding in her travels that other plants are being destroyed to make crops and feed the people.
- She then Makes it her mission to research and preserve all the plants she can - even the ones people don't love.
- This research and gathering of plants takes her around Prythian, But she quickly learns that she cannot take them all back with her to the Night Court due to climate differences as they don't survive very long there.
- So she she gathers other like minded people and finds ways to set up nurseries and gardens in each Court.
- Her "little research job" quickly expands to managing other people and collaborating with them to learn as much as they can about all the plants - magical or otherwise.
- Lucien introduces her to his friend Nuan, whose knowledge quickly comes in handy.
- Nuan becomes her chief science officer making sure that temperatures are kept even and experimenting with ways to create new climates in other courts allowing cross-breeding between vastly different plants.
- Nuan remains based in Dawn. Close to the Night Court but also surrounded by other like minded tinkering people.
- Nuan and Elain become close friends, working together for the betterment of all of Prythian. They have their own team of people that Source the plants, others that save them, and then ones with knowledge slowly realise that this is a good thing happening.
- It takes time for the sprites and forest dwelling lesser fae to trust the high fae walking through their lands but once they start seeing the high fae saving plants from being destroyed they start to open up and share knowledge.
- Elain still loves to get her fingers dirty, to feel one with the soil, so each garden that she travels to has a small plot of land just for her.
- She plants her favourite varieties in each of these small gardens located around Prythian. She always feels at home in each place as long as she gets to spend time in her garden.
- These small gardens become her home, each a reflection of a different part of herself. She doesn't always invite people to see her gardens and often will have another garden for the public to see.
- The secret gardens allow her to continue her own research without anyone else.
- She has Nuala and Ceridwen often visiting her and while they probably know of the secret gardens they have never asked her about them and Elain likes this about them. They know when she does and doesn't want to talk.
- The Spring Court was the first Court she went to. To help the farmers and the local populace but also to make sure that things grew without growing wild. Spring seemed to grow without any help from her so a taming was needed. A pruning of thorns and roses to let smaller, slower growing plants thrive. She had some of the Inner Circle at her disposal for the exercise and even the Band of Exiles helped her. Vassa's fire powers were helpful in that she could burn invasive plants and the ash could be used to fertilise the fields.
- On her way home she did the royal tour - a slow trip through the safer courts of Summer, Winter, Dawn and Day. They quickly moved through the middle not wanting to stop but Elain made sketches of the vines and night blooming flowers from the carriage.
- In each court she realised how many things she had yet to explore and discover. The beauty that was present in every place and how abundant life was.
- The first thing she realised was that her knowledge was lacking. Each court was a whole new place and experience.
- When she arrived in the Day court instead of heading to the hanging gardens by the river she quickly moved into the library with her sister. Nesta left her alone in the halls filled with botany books and went in search of her own book choices.
- The research was just the start but she was determined to use her new found purpose to help the people of prythian in the way she best knew how.
- Over time this developed into greenhouses - plants for sale and user guides for how to take care of them.
- Elain becomes a household name, knowing how to grow anything and everything and. She receives fan mail - Her fans write to her to ask "how do I stop plant X from dying?", if she doesn't know then her team jumps into action and she learns it.
- They develop quarterly publications that talk about the best plants to grow in the court and season and tips for making more exotic plants grow in new climates. Elain loves collecting flowers for Feyre to paint and placing her art on the cover.
- Helion and Rhysand spent time developing a printing press for mass production, and while it is still a minority of Fae that will read the pamphlet, reading it being brought to the masses through Gardening.
- Her teams under Nuan have found medicinal properties for plants and the Dawn court now grows most of the medicinal plants making them more accessible.
- Elain found a sapling for an Ash tree on an excursion, and while she knows this can easily kill Fae she had to preserve the species. So in the middle there is a secret grove known only to her, where ash trees grow.
