Prompt | Where the flowers grow - @flashfictionfridayofficial
Everywhere.
Once there were flowers, now there was dirt. Not nourishing soil, not cradling earth: rust and toxic soot. The air stank of vile salts meant to be confined below.
Rains fell and caked it all together, sludge slithering along the cracks.
And then-
A seed.
Always a seed.
Tender little leaves, a splash of vivid green, drinking what they could of the harsh rays echoing from the blankness with scorching heat.
None were there to say how long it took. But then, another sprout. A set of skittering legs. Invisible threads weaving through unwelcoming ground, undeterred.
The butterflies led me to her. Heralds of death, she told me. There were so many of them, as small as a fingertip, as big as my spread hands. A vibrant, fluttering rainbow that brought me to what should have been a nighttime sight, drenched in sunlight. Flowers waved over her, and butterflies landed on her open eyes, her slack lips, her outstretched hands. Jewel-toned wings closed and opened, displaying and concealing the garish marks around her neck.
"No," I said out loud. "Not like this."
Two days. She'd been two days gone, and no one believed she was in trouble, she needed help. Her father, the police, even our other friends, not another soul joined my search.
"I knew," I whispered. So close you might as well be sisters, they teased, but they didn't believe she'd never leave me. I reached out to her, and the butterflies fluttered away, a riot of color that made me close my eyes. She was sun-warm, but not living-warm.
I knew what I should do, but we'd both of us spent our whole lives on should, should, should, and where did it get us? Alone among the flowers, she still, so still. You can recognize places of death, she told me, because that's where the flowers grow.
If no one else knew what happened here, it wasn't real yet.
So I sat beside her while the sun set and dark settled around us. I held her hand and I reminded her of all the things we planned to do together until dewfall anointed us both. I reached out to the heavy flowers bowed around us, and I gathered dew in my palms. I washed her eyes, her lips, her bruised throat, and I rested a hand over her still heart.
I bent to kiss her, and she took the breath right from my lungs in a gasp. Her fingers clutched my arms, tight, tight. Her eyes closed and opened them again to take in the dawn of the third day since she disappeared.
"You came," she whispered, her voice raw.
"Always," I swore, and she kissed me again, dragging me down beside her on top of dry, crackling grass. "He said you ran away, but I knew."
She sat up, and brittle flowers dropped their browned petals in a shower around us. "That's what he said?" A smile played over her lips and she looked over the desiccated meadow. "Let's make it true."
The mellow sunshine of a summer afternoon wane with each passing minute, the sun approaching the earth until it touches, inviting the shadows of the night to cast over it. However, for the next fifteen minutes or so, the sky will remain painted in shades of amber, magenta and lavender before twilight falls on them.
A permanently hunched woman stands at the peak of the hill, watching her child, a little girl that barely reaches her hips, pick up the wildflowers off the ground. She stops to inspect them thoroughly, inhaling its scent, then running towards the opposite direction. Her giggles are carried by the wind that once lifted and brought the wails and howls of soldiers, not much older than her, back to her village.
The woman doesn’t join her. Her forehead, lashed deep with lines and her jaundiced eyes hold the memory of when these lands were flooded with the blood of men and women, children and elders, as their decomposing bodies returned back to the earth. Her purplish, wrinkled lips can still mouth the names of each of her losses, the breeze echoing the memories of them in her ears and haunting her sleep.
A twig breaks somewhere in the woods, and she clutches her baby to her bosom. Dread fills in the cracks of her weary bones as she waits for the bombs to drop over her head— but they never do.
The sky transforms from a soft purplish hue into a light blue that reminds her of the ocean she used to visit in her childhood with ghosts. Her child is playing carefree on the graveyard of her ancestors, but unlike the woman, she will never witness the sky set on fire, burning red.
Context: a couple of months after Lissan moved to the city, near the beginning of Days of Dusk 2
Look, I know this is asking for a flowery, poetic scene, but… I want to write my usual cosy slice of life vignettes when I’m not working on novel-length projects. Also, this turned out much sweeter and fluffier than I intended. Oops.
“So, how are you finding Redguard?” Ianim asked, watching Lissan with polite curiosity.
Lissan stretched an arm over the iron-wrought back of the weathered bench and looked around the small square. It was carved out of a corner of a limestone townhouse, on the eastern side of the river. A lush lilac bush sprawled in the middle of a paved circle, with four benches surrounding it. Ianim took a seat on an adjacent bench.
“It’s… fine.” Lissan’s tone was too guarded.
Ianim leant in, resting his elbows on his knees, and clasped his hands.
“But?” he prompted.
“You know what it looked like back home. Green fields, green orchards, green woods. And here, everything is brick and stone. It’s… weird.”
Ianim smiled gently.
“Missing home?”
“A bit, yeah.” Lissan shrugged. “But that’s not what I meant. I’ve got a trip planned next month. It’s just– It would be nice to find a place here that feels a little bit more like home. To go to on a whim, you know?”
Ianim tilted his head, going over the list of landmarks that Redguard had to offer.
“You haven’t had a chance to explore the city, have you?”
~*~
On Sunday morning, Ianim left his horse in the pavilion near the entrance to the park, tipping the stablehand probably more than was customary. Lissan arrived on foot less than ten minutes later, wearing the uniform, although he carried the coatee in his hands. Ianim didn’t blame him, it was already a hot day. He pointed Lissan towards the tall gate crowned with an iron arch, and they delved into the park at a leisurely pace.
They kept to the side of the wide path lined with orange and pink tulips, while horses trotted past them down the middle. Ianim looked after the riders, his attention briefly caught by a beautiful yellow and blue habit worn by a woman roughly his age. He enjoyed watching the people even more than admiring the blooming trees and bushes.
There were multiple Swords in the park, their grey uniform standing out against the shades of green. Groups of friends from different divisions, or couples – often with one person in uniform, one in civilian attire – sat on picnic blankets, around wicker baskets loaded with sweet and savoury snacks. At a bench near a drinking fountain, an older man was gently tapping small hammers on the strings of a battered dulcimer.
As Ianim guided Lissan towards the arboretum, he refrained from pointing out some of the rarer plants. The ones that were imported from the Sovanese League or from across the Sunset Strait. The ones that were brought by envoys, to celebrate newly-forged relations. The camphor tree planted personally by an ambassador almost seventy years ago. The blue cypress that was gifted to the First Prince because of its colour. He shook his head, reassuring himself that exotic trees certainly wouldn’t remind Lissan of home.
“So? Tell me about this place?” Lissan said, making Ianim jump, and snorted at the reaction.
“What would you like to know?”
“Just… there’s got to be something special about it. You wouldn’t like it so much otherwise.”
Protests died on Ianim’s lips, and he felt his cheeks flush. Yes, he adored the nooks and crannies of the arboretum, but this outing wasn’t for him.
“You’re right,” he admitted. “In a way, it’s a collection to commemorate various events. A lot of the trees were brought from abroad…”
Soon, encouraged gently by Lissan, he found himself summarising the trip across the Inner Sea with his Grandfather, when he was in his teens. How they were given small saplings, and how Grandfather allowed Ianim to plant them during a toned down ceremony.
Lissan let him talk. He enjoyed it, by the looks of it, and only that stopped Ianim from feeling bad about making it all about himself. Again.
He pointed Lissan to the nearest bench and took a seat, stretching his legs.
“I’m sorry,” he said once his excitement waned.
“Huh? What for?” Lissan asked, sitting next to him.
“This… isn’t what you were looking for, is it?”
“Not quite,” Lissan said with an easy shrug. “But it was fun.”
Ianim nodded his thanks.
“Can you tell me what exactly you’re after?”
Lissan leant back and looked around, his eyes scanning the space above people’s heads and smaller bushes, as if he was trying to see the horizon – impossible, of course, since townhouses surrounded the park on all sides.
“I think it's only just occurred to me. Everything in Redguard is so deliberate. Even here, for every tree someone’s made a decision to plant it in that spot.” He scanned the area again, his expression wistful. “I think what I really miss is knowing that sometimes a tree sprouts where the seed fell. That there isn’t a good reason why poppies or cornflowers grow where they do. Sometimes, it’s that simple.”
~*~
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