So that one was meant for Morgana and Michelle’s birthday as well as for Day 8: Final Door - Fairy Tale for @fata10thanni
It got late 💔 But I still got around to finish it! Happy birthday 🦋
[Image description: A traditional fanart with ink and paint of The House in Fata Morgana. It shows the characters of Morgana and The White-Haired Girl or Michelle. Morgana is a teenage girl with pale skin, golden eyes, and long red braids resting on her shoulders and longing her whole body. She is sitting down and wearing a white dress with long sleeves and golden frames, with her left hand set on an open book in front of her. The White-Haired Girl is sitting to Morgana’s right and touching her shoulder. She is a teenage girl with pale skin, long white hair and red eyes wearing the same dress. A white dove is flying to her holding a letter in its talons, and The White-Haired Girl is reaching out to it with her left hand. Morgana and The White-Haired Girl are in the middle of the picture while pages from the book are flying around them. They are surrounded by green ronces and blue strikes in the background. They are framed by a beige border with white lozenges. /End description]
Meandering Souls — Day 2: Door 2 - Gardening and Botany
Fandom: The House in Fata Morgana
Rating: Teen and Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Relationship: Giselle & Yukimasa Aida, Yukimasa Aida/Pauline Asama, Yukimasa Aida & The White-Haired Girl
Summary: The Maid teaches Bestia how to plant flowers; something he might've done before, a long time ago.
Words: 2,151
AO3 | Ff.net
[A collection of unrelated one-shots for the @fata10thanni prompts:
Day 1: Door 1 — Mirror
Day 2: Door 2 — Gardening and Botany
Day 3: Door 3 — In the Shadows]
Notes: I’ve actually hesitated for a while to write something with Javi for this one. I went with Yukimasa in the end cause it’s still *his* door, you know? But I don’t really like it in the end so I wonder if I would’ve done better to go with Javi instead like I planned initially…
Oh well. Sorry Javi, one day I’ll write something about you, I promise.
Also, just like in the first prompt with the Rhodes parents, Pauline’s mother’s name Filippa here is also her official name, in case you didn’t know.
The manor’s garden didn’t look much like an actual garden and more like some untreated, wild forest.
Bestia didn’t know where he’d got this certitude, given he’d obviously never seen a normal human’s garden before, but somehow he was sure of this. A fact he was aware of innately.
Maybe he’d noticed without realizing it when he’d stopped at that village—
But no, he would not dwell on this.
Just thinking about the village was enough to make him nauseous.
Instead, he reported his gaze on the Maid, sat next to him, who was currently dirtying her hands in the ground .
“Do you understand now, Master?” She asked, after pulling out some more herbs and burying yet another seed. “Come on, give me a hand here. I might be a maid, but it is only the two of us here; and it is quite rude to watch someone work without helping, would you not say?”
Bestia did not understand. The Maid had solicited his help for gardening, but he couldn’t make sense of the reason why she bothered with this. She was weeding out , digging a small hole , then putting a handful of seeds into the ground. She did this almost every day. It seemed so useless to him.
“Why?” He managed to articulate, words still so foreign to him.
The woman stopped, then looked up at him. “Why am I doing this?” She inquired.
She was always surprisingly astute to understand him even when he barely managed to put together comprehensible sentences. Her hand, as white and ethereal as the moon, came resting on her cheek in a thoughtful gesture. Bestia thought about how strange it was that her skin was completely clean despite the fact she’d been twiddling dirt for over an hour now.
She truly didn’t feel human at all, even when she was doing the most basic of tasks.
“My, that’s a good question. Gardening can be useful to grow food, but what we are planting here is not food, so I can understand your bewilderment. Indeed, I suppose you could say there is not much purpose in planting flowers…”
A melancholic expression spread on her face, and Bestia felt more and more confused by the minutes. Why was she even spending time on this if she agreed it was useless ?
As if she’d just read his thoughts, she quickly continued: “There is no purpose… and this land has been cursed and dead for centuries. I doubt anything would be able to grow in it anymore, to be honest, but…”
Suddenly, she looked at him; jade eyes shimmering, enrapturing . “But I love roses. They are the flowers of love. And I know she loved them , too, so I am doing it for her.”
“For her.”
The Maid looked down at the ground, face perfectly blank, but an odd little smile stretch ed her red lips.
“For when she’ll come back.”
Bestia did not ask her who she meant by that.
Not because he was not curious, but because there was something, somewhere, in her voice, that told him it was a secret he had no right to be privy to.
So he simply helped her plant the seeds in silence.
Yukimasa nodded at Pauline’s curious tone and eyes while she stared at his bag of seeds.
“This is what they’re called. That’s the name for Japanese camellias.”
“Ooh.” Pauline blinked at the seeds, looking at them fixedly as if she was trying to find something hidden in there. “But why does that has anything to do with me?”
He sighed. Sometimes, some part of his mind thought that if he was a normal man, he probably would feel embarrassed by this of interaction with Pauline.
“I… wanted to give you flowers,” he admitted. “And… because you always asks me so much about my home country, I thought… maybe you’d like some Japanese flowers…”
Not like Yukimasa knew much of anything about those , even less so about Japanese ones. Or about gardening, really. He'd always been a man of the sea; he'd never really had to deal with working the land before then.
“…But it’s not like you can just find those around here, so I asked your father, and he told me about how your mother has a garden and loved gardening, so…”
As the words finally started to get to Pauline’s head, a big smile spread on her face and her dark eyes shined with excitement.
“Yes, she has! Does that mean you’re asking for us to garden together?!”
“Well—”
“That sounds like fun! I’m not all that good at it, Mom always tells me I just make a mess of everything and so she generally want to keep me away from the garden— but if you’re here with me then she’ll probably agree! C’mon, let’s ask her!”
Before Yukimasa could reply , Pauline pulled on his hand and hurried him inside the family house. Her mother Filippa did seem quite reluctant at first to let Pauline anywhere near her garden, but with the condition Yukimasa had to keep an eye on her they finally got access to it.
Although Filippa had initially been a gainst her daughter having a foreigner for lover, she’d quickly warmed up to Yukimasa because of “how well-mannered and gentlemanly” he was, and she’d been very amiable towards him ever since. Sometimes, she even actively favored his opinions over Pauline’s and was also very enthusiastic at the prospect of them getting married.
Maybe he should feel a bit bad over deceiving Filippa so overtly when he was anything but an ideal future son-in-law, but it wasn’t like it was in his interest to try to disprove her.
He’d been deceiving Pauline for longer than that too, anyway.
“Okaayy, so they’re in! Do you think we need to do anything else now…?”
Pauline spoke cheerfully before patting the ground in a gentle way, as if she was afraid of disrupting the task she’d just accomplished.
They had finally put into the ground the seeds, and it had… certainly been interesting to watch Pauline make such a mess around her in so little time. Not only were her gloved hands completely covered in dirt, but so were her hair, face and clothes; and this despite her mother having insisted for her to take on an apron to protect herself. Yukimasa could now definitely understand Filippa’s initial reluctance about letting her daughter anywhere near the fresh ground .
But he supposed he shouldn’t be that surprised — Pauline was always like that, after all. So deeply e arnest and intense about everything she was doing that it ended up scattering this energy everywhere around her.
“Those are just normal seeds,” Yukimasa finally replied. “There’s no need for anything else. Just water them.”
“Hmm, I see…” Pauline patted the freshly-covered hole a little once again with the tip of her fingers. Yukimasa was the one who had no experience in gardening, and yet Pauline was always asking him for instructions. “Heheh, well, I can’t wait to see them finally bloom! I wonder what they’ll look like… and when they’ll bloom…”
As she seemed to get lost in thought, Yukimasa stared at her in silence. Her round, pale face was peppered with brown mud all over. It didn’t suit her, he thought, to be dirty like that.
Pauline had to always be clean and pamper, that’s just how it should be.
So before he could think about it, he reached out towards her and wiped out the mud off her face. Pauline, snapping out of her reverie , shrieked in surprise and blushed heavily, her cheeks feeling suddenly very hot under his fingers.
“Y-Yukimasa— What are you—”
“You were dirty.”
“O-Oh… Right…” After realizing what he meant, she giggled awkwardly. “I-It’s always like this with me, right? I just can’t seem to do anything right…”
“You planted the seeds right enough.”
“H-Huh? Oh…” For some reason, she appeared surprised at his comment; and then a gentle smile spread on her face. “Right, I guess so…”
She then looked around her, as if checking if there was not her mother or anyone else around, and then leaned in; briefly putting a small kiss on the corner of his mouth, as feeble as a butterfly.
Yukimasa could feel from here some dirt residual rest on his cheek as a result of this, but as Pauline pulled away and smiled shyly at him, he decided he didn’t mind it much.
“I don’t… know when they’re supposed to bloom,” he finally declared, then looked down at the seeds now deep in the ground.
Captain Asama had been the one to tell him those were red camellias, but he had not added anything else. A long time ago, Yukimasa had heard from his grandfather that red camellias in their culture symbolized a noble death for Japanese warriors, as well as love.
Romantic notions that didn’t fit him in the slightest.
But he had thought they fitted Pauline.
“Oh… well, that doesn’t really matter.”
He lifted his eyes towards the young woman in front of him, the lover he didn’t love , and she was smiling at him, like always.
“I’m sure they’ll be here when you come back either way.”
A soft, gentle voice shook him out of his thoughts, and when he raised his head a blur of green and white greeted him.
Michelle was looking down at him, curiosity printed all over her face; although he knew she technically wasn’t able to actually look at anything at all.
Bestia hesitated for a moment, not certain of what he should reply, because he wasn’t entirely sure what he was doing. The one who had dragged him out there in the first place to take care of the garden — the Maid, or the Witch, or whoever she was — had been nowhere to be seen; so to say the truth, he had no need to go there anymore.
But he’d noticed something unusual today, so he had to check it out.
“The flower,” he finally said.
He could see Michelle tilt her head in confusion.
“Flower?”
“Rose,” he clarified. “She… The rose planted there, it bloomed.”
The young woman’s red eyes widened in understanding, and they seemed to shine in excitement. Bestia wasn’t really sure why, as he should be the most surprised out of the two of them. The Witch had made sure to tell him this land was dead and cursed and that nothing could grow in there anymore. It was strange this single rose had managed to bloom, then, wasn’t it?
W ell, it wasn’t like he had any experience in gardening before anyway. He was just a beast.
“My, you planted roses? It sounds wonderful. I didn’t know you liked gardening.”
He didn’t. No more than anything else. It was the Witch that had planted them, but somehow he didn’t know how to properly explain it to Michelle.
(Or, at least, he didn’t think he liked gardening, but—)
The woman knelt down next to him, not caring about sullying her pretty green dress, and then with svelte fingers she patted around delicately, searching for the flower. At some point, Bestia decided to help her out, and with his much bigger hands he grabbed hers, pulling them towards the rose.
“Oh my,” she said, her small fingers gently caressing the petals. “It seems very pretty. What color is it?”
She raised her head, and for a minute, Bestia suddenly saw the figure of another person.
Another young woman, with black hair, earnest eyes, covered in mud from head to toes.
“I’m sure they’ll be here when you come back either way.”
“…White.”
“White roses, huh?” Michelle brought her fingers on her lips thoughtfully. “If I recall correctly, they symbolizes purity and loyalty. My mother told me so, once. Meanwhile red roses are for love and passion.”
Bestia wouldn’t know, but somehow, that seemed right.
“Do you… want it?”
“The rose? Oh no. I think flowers are prettier when they’re left alive and in the ground, don’t you think?”
“…Not particularly.”
Michelle chuckled, then looked down, as if trying to look at the flower despite her impaired vision.
“Why did you plant these?”
“Sorry?”
“I mean, there must’ve been a reason, no? Did you plant them for something?”
There was no reason, of course. Bestia hadn’t even really planted them, it had been the Witch. And even the Witch hadn’t seemed to expect for those to really bloom.
He wondered if she was satisfied even just a single one did bloom , wherever she was now. Maybe she hadn’t even noticed it.
But even so, the words left his mouth before he could think over them.
“It was for someone. When she’ll come back.”
Michelle stayed silent at that.
When Bestia came back to the garden the next morning, however…
The white rose the White-Haired Girl had touched had turned red.
