bouquet

(C) Intelligent Studios and Nintendo

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To Prepare a Garden: Five Stories

1. Rhubarb (his advice)

"You're awake."

Klein Martel had been watching his wife's eyelashes fluttering on her pale cheek for a moment before he spoke those words, and he did not regret it in the least when she opened her eyes to unleash a glare at him, though it was unsteady and she quickly closed her eyes again. "My lord husband. What an honor it is to be visited upon by you at the point of my death." She once had the loveliest voice in all Etruria, a match to her nearly ethereal beauty, but now it was weak, strained, and any barbs in her tone had long been worn down.

"Do you wish for me to leave?" he asked, his own tone even and revealing nothing. Sylphine, for all her theatrics, was always too disinterested in others to notice nuance, but he did not want to show her weakness now.

She brought one thin arm up to cover her eyes; he was thankful that the many blankets she needed to keep warm even in the summer hid the deterioration of her slender frame. The arm, white as ivory and with little flesh to call its own, urged within him a deepening revulsion that he had difficulty abating. "I don't know why you're here," she said, her voice little more than a whisper. "I don't know why you bother pretending you care."

Sometimes he wondered the same thing; at other times he believed it was no pretense. It was difficult when the image of the gorgeous, unfailingly arrogant woman he had chosen to marry was stripped down in his mind to this slip of illness and blind hostility. For now though, he tried patience. "You are my wife."

"Is this all that being a count's wife amounts to?" For a long moment she coughed into a fresh, though wrinkled handkerchief balled in her upraised hand. "I don't know why I bothered to win a share of an old man's bed."

Because her eyes were still closed, he allowed himself an arched brow of disbelief. They had never shared a bed the whole night through. "You should be grateful you bore a son, then," he said after he had composed himself sufficiently.

She opened her eyes then, disgust sharpening her eyes and making them almost familiar to him. "That child is my only legacy...I would rather live to see old age than to have the privilege of bearing that."

"I would think you would prefer self-destruction over finding a single wrinkle on your face," he said, a little more out of a fit of pique than he would like to admit. He did not have high hopes for the boy, but he had always been perturbed by Sylphine's utter lack of maternal feeling. His late sister-in-law had been much more commendable, and so her daughters had shone from such affectionate care.

They did not speak for a long time. Klein thought it would have been better to leave, but he could not find it in himself to go through the effort. The family physician had warned him that his wife's time was nigh, and he had...he had wanted to be honest to her, just once.

I did not love you, but I respected you for all you've done for Reglay.

Did she know it was the end? Did she know and yet continued on as if to deny reality's sting one final time? Klein thought he would not like the answer, but still he continued to sit at her sickbed.

"Did you send him away?" she asked. It took him a moment to realize who she meant.

"I did."

"When?"

"Two weeks ago."

"Where?"

"Your father."

"My brother won't be pleased," she murmured. A moment, and then, "He won't remember me."

Klein paused, then decided to speak honestly. "He need only look into the mirror to remember you."

His wife closed her eyes. "I want to die already. I want to be walking in God's country, rather than suffering in this body. I'm not even twenty-five...why should I have to bear this indignity?"

"Sylphine, I -"

"That child."

"What?"

"That child looks so useless. How could he have come from my body?" His wife coughed; there was blood this time. "Could he really have any talent that could make him loved by me? I'll never see it." She looked at him, her eyelids drooping. "If he has talent in anything, cultivate it. I had to work so hard, but you have funds enough. If he's an actor, or a singer..."

"If he is any of those things, I will disown him," Klein said with a certain amount of grimness that he could not hide, not even for her sake. "He must be of use to this house first and last."

Sylphine closed her eyes. "I wish he wasn't yours. I could have loved him if he wasn't yours."

There was nothing Klein could say to that. He rose from the chair at her bedside and stared down at the wan face, the dull gray-blue hair that seemed much thinner. "If you are going to die, do it with the dignity of a Countess Reglay, not of the common entertainers you've played with during your time here." He left after those words, but came back the next day for more of the same.

She lingered for a few days more. Klein had been at her bedside when she passed away. The arrangements for her funeral and burial had already been made when it was clear she would not recover, so all he could do now was work. He didn't want to bring the boy back, not even after a few years had passed, but everything had been for the sake of producing an heir. And when Klein himself faced the end, he wondered if his son understood the role that now awaited him.

Everything for the sake of House Reglay. You could not be Count Reglay and do any less.

2. Star of Bethlehem (her guidance)

Frustrating thing, this last responsibility. So very much so. If she could have made Gérald do it, of course she would have, but it required a gentle but firm hand. Men often lacked this distinction, and it would not do to frighten Louise unnecessarily.

A little bit, not an unnecessary amount.

"Mother, you wished to see me?"

Catherine straightened, smoothing out the skirts of her dress in what was decidedly not a nervous reaction before gesturing her daughter to come sit beside her. Her daughter, her only child, was set to be a bride tomorrow morning, so perhaps this final duty had been delayed too long, but she was reasonably certain that Louise still lacked knowledge about her chief duty as a countess.

(If not, she was going to have to pay Lord Pent a visit after this.)

Her daughter sat down next to her on the chaise lounge, her movements fairly electric with suppressed anticipation. Louise had always been this way, easily charmed and easily more excitable by the events around her, and Catherine had to admit that she felt maternal pride at the lovely young woman before her, which in turn colored her words and softened her tone. "Dear Louise, you certainly look ready to marry."

Her daughter giggled, stifling her laughter behind her hands. "Ye-es, but I'm also so nervous I feel as if I could burst!"

"Anticipation, you mean," Catherine stated dryly. Louise's face reddened in that adorable way that only a few girls could manage; Catherine had never been one of those. "Louise, I would like to ask you something."

Perhaps that was too formal, for Catherine could see her daughter frown in confusion. "O-of course, Mother. What is it?"

"I wonder if you understand a wife's first duty," said Catherine with a bit of a smile. She watched her daughter fidget, then nod.

"I do, Mother."

"Which is?"

"To love my husband with all of my might," Louise said, her eyes lowered and the corners of her lips turned upward. "To support him, and to be by his side..."

Oh, this girl. The endless romanticism was obviously from her father. At times like this, it was a little tiresome. "A countess' first duty, then."

"Ah..." A troubled look crossed her daughter's lovely face, her gaze averting away from Catherine. Adopting such a fragile look when Louise was anything but strangely annoyed Catherine, and with annoyance came a decision to end this gentle approach.

"To bear an heir," Catherine said for Louise. "That is your duty as Lord Pent's wife. And children come about from intimate contact with him. That is to say -"

"I-I know, Mother," Louise said in a rush of words, "I'm a little aware..."

Calm, Catherine told herself, you've not noticed anything out of the ordinary. "From where?"

"Mm..." her daughter murmured in that very familiar way; it meant that whatever was going to come out of her mouth next would be softened as much as Louise could, something that did not help Catherine's mood. "Well, once I went with Father to the Asages' manor, and we were all taking a walk by the stables when they were mating their stallion -"

"And your father explained it to you?" Catherine asked in growing horror.

"Ye-es, a little, and only because..." Her daughter blushed. "Since it was right there..."

That was more than enough, thank you. "Louise, dear, put it out of your mind. It is nothing like that."

A look of relief crossed her daughter's face. "I-I see. Then..." She began to fidget with her hands, that habit of hers whenever she was overly nervous and could no longer suppress it. "What should I, um, expect?"

Catherine was too well-bred to openly react, but if she could she would have hid her face in her hands. What does one say in answer to that when their daughter's wedding was tomorrow? And, more importantly, what did she know to say? In her young womanhood, Catherine knew full well her duty to bear children, preferably male, for the satisfaction of her husband. Her own was never an issue. She had wondered if men had an instinct for carnal knowledge that coursed through their veins and transmitted all they needed to know at the moment, for it seemed that no one had to tell a man what to do. But women were constrained by morals, and Catherine had found there was no real instinct when it had been her time, perhaps because she so rarely moved on instinct. Her daughter seemed to do nothing but move based on little more than emotion, and so...

"...Many men see it as the physical manifestation of love. I cannot say as to what your lord husband's feelings would be, but you should consider well on this point."

I am too liberal a mother, Catherine thought. Letting Louise off with such advice seemed foolhardy, but another part of her considered that such an idea was perhaps all that the girl needed. Let Louise decide on the tone of her interactions with her new husband, rather than frighten her unnecessarily.

Hmph, 'unnecessarily'. If she said anything too unnecessary, that would certainly give Lord Pent a harder time than was right. Maybe being kind was a better wedding gift than her efforts bringing down that blackguard of a duke.

"Is that what it is?" Louise said, no longer wringing her hands. The look on her face was contemplative, a look that bestowed a certain amount of womanly softness that had not yet fully come out on her pretty face. Seeing it there now made Catherine think that her daughter could, with a few more years of maturity, be one of the more luminous beauties of the Etrurian court. It surprised her to think that, because she had never thought the child she would bear would ever suffer to have beauty over brains.

Certainly that is Gérald's fault too, Catherine thought kindly, but that does not mean Louise lacks anything. No...my daughter is perfect.

3. Hollyhock (her ambition)

It was mid-morning when Jacqueline arrived at the palace. Because she was so familiar to the servants there, they had initially asked her to wait until the king was out of his meeting before she shook her head.

"No, I'm here to visit Her Majesty."

After this, they led her to the drawing room with which she was so familiar, because Jacqueline was not just the lieutenant-general of the Etrurian army's mage division, nor was she just lady and representative of House Seine, the duke and duchess' eldest child. Her Majesty entered just moments later, and with a flick of her golden head and the unrolling of long white lace gloves, the queen of Etruria had become no less than Rosalie-Marie, Jacqueline's only friend from the convent in which they had been raised for several years together.

"Jacqueline, you are always so prompt. I could time the clocks in the palace by your appearance," Rosalie-Marie teased, all sweetness and light. "How is the duke and duchess?"

"Mother is well. She has been eating more recently. I-" and here she paused as a maid entered the room to serve them tea. Before she began again, Jacqueline prepared her tea with the dab of cream and two drops of honey that was her lone indulgence and took a sip. "The general has been resting as the doctor ordered."

Rosalie-Marie, Jacqueline noticed, did not put anything into her tea. The convent had taken hold of her friend longer, but Jacqueline also had suspicions that her friend was abstaining for other reasons. "And how is your brother?"

"He finds great interest in bugs as of late," Jacqueline stated. "He delights in showing all who approach his rooms his great collection of them. Mother finds it difficult to visit him because of it."

"He still cannot communicate?"

As she always did when talking about her family, Jacqueline imagined the greater pressure in her mind as nothing but a small sphere, tinier than a bead of anima potential, no more deadly than an ant. But it did not help, and so with great hesitance she continued. "He is already an adult. If he has not been able to speak a single word in the last seventeen years, he will not do it on his eighteenth."

Rosalie-Marie leaned forward, her face the image of beautiful anguish. "But you must have hope, Jacqueline. One day the heir of your family will have his mind restored to him, and you will be free. I believe it must be so, so please..."

"Yes, of course," Jacqueline said quickly. The deeply emotional highs and lows that her friend suffered from were said to have led to the first miscarriage. "Now, how is the king?"

"Oh, he's quite well," Rosalie-Marie said, her smile making her look younger than her twenty-one years of age. "Nothing seems to have dampened his spirit as of late."

"Not even the business with the knight general?" Jacqueline asked, fairly surprised. Her friend's smile dimmed.

"That family aside, things are well."

"Has he decided on a punishment yet?"

Rosalie-Marie shook her head. "It's a delicate manner, but in seeking God's wisdom there will be a satisfactory conclusion to the whole thing. I only wish it could be easier on His Majesty..."

"You are there to make it easier for him," Jacqueline said lightly. Rosalie-Marie smiled at this, but not for very long before a grim expression asserted itself on her finely-molded features.

"I am but a queen, and in these five years of marriage I have prayed for the wisdom to help guide him...but I have not discovered it within myself yet. With that, and..." Rosalie-Marie briefly pressed a hand to her flat stomach, "...I fear I am not his chosen partner, but rather only the most convenient one. I...fear a lot of things."

"Don't fear," said Jacqueline before she reached over the tea table to grasp her friend's hand. It was soft, impossibly so, and with that touch she felt a measure of peace that often eluded her when she was home. "Your purity matched his. He feels this no less than you, I'm sure. Your being by his side draws him that much closer to achieving God's will upon Etruria. Your words and thoughts lead him to understand the saint's words and thoughts. His Majesty can love and cherish Etruria that much more because he has learned the fullness of these feelings from you."

Tears began to gather at Rosalie-Marie's eyes, but she did not hide her face. "You speak so well of love and marriage, and yet you are without a husband at your age." Then a little laugh, half sigh and half giggle, escaped her. "Your ambition still supersedes all, I see."

"It does." Removing her hand from her friend's, Jacqueline leaned back, reaching for her cup of cooling tea. "I will be the next mage general. I will protect my country, and I will protect you and the king. I can do no less."

"I remember the time you acceded to your father's wishes to attempt to win a husband. Count Reglay, was it not?" Rosalie-Marie folded her hands onto her lap, a slight smile that betrayed nothing of her feelings curving on her lips. It was not an expression that was natural on her face, and Jacqueline frowned to see it. "The contest that was won by the girl-child."

"The Etruscan girl, an archer." Jacqueline nodded. "I was thankful to lose. I had no intention of wasting my time as a count's wife. Better a girl who was bred to be a wife."

"Isn't that count being recruited into your division, Jacqueline? Certainly you would have to wait until his heir is born before he can be sent into battle."

Jacqueline sniffed. "You know as well as I do that the wedding is today. You even sent that ludicrous spymaster and his half-addled wife -"

"Jacqueline."

"Forgive me, I am of the military. I personally dislike the use of his spies, who lack professionalism, and I do find Duchess Blancmont a pain in society."

There was a doubting look on Rosalie-Marie's face that Jacqueline had seen a time or ten when they were children, usually because Jacqueline had been set, even then, on her sole ambition. "You do not often enter society. I do like Adeline. I think I will like her more than the new Countess Reglay."

It was not often her friend was so blunt with her opinions on others, which intrigued Jacqueline. "I'm not aware of anything offensive about the new countess."

"It was...it was her mother who wrote that book, that terrible thing. Because of it, His Majesty now has to decide on what to do." Rosalie-Marie took a sip of her tea, then lightly touched her face, a sign of her irritation. "And that woman was Hellene's great ally. It is all suspicious."

"Queen Hellene is visiting this week."

"She arrives tonight. She makes great trouble for His Majesty, and..." Rosalie-Marie sighed. "She looks down on me. I read her hostility in every letter, her mocking cruelty lurks in the spaces between the words, and yet I am to greet her as a beloved sister. Always praising her son, and then..." she stopped. Jacqueline could see plainly on her face that she was too affected to go on.

"...If it helps, I do not think the new Countess Reglay is of the same material as her mother or any other of that generation of arrogant, hard-hearted women," she started. "Her sincerity was plain to see that day, and everyone knows well now the efforts she put in to save Count Reglay. I think it would be unwise to pull away from a potential ally. I, for one, intend to extend friendship to her."

There again was Rosalie-Marie's doubtful look. "To attract the count's agreement to enter military service? I wonder if he is so malleable."

Jacqueline shook her head. "He will accept, possibly within a few months. He is a man of some power, and competent enough besides. He knows this, and his sense of honor will not allow him to decline if he knows he can be of some use."

Rosalie-Marie smiled at this, her hands clasped together as if truly pleased. "You've already planned this much, I see. Wonderful Jacqueline! You really bear your father's skill and understanding."

"Yes," Jacqueline said, pleased enough to allow herself a small smile. "The general has taught me well, even when he didn't think anything would come of it. But I am his daughter, and although I cannot be his legal heir, I can be his heir in this."

"Although I worry for you, I do believe you can do it. And I...I will do my duty as well," Rosalie-Marie said, reaching out to have her hands clasped in Jacqueline's, which the latter readily performed. "I will bear a prince of light, one who will be loved and who will love Etruria. Jacqueline, you must be his godmother when this comes to pass, and I will bear witness the day you are Mage General of Etruria."

Jacqueline smiled. "It can be no less than this. We will succeed."

4. White Lilac (his candor)

"Are you sure?"

After taking a moment to separate some paperwork, Raike lifted his gaze to his wife's look of displeasure. "I think it's best. He has a tendency to get distracted, and I don't think either one will rein themselves in and focus on the big issues. That isn't their fault, just a consequence of all that's happened in the last two years."

"They've just married. That's to be expected," his wife Amaranth retorted, brushing her forelocks out of her eyes.

Simply to annoy his wife, Raike said, "We weren't like that." It worked, he saw, because she twisted her mouth into a moue of disgust.

"I wonder why, between your trying to finish your final year exams and my situation."

Raike looked back down at the next report. "You can call it what it is. No one can judge us anymore for it."

"Ugh, I don't know why I bother to talk to you," Amaranth said, crossing her arms. From his peripheral vision he could see how small her frame looked in that large chair across his desk and thought to find a smaller chair for her use in the future. "Do you remember the last time, when you asked me to be Lady Louise's bodyguard? That by itself was too much to ask of me. Now you want me to 'guide her on the path of being a suitable Countess Reglay', even though we have children at home?"

"My mother can watch our sons. It'll be fine."

"I would like to raise my own children!" snapped Amaranth, surprising Raike with her sudden anger. "I'm in a country that allows me that much, so let me do it!"

Feeling his face warm in growing irritation, Raike shook his head as if to clear it. "Listen, Amy, I'm not asking you to neglect them. You won't be following her every move. And, what is for the good for the county will be even better for our family, since I am the steward again. I just worry that Lady Louise will be unsettled until she has her first child, so why not make sure she's at ease and knows her duty?"

"Raike, what would I possibly know about this? I was a pegasus knight, and I've been a maid. These are hardly qualifications for...whatever it is that you're asking of me this time." Now his wife was running her pale fingers down the length of her hair, its spring grass brightness still as entrancing now as it had been over six years ago, when they met and married. Were they happier back then, when he was just a lowly clerk of the castle? Raike no longer could remember; only his duty to House Reglay was before him now, for the sake of his family and for all the families of Reglay County.

And so, that meant making sure things wouldn't get out of hand. Raike wanted to continue to find pride in his work for the rest of his life.

"Amy, as I understand it, Lady Louise will no longer have her lady maid's services once the girl is done with the preparations, so she'll be lonely. I'm only asking for you to be her friend, and to be a moderating presence to her." Raike shrugged. "It isn't as though she's won all the hearts of the nobles of this land. They may be less thrilled with her than before, considering she more or less brought Lord Pent back from the dead. Who will be her confidant, if not you?"

"She's taken with the little maid Celia's now training to be her new lady's maid, but I see what you mean. I do like her, at least." Something seemed to occur to Amaranth by the way he saw something flash in her steel-gray eyes. "You keep saying that she needs to be moderated...why is that?"

"Lady Louise has a lot of youthful energy and a tendency to rush out and do what she feels is right," Raike explained as delicately as possible. His wife frowned a little.

"I suppose. She is just seventeen."

"That may be true, but for the sake of House Reglay, she needs to comport herself to her new title."

"Is that all you're worried about?" Amaranth said with a smile, leaning forward with her elbows on his desk. Raike smiled back, because his wife finally understood his feelings.

"For Lord Pent's sake, Lady Louise needs to understand her place. Not only because he tends to be distracted by her, but...she might do something to harm House Reglay, and he'll be forced to lose his prestige by protecting her. So, I don't mind saying that she needs to be restrained a bit."

"When you say it like that, it sounds like you don't think she was suitable to your lord after all."

"She is suitable, but she's still a child."

"A child old enough to marry. And to a nineteen-year-old count, at that." Looking amused now, Amaranth leaned back in her chair. "They were younger than we were when we married, and we had been thinking like children back then too. I suppose I don't mind spending more time in the castle, although I'd rather mother my own children."

Raike smiled wider at this. "Once she has her first child, I think Lady Louise's attention will be so diverted by her child to do much else. Within a year, maybe two."

"Two is overdoing it for a love match like theirs, I think," Amaranth said with a giggle. "As long as I'm not charged to ride Hester into battle again, I'm fine with it. All right, dear?"

Looking into his wife's clear eyes, drinking in the fullness of her womanly beauty, Raike felt calmer than he had been in the months approaching the wedding. Now that his lord and lady were off on their honeymoon and wouldn't be back for nearly half a month more, he had to admit that he felt like things were finally falling into place. Lord Pent would come back and focus on his work, and Lady Louise would quickly bear an heir for House Reglay.

And peace would reign across Reglay's lands, and Raike and his family would never have to suffer the indignities of the last two years again. Yes, that was what he was striving for - a perfect period of calm.

It would happen. He would make sure of it.

5. Balm of Gilead (his healing)

Lately, Joshua Émile had taken up horseback riding for pleasure. He did it on the advice of his aunt, who said that she didn't like seeing him mope around the house, to which his uncle agreed on the bounds that Joshua needed to know Alloway's fields and roads better.

They were being kind, he knew. He loved them for that.

Joshua often rode to the small church by the roadside, which housed only an old priest and the young ladies of the nearby manors who came to do their duty as Lighter Elimineans and swept the floors and brought flowers to bring more of God's creations within the church. Sons from well-to-do families were not expected to do these chores, but Joshua hardly minded because he was used to cleaning up after his family. The other girls giggled over him, told him he should be a knight.

He thought so too - Celia was coming back to live at the small church, and he didn't want to see her but wanted to so much that he knew he had to avoid her.

Uncle Gérald let him have more time to himself, entire days - "You're very good, you pick up things easily, so I'd rather have you travel and understand the lands you'll be owning," he said in Etruscan, a look of something like understanding in his blue eyes - and Joshua gratefully took them. He rode around on the wild sorrel he had claimed as his and leisurely toured the region. Adopting Louise's daring, he visited the castle by himself and talked to Lord Aramis and Sir Luca, watched the knights train for battles they would never be involved in, and wondered what he was doing.

Aunt Catherine began to invite young ladies to the house, and Joshua would smile and greet them and long for copper-bright hair.

Then, nearly a month after the wedding, the news came: Celia was coming home.

Joshua fretted and paced, wishing he were like his elder brother, who knew how to talk to girls even if all that had ever brought him was trouble in return. Next to him on the veranda close to the stables was Celia's valise, packed by Lisette. Celia was to come back, return the horse left for her at Castle Reglay when the family returned to Alloway, and leave with her things. Uncle Gérald and Aunt Catherine were away, visiting a friend's home. Lisette was inside, sewing. It hadn't been decided that he would be left to give Celia her things, it was only designed that way.

He almost wanted to vomit from nervousness by the time he heard the familiar leisurely trots of Louise's friendly, if slow, mare. There was Celia riding sidesaddle, already dressed as an Etrurian Eliminean cleric, her beautiful copper locks flowing in the sea breeze.

This was no good, Joshua felt, but he was already picking up her valise and approaching her to stop this.

"Sister Celia," he greeted her, his heart wavering at her unreadable face, "you look well."

She seemed ready to say something before she paused, but then she looked away. "Master Joshua, you didn't need to do this."

"I-I do," he said, trying to smile at her even though she wasn't lifting her head. "I couldn't let you carry your things to the church. Please let me do this."

"I feel I can't stop you," she replied, her lips pale as she pressed them into one thin line. Pulling on the reins, she turned and began to trot back to the road. Joshua followed, the weight of the valise not at all a deterrent as he kept to the mare's flank. They kept on in silence as the midday sun poured down on them, their only relief the occasional breeze. It would only get hotter in the coming months, so there was no use in complaining, though Joshua remembered the shade from the great forests of Lycia and sighed.

The church was too close to the Émile manor to make this last goodbye drawn out. All he could do was watch her bright hair, the ends of her purple scarf, float in the wind, and the daintiness of her white gloves as she held the reins, and try to etch these things into his memory. When he was an old man, he wanted to be sure he remembered this feeling, this sad, quiet feeling, and the beauty of goodbye.

All too soon they were in front of the little church by the roadside. Celia climbed off of the mare before Joshua could begin to move to help her, and she did not look at him as she reached out one small hand for her valise. It did not feel cruel, what she was doing; it felt as though she was trying to be as kind as possible and not give him the barest sliver of hope.

But it hurt, like a slow burn searing his eyes, his chest.

He handed her the bag. "Thank you," she said, and turned away. He watched her enter the church, and then close its always-open door behind her.

"Ah...aha," he uttered, his chuckle strange to his own ears. That was it? That was all he had been waiting for?

It doesn't always turn out right, does it, not like Cousin Louise and her lord count. I don't have the will like she does to force things into being right and good...

Joshua laughed, more sincerely now as he recognized the self-pity in his thoughts. I am a fool.

His smile small and tight, he reached for the mare's reins, which Celia had held not many moments before, and led her down the road. Louise's horse needed rest after the two-day trip, and when he patted her flank she nickered in what could be thought of as kindly. The road seemed to stretch forever in front of him, though it was only a brisk walk away from his home, and the thought made Joshua smile more honestly, more sadly.

Goodbye, Celia.

He wished he had been able to say those last two words, but it was too late. That was fine. These feelings that had been seared into his memory, his heart, were to make sure he would never be too late again.

Next time he fell in love. He was sure there was going to be a next time.

-end-

Well, this extra story is only over two years late. The concept for this changed so many times over the last two years while I searched for something that worked. Less than two weeks ago I thought of just writing little scenes with secondary and even tertiary characters about themes that would become important in the sequel serial, and BAM! Inspiration. I also have a tendency to burn out and require two-year breaks, but that hadn't happened during my time in the FE fandom until now. I hope I can make one last good push until the end.

Thank you to everyone who supported bouquet during its two-year run; I hope seeing this pop up on Story Alert brightens your day! Oh yes, and as for the sequel serial...how about the first Friday of November? Singapore time, so it'll be out earlier for all of you in the U.S.