Summer: Arhat the Fire Lion – 409
She sits in a tree amidst a carpet of blooming flowers. This is no metaphorical carpet of vivid embroidery, it is, as it so often is with her, entirely literal. There is no proper sort of floor in this treehouse, only a thick layer of soil carefully planted with a living carpet of flowers that bleeds into the mosaic garden walls.
Under great duress, she might be pushed to admit it had a certain level of impracticality, leaving the vast majority of the room unusable, with only small paths weaving here and there throughout the room. The flowers make her happy; this unbridled whimsy being just her style – and the overall effect is well worth some few sacrifices.
Each flower is named as it bloomed, all, that is, save the sirese. Those pale blue blossoms are named only in the deep places of her heart, pushed well away from conscious thought.
Everything ought to have a name. It was one of her rules.
The stalwart green ivy flowers were the anchor that was Baldric, the poppy was ever Therae’s, the violet, in a stroke of banality so uninspired she thought it brilliance, was Violet, and the bright and shining daisies would be none other than Aiffe.
Today, the velvet blooms of the amaranth are grown so heavy they can sustain their quest for the sky no longer. The flower of eternity has fallen into a cascade of miniature blossoms, both furry and fiery. What else could there be for the beloved halfling but fuzzy fireballs of the eternal flower? She whispers the name aloud, offering it up as a prayer that the soul would be cradled safe wherever it may be.
“Martee.”
Weeds are not allowed in this place; here the soil is protected from all that does not belong, sheltered and tended from the thorns and vines that threaten to choke and destroy elsewhere in the world. Here in the sanctuary that is Thistledown, where aphids dare not tread, the garden held safe her friends and kept alive their memories.
As she gently tills the carpet of soil, she sings to her garden. Who is there to hear but the kitten? And where else besides the heart does anything really need to be named?