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A long time ago, there bloomed a field of sunflowers.
With their petals turned towards the sun, they seemed the happiest flowers on earth.
All in a uniform gold, shining like stars in the mass of green that was their leaves.
Except for one.
The fairies in the field couldn’t understand it, but that particularly lazy summer, one of the sunflowers had bloomed in a brilliant shade of red.
Other than that, though, it seemed no different. It turned with the sun, just as all the other flowers did, and like the others, grew through early summer undisturbed.
But then, almost exactly on Midsummer’s Day, something changed.
Humans had started to visit the flower field.
Of course, they weren’t much of a problem, to begin with. Maybe they’d brush aside a few flowers while walking, but they wouldn’t harm them, perhaps because they feared drawing attention to themselves when they couldn’t see over the flowers’ heads.
Soon, though, they grew bolder. A field of such lovely flowers simply sitting there was such a waste. Surely it wouldn’t be a problem to pick a few? And a few turned into dozens, which turned to hundreds, which turned to thousands.
And so the field of flowers, which had once stretched for miles, dwindled down to just a single hill.
The red sunflower still stood, however. Perhaps the humans thought it odd, there being hundreds of golden flowers and just a single red one?
Either way, in the middle of that muggy summer, something very odd happened.
When a pair of humans entered the field on the hill, the flower turned away from the sun, and towards them. It didn’t do anything else, of course. It was just a flower.
Despite that, the humans left. The sunflower noticed that turning toward them had stopped them from doing more harm to the garden.
Maybe, it thought, it should do that more often.
When the humans returned, they brought another human with them, this one in red and white. They pointed at the red sunflower, and said things that it couldn’t understand. Well, of course it couldn’t understand them. It was just a flower.
The human in red and white looked at the sunflower and shrugged. She wasn’t afraid of it, it seemed. Maybe being red was a sign of bravery? None of the other sunflowers had seemed brave enough to turn and look at the humans harming them. The red sunflower had been the only one to do that. But what did it know? It was just a flower.
They left, and it became night. The flower, now capable as it was to do so, thought about things.
It wondered why humans hurt the flower field. They knew that flowers were living creatures too, correct? So why did they place less value on the flowers’ lives?
If they just wanted to bring the flowers home, they could gently uproot them and replant them. It just didn’t make sense. Maybe understanding things like that was a human thing? After all, it was just a flower.
A flower that was capable of protecting other flowers. After all, if humans didn’t harm the rest of the flower field when it turned its head to look at them, that meant that it was not only protecting itself, but all the sunflowers.
It liked that. Even if the other flowers couldn’t communicate with the red sunflower in any conceivable way, they were still its companions. Protecting them was the right thing to do.
Dawn broke early the next day, as it was bound to do in summer.
And it seemed the humans were at it again, visiting the garden before it got too hot. Oh well, the sunflower could just turn and look at them and scare them off.
Why weren’t they leaving? They had been afraid of it before, so why not now? It made no sense.
One of the humans picked a flower, and said something to the human beside them that the red sunflower couldn’t understand, as usual.
The sunflower wanted to scream.
So had it been useless, then? It could think, but it couldn’t actually do anything about the fact that its fellow sunflowers were being killed. How ironic.
Just at that moment, it made a realization. If it could turn its head, couldn’t it move the rest of itself?
The flower tried to move. It twitched a tiny leaf, then another. It moved them at the same time. Then, with a monumental effort, it began to shake its stem. The humans glanced over.
One of them said something again. Maybe if the flower tried, it could understand it.
“That’s weird. Wasn’t doing that last time.”
Another one shook their head.
“Probably just a flower fairy. Ignore it.”
The sunflower moved faster. It had to get them to leave, or it wouldn’t have any of its companions left.
“Still, it’s giving me a kind of weird feeling. I’m going to go back, but you can stay if you want.”
“I’m not staying if you’re leaving. Let’s go.”
They had left. Not without killing another flower, but they had left. The sunflower was tired, but it had won.
It would need to rest now.
The next day passed uneventfully. No humans visited the field. A blessing that would be short-lived.
For, the day after that, several more humans visited. Why were they even there? Hadn’t they taken enough flowers to satisfy themselves? Well, the red sunflower couldn’t know. It was just a flower.
The sunflower soon realized why they were there; to look at it. They seemed to be waiting expectantly, as if waiting for it to do something. One of them stood up and plucked a sunflower from its stem.
Was this a joke to them?
The sunflower was about to start shaking furiously, when it realized that that was exactly what the humans wanted it to do. They knew it couldn’t hurt them, even though it wanted to, so they treated it as nothing but an oddity.
Which meant that it would sit there silently and without protest, even though every leaf on its body wanted to shake.
“Aww, it was just a flower fairy then. I guess it was too much to hope for something interesting in a summer like this.”
The flower thought that if it could move like a human could, it would show them something interesting. But it couldn’t. It was just a flower.
If it could, though, the flower would pay the humans back in exactly the same way that they had treated the other flowers.
The humans left. They had no reason to stick around a sunflower that was doing absolutely nothing.
The sunflower, unbeknownst to them, was not doing absolutely nothing.
Though even it didn’t know it, it was changing.
Ordinary flowers can’t feel. For that matter, they can’t think or move, either. Though, magical flowers may be capable of the latter two.
The red sunflower had felt anger that day. Anger at the humans invading its home like they owned the place.
Did that mean that it wasn’t a flower? Certainly not. It was simply a different kind.
But it had more important things to worry about than whether it was a flower.
It had to find some way to stop humans from coming to its field for once and for all. But first, of course, it needed rest. Its tiny body could only photosynthesize so much in one day, after all. And thinking took a lot of energy.
So, it rested. Moonlight shone down on the sunflower, bright even though the night was foggy.
Moonlight does strange things sometimes. Especially when it’s bright.
And when the red sunflower turned its head towards the sun the next morning, it would realize one of those strange things had affected it.
You see, when it turned its head, it realized it was already facing the sky. And the other sunflowers were towering above it, to boot! What could have happened to make them grow so quickly?
Experimentally, the sunflower tried to move its stem, only to realize that the stem was lying flat against the ground. How odd. Didn’t sunflowers die when bent at that angle?
The flower decided that it might as well attempt to right itself. And so it did, pushing its… leaves... against the ground.
Now wait a minute! Those weren’t leaves! Those were hands, like the fairies and humans had. Where had the sunflower managed to obtain those?
They certainly belonged to… hmmm, “it” didn’t seem to fit. They certainly belonged to… her? Yes, that seemed to work nicely.
Those hands certainly belonged to her, yet as far as she remembered, she hadn’t quite had any before that day.
Did that mean that she wasn’t a sunflower any more?
But she was, surely. She couldn’t imagine being anything else. She simply must be an oddly shaped sunflower.
Now, she had better take a good look at herself.
She certainly seemed to be shaped like a human. She had arms, and legs, and all that. Long green hair, almost the color of her leaves when she had been simply a normal sunflower. She seemed to be clothed in red and white, confirming her earlier suspicions that red was the color of bravery. Or perhaps it just corresponded to the color of her petals. She hadn’t worn anything as a sunflower, and clothes were a new sensation to her. But she supposed that the loose shirt, checkered vest, and pants helped with that, since they weren’t as tight and stifling as some of the things she’d seen the humans wearing.
Come to think of it, wasn’t there a pool of water somewhere in the field? Didn’t humans look at their reflections in pools like that? The sunflower clumsily got up, as she still wasn’t used to this new body of hers, and half walked, half stumbled her way through the field of sunflowers, being careful not to harm any.
She finally reached the pool, and she had to say (though she’d never actually said anything in her entire short life) that she looked just as stunning as expected. One thing confused her, however. Why was she not a normal sunflower anymore? What did a form like this have for her to gain?
Ah. Of course. The answer came to her in an instant. What could she do like this that she couldn’t do as a flower? She could protect her field, of course. If humans could kill flowers with forms like this… Well, it certainly seemed like she’d be capable of returning the favor. Now, if only they would return to the flower field. She only had the summer, after all. Since she was just a sunflower, she’d be sure to return to the soil in the fall.
But for now, all she had to do was wait. But wasn’t there a way she could help the flowers in her field now, without having to wait for the humans to return?
She stood, deep in thought, for a long moment. Maybe… she could help the other flowers grow? After all, some had already shed their seeds. If they grew before the end of the summer, the hill’s flowers would stand tall and proud once again.
She looked around. There! Under a clump of sunflowers. Seeds, burrowing into the ground. Now, how could she help them grow?
Water, to start. She dipped her hands deep into the pool, coming up with a handful of clear, pure water. Quickly, she carried it over to the seeds. They soaked it up in an instant, grateful for the drink on a hot day.
After doing this a few more times, the red sunflower sat down, waiting for the others to grow. She soon realized that they would not be doing anything of the sort, especially not in just a few minutes. Maybe she could help them grow. After all, last night, she’d done a lot of growing.
She frowned at the seeds, thinking about growth, and growing, and letting one’s leaves touch the sun, and how exciting that would be. She thought about the shrinking flower field, and how these seeds were its only hope.
Suddenly, without any warning at all, one of the seeds sprouted. A little sprig of green, like a little spark of hope in the sunflowers’ home. Then another, and another. Soon, all the seeds had sprouted. The red sunflower concentrated more, thinking about the heat and light of the sun.
She had to save this flower field, even though she was just a flower.
The sprouts began to stretch towards the sky. The red sunflower thought about how hard she had tried to keep the humans away, and how they had lost all their fear by the third time she’d seen them and moved. Her anger flowed into the sunflower shoots, propelling them higher and higher, until, at last, they bloomed.
Exhausted, the sunflower walked back over to the pool, splashing water on her face. She didn’t notice, but behind her, flower fairies were curiously inspecting the new additions to the field. Satisfied, one of them hugged a sunflower.
After her short rest, the sunflower set off to find another bunch of seeds. After successfully finding one, she focused on her anger again, thinking of how large the field had been before the humans had come, and how, if she could just get these flowers to bloom, it could grow to its former size again.
This time, the sunflowers bloomed far more easily.
She set off again, to another clump of seeds. And again, after those bloomed with little effort on her part. Each time, she thought about a different aspect of what the humans had done, and how it had infuriated her.
By the time she reached her last clump, the flowers were blooming in tenths of seconds. With every bloom, she thought about how this wouldn’t have been necessary if the humans had just left her field alone.
The sun, high in the sky, beat down on the field. The sunflower looked up, just like she had before taking this form, and realized that what she had done wouldn’t be nearly enough. She would have to make flowers bloom where there were none, if she wanted to restore the field.
So, with even more fury in her heart, she sat down on a bare patch of ground, and focused on making flowers bloom. Beautiful, golden flowers, with petals like shards of sunlight. What did it matter that there were no seeds? The flowers would bloom anyway, if the red sunflower had any say in it.
And bloom they did. Sprouting from nothing, magnificent flowers appeared, golden like the sun. Sunflowers, of a kind never seen before. The red sunflower, satisfied with her work, headed to the edge of her field. Again, she focused on flowers, blooming from nothingness, and again, they did.
By the time the sun set, she had covered another hill with sunflowers. However, an awful tiredness crept over her, like nothing she had ever felt when she was an ordinary sunflower. She returned to the pool at the center of the flower field, then lay down in the same position she had awoken in. The next day, she would spread flowers, perhaps even as far as the humans’ village. How would they like their homes being invaded, hmm?
She woke, again, to the light of the sun. Shaking dust out of her long hair, the sunflower rose, ready for a long day of hard work.
Suddenly, though, she heard quiet voices. Not childish voices, either; these weren’t fairies.
The humans had returned.
Quietly, she walked through the sunflowers, barely touching a single stem. Their voices were louder now, and she could understand what they were saying.
“It’s gone. Do you think someone picked it?”
“Probably. Still doesn’t explain the field doubling in size over just one day. It makes me nervous, I tell you.”
Ah, so the humans were nervous? Good. Not that it would help them, though. The red sunflower would have her revenge, no matter how cautious they were.
“Really? Flowers bloom, and that makes you nervous? How pathetic are you?”
“Hey, hey. I’m not being nervous for no reason. It was a full moon two nights ago, and you know just as well as I do that strange things happen then. With the red sunflower disappearing, and then more sunflowers appearing… it just seems related, somehow.”
The sunflower stood behind them, motionless.
“I would say they were related, but the red sunflower was just a prankster flower fairy, remember? Maybe the blooms are a gift from the gods.”
The red sunflower slowly extended a hand, and tapped the human closest to her on the shoulder.
“Huh? Why’d you tap me on the shoulder? I’m standing right beside you!”
The other human turned towards him in confusion. “I didn’t? Maybe it was a flower.”
The sunflower giggled. Maybe it was.
Both humans turned around at once, and immediately took a few steps back. The one who seemed older cleared his throat. “Who are you? What do you want?”
The red sunflower made an odd noise. She had never spoken before, of course. After some minor technical difficulties, she coughed, and then spoke. “I’m nobody important. And I’m just passing through this flower field. It would be a shame if anyone harmed it, wouldn’t it? After all, these flowers are all so cute. I can’t imagine anyone wanting to hurt them, can you?”
She smiled.
The younger one brashly spoke up. “I don’t care how important you are. Your name, lady, what is your name?”
The sunflower tilted her head to the side. “My name?”
She had never had one. After all, she was only a flower. She wouldn’t have lasted the summer, had strange events not began to happen.
But what did the humans say about sunflowers? Ah yes, that was it. “They turn like weathervanes.” So, her name would be Kazami.
Humans normally had two names, though, didn’t they? The sunflower supposed that since all sunflowers turned like weathervanes, she would need a different name to distinguish herself from them.
Hmm, she could make flowers bloom on her own, couldn’t she? Not just sunflowers, either. Scented flowers, like lilies. Fragrant ones.
Her own name, she decided, would be Yuuka.
Satisfied with this, she tilted her head back into its rightful place. “Kazami Yuuka. It is an absolutely marvelous pleasure to meet you both.”
The human still wasn’t satisfied. “And you said you were just passing through this flower field, didn’t you? If so, why don’t you have any supplies? And a woman your age, traveling alone? That can’t be safe.”
The sunflower smiled again. “I don’t need any supplies. And thank you for your concern, but I’m perfectly safe now, at least. But, you know, I heard that this field used to be far larger. What happened to that?”
The older human shuffled awkwardly, stepping on a sunflower sprout as he did so. Yuuka frowned. “Well, you see, people thought that the flowers here were beautiful. So they took them home. They may have gone a bit overboard at one point. This field got pretty famous for a while.”
Yuuka twisted a lock of her hair. “But they could have enjoyed the flowers here in the field, no? Even if they were beautiful, that’s no excuse for murder.” She emphasized that last word, knowing it would instantly make the humans uncomfortable.
The younger human looked at her puzzledly. “They’re just flowers, aren’t they? It’s not like they can think, or anything. So it’s not really murder, is it?”
The red sunflower’s eyes glinted the color of her former petals. “Really? Flowers can’t think? What evidence do you have of that?”
The human shrugged. “It’s just common sense. I’ve never met a flower that can think, so I assume that they can’t, right?”
“Wrong.” Yuuka was smiling now.
The older human put his arm around the younger protectively. “What do you mean, wrong? His argument makes plenty of sense.”
Yuuka walked closer. “You say you’ve never met a flower who could think, right?”
The younger human nodded.
“And that’s where you’re wrong. In fact-” Yuuka was within arm’s length now. “-you’re speaking to one.”
He jumped back, into a stand of sunflowers. Instead of crumpling underneath him, their leaves wrapped around his limbs, holding him up. The other human dragged him out of the stand, and backed away from Yuuka, slowly and carefully.
“Leave us be. We aren’t hurting anyone. And we are very sorry about your flowers. Extremely so. We had no idea that they could think.”
Yuuka smiled wider. “You know? I’ve never found any proof that humans can think.”
The younger one, with a note of panic in his voice, said: “We’re talking right now, right? You can’t talk without being able to think.”
She was grinning now. “Hmm? But don’t you humans have an expression… ‘speaking without thinking,’ was it?” The pair were a ways away from her now, but she could close the distance easily. “And of course, those things that can’t think… it’s perfectly fine to kill them, since it obviously isn’t murder. Do either of you have a counter-argument for this?”
A stand of sunflowers rose behind them, blocking their exit. Yuuka took a few lazy steps towards them. “Well? I’m waiting.”
The older human, visibly frightened now, bowed his head. “We are sorry about your garden, madam sunflower. Please forgive us. We will let all the other humans know never to come here again. We are very sorry.”
Yuuka shook her head with an exaggerated sigh. “Too little, far too late. This hill does need fertilizer, after all. I’m sure my cute sunflowers will consider it fitting for you to provide it.”
She moved faster than either of them could have thought. In a second, she was before them. Sunflowers towered behind and to the sides, all facing towards the red sunflower herself.
With a wave of her hand, their roots wrapped around the humans’ legs. The sunflowers almost seemed to be laughing at their plight. As Yuuka delicately wrapped a hand around the younger human’s throat, she whispered something.
“Really, you humans are simply pathetic. After all, I’m just a flower!”