Work Text:
1025 K. F., Mead Moon
The day was only half finished, and already Rosethorn wished it would end. Even the steady softness of the soil, with its echoed thrums of the earth’s pulse, wasn’t enough to stop her heart from racing. She knelt, thinning out the wildflowers that spread in kept beds beyond the right side of the house. Rosethorn had hoped that something as meditative as pulling up overgrowth would help to ground her, that the sun beating on her back would return her breathing to normal. She fluctuated between defiantly ignoring her recent spells of anxiety and desperately wanting to weed out their cause and effect. It had been awhile since she’d been plagued by the constant feeling that she might jump out of her skin at any moment. Growing things had helped her in the past. She stubbornly rejected the idea that they couldn’t help her now, and reached for a spindly cluster of goldenrod.
The plants hummed and sang amongst her fingers as she deftly cupped young root structures with her magic, sussing out which stalks were the strongest and which wouldn’t mind giving way to be pulled from the ground. She closed her eyes and tried to let the mingling of sweet fragrances and damp earth under bare feet guide some sense to her thoughts. The plants only trembled more, sharing in her anxieties. She withdrew her hands so as to not upset them further and wearily opened her eyes again. Looking towards the cottage, she focused in on her lanky, bronzed housemate seated cross-legged on the lawn. Lark’s breathing was slow as she dreamily wound spun yarn into skeins for storage. Rosethorn blinked, swallowed hard, and tore her gaze away.
That was enough of that. It had begun when she’d let Lark start to help in the garden when needed. It had followed them from the garden into the house, where it now seemed intent to haunt Rosethorn into early madness.
Curse her stiff and sharp-edged tongue, so accustomed to lashing out that she now was left to wonder if it was possible to express a kindness. Too often of late, she found herself with a thudding heart and sweaty palms as she tried to force herself to meet Lark’s eye and say something of more substance than ‘good morning’. She still hadn’t forgiven herself for her blasted ineptitude in friendly conversation that had marred their dinner a week ago. They’d been eating in silence, when apropos of nothing, Lark had asked, “Why do you cut your hair like that? Is it just for efficiency? Or did you choose it for a special reason?”
Rosethorn, reflexes ever-ready to defend, had snapped back with, “Why do you style yours up like a street dancer every day?” Then she’d remembered who she was speaking to, and had bitten her tongue to keep it from castigating someone again without her say-so. “...It’s practical,” she’d managed to finish, in some semblance of an apology.
Lark had smiled at her, as if her rudeness were inconsequential. “Because that’s what I was.”
Rosethorn had swallowed her bite of stew without chewing. “Excuse me?”
“A street dancer. Well, acrobat, tumbler, if we’re being truly accurate, but I’ve done it all at one point. Dancing, singing, some instruments, even performing bard’s tales and poems. Perhaps someday I’ll show you. My favorite part was always the costumes, though. It was how I learned my way with a needle and thread. So many holes to stitch up, for a whole team of players. And some fun to be had in making the worn fabric new again, and fashioning ways to embellish it on naught but a copper.” Her eyes had twinkled in fond memory.
What part of life as an entertainer brought about the screaming nightmares that Rosethorn would wake to hear in the late, dark hours and Lark wouldn’t mention the next morning? The myriad questions racing through her mind dissolved before they could be put to words. “Oh,” was all she’d managed before her mouth dried up like cotton.
The following evening, finally coming in from the garden, Rosethorn had stopped short at the sight of Lark standing in the kitchen. Her long, tumbling masses of hair had been cropped into a bob that just brushed her shoulders. Lark had looked up excitedly upon hearing her enter, and her new hair followed the movement of her head with a bounce. Easy, playful corkscrews of black now framed her clever face as she beamed.
Rosethorn’s dumbfounded silence had managed to appear as a question. “I decided to take your advice!” Lark had told her, although Rosethorn didn’t remember ever suggesting such a thing. “It was impractical, leaving my hair so wild. It’s always been impossible to properly keep pinned back, and the pins always find their way out anyway, like a trail of breadcrumbs following me. And if I wear it long, it risks getting twisted in my work… No, this is much better. Less time to wash, no need to style. And to be honest, it was a bit foolish of me to hold onto the hair I had in another life. I’m moving forward, and that isn’t me anymore. There’s no use clutching something that’s only a remnant. What do you think?”
Dazed into speechlessness by Lark’s tumble of words, Rosethorn had absently reached forward and brushed the curve of one of Lark’s curls with her fingertips. Then she’d realized what in Mila’s name she was doing, and pulled her hand back sharply. “You look…” she’d tried. “It suits you.” Then it had been a brisk few paces into the safety of her workroom, where she’d braced herself against the inside of the closed door as she’d tried to catch her breath.
Wincing at the foolishness of it all as she continued her work in the garden was unnecessary but unavoidable, it seemed. Her always-racing thoughts on the matter were becoming a fixation. She pulled stems from the ground and tried, yet again, to center herself on some kind of solution. The mere suggestion of it was terrifying. These feelings, whatever they amounted to, were far too myopic. They were selfish. And she’d known since childhood that selfishness was the way to ruin. She’d made a choice that her actions would follow not those of one, but one of many. Having this dangerous vulnerability thrust upon her without her consent was like being torn up by the roots in a hurricane and thrown off the edge of a cliff. She was freefalling, and over something so festeringly inconsequential. They were so small, within the universe. How could the longing pressed tight against her chest ever help her in her diligence to serve?
If any kind of serious conversation were to even begin to occur, Rosethorn wasn’t even sure what she wished to hear from Lark. This would all be made much easier if Lark had been born with the power to read minds, Rosethorn resolved. She was sure Lark had the good sense to know how to move forward. She sat back on her heels, and surveyed the state of the bed before her. Again, she couldn’t help but glance beyond the flowers to Lark knitting happily in the sun. Rosethorn surrendered; her work here was clearly as complete as she could make it with her mind so unrelentingly elsewhere. She’d stick to parts of the garden that kept her buried and guarded in greenery. She moved to sort through the piles of pulled blooms surrounding her. Perhaps she’d save a few nicer flowers to bring inside later.
She kept her gaze lowered, but looked up through her lashes to watch Lark knit. Rosethorn knew Lark hummed often as she worked, and wondered what song vibrated on her lips today. As she took in Lark’s sloping neckline under the edge of her habit, the way her eyes narrowed a bit while she tackled a complicated stitch, the slight breeze nudging her curls, Rosethorn drew the strongest stalks from the larger bundle. A few clusters of pink moss rosebuds, which would bloom in a vase. A branch of vibrant yellow honeysuckle. Long stems of heliotrope to give some dimension and darker color. White clover blossoms, much larger than they’d be if grown in the wild, like balls of cotton, and their accompanying emerald leaves. Rosethorn arranged them without much thought, giving all her jittery attention to the woman effortlessly drawing her in. She finally turned her gaze away from Lark, tugged a piece of twine from her belt-purse to tie the bundle of flowers, and clipped off the remaining roots.
A proper glance over her handful brought back a faint memory of the class she’d taken in flower symbology, something used by spies and lovers alike. She studied her collection further, and let out an uneasy laugh as she pieced together what they meant. She might as well have been sending Lark a coded message, with flowers that appeared to have chosen themselves for her needs. “I can’t stop thinking of you, and the idea of something between us. I cherish your youthfulness, I’m devoted to your happiness, and I am very certain I could love you.” I may as well, she thought with a hapless smile, tucking the bouquet aside in a shady spot. At least if my tongue doesn’t work, my magic seems to do its best.
Rosethorn looked towards the house again, hoping to see Lark’s figure still seated against the wall. But her midday break must have ended; she had already taken her things inside and started the slow walk back to the loomhouses. Rosethorn caught a last glimpse of her tall, proud back before it disappeared around the curve of the spiral road.
--
It was already past twilight by the time Rosethorn came tromping in from the garden. Lark had eaten a light supper by herself, not an uncommon occurrence on the long harvesting days that the end of summer brought, and had left a plate for Rosethorn at the edge of the hearth. She was finishing the washing up when she heard the slam of the back door, and bare footsteps moving towards the kitchen.
"Did you remember to wipe off the mud between your toes?" Lark asked her cheerily as she returned her clean plate to the shelf.
"Yes, mother," Rosethorn muttered in response. Lark flicked her with the dishtowel, and she jumped a bit, then looked away, brow furrowed. Lark rolled her eyes. Every time she thought she’d caught Rosethorn in a moment of fun, the woman would clam up out of sheer embarrassment. Lark wished Rosethorn would understand how funny Lark thought she was. Lark wanted them to laugh together one day.
"How was the garden? I saw you doing something in the wildflower bed— it looks and smells heavenly. Did the bayberry pruning give you too much trouble?"
"It was fine. The usual." Rosethorn was typically laconic after a long day of labor, but Lark could sense something else was contributing to her surliness. Lark gave her a closer look, and noticed that she had something tucked in the sleeve of her habit.
"I also, uh... here." Rosethorn thrust out her hand. She clutched a small bouquet of flowers, and indicated with a flick of her wrist that she meant for Lark to take them. Lark did so carefully, barely allowing her fingers to brush Rosethorn's as she accepted the tight bundle. She still wouldn't meet Lark’s eyes. "I have work to do. Thank you for leaving out supper. Goodnight." Rosethorn strode down the hallway and shut herself in her workroom.
Lark puzzled over the flowers as she looked for a vase to hold them. They were absolutely lovely. She recognized the blushing, delicate buds of pink moss roses, and the lush clouds of huge white clover blossoms, one of Rosethorn’s favorite ‘weeds’ to sow and let grow in the parts of the garden she kept intentionally wilder. Lark smiled hesitantly, thinking of the flower meanings she’d heard of from old housewives, and blushed to think that these choices might not have been a coincidence. She examined the rest of the bouquet curiously. Thin brown twigs sported fragrant yellow flowers, and on longer green stalks spiky leaves cradled thick clusters of minuscule purple blooms. She’d seen these before, too, of course. She wished she knew what these plants were called, the elegant names that rolled off Rosethorn's lips with such ease. She also knew who she wished would teach her of such things.
Something fluttered low in her belly, a tickling yearning, and Lark’s growing smile became a laugh. So she wasn't imagining things, in the moments she had found herself lingering slightly breathless over Rosethorn's long lashes casting shadows on her cheekbones in the candlelight, the curve of her shrewd red mouth, the shine in her auburn hair. The tenderness she showed to growing things that she couldn’t bring herself to show to humans. The soft heart that still beat behind layers of barbed vines. Physical desire was rare enough in Lark’s life that she’d wondered often if she felt it at all anymore. But after months of being here, she was beginning to understand that she needed the right person, and a knowledge of who they were. Now she had that, and she knew she wanted all of Rosethorn, curves and edges alike, in countless different ways. And, if she had interpreted the message correctly, Rosethorn felt quite similar towards her.
Lark made a quick analysis of the situation. Living in limbo would be good for neither party moving forward. And Mila and the Green Man both would return to Earth before Rosethorn would manage to get her words straight enough to say something herself, Lark knew it. That meant the responsibility fell to her. With a giddy sigh and a shake of her head, she softly walked down the darkened hall, and rapped on Rosethorn's workroom door. "May I come in? I've something to ask you." She took the grunt of response she got as permission and nudged the door open.
Lark leaned against the frame, arms crossed, surveying both the room and the woman it contained. Painstakingly neat, efficient, a place for everything. Rosethorn sat on a high stool beside a countertop, shifting through seeds with her fingers.
"Why did you give me the flowers, Rosethorn?"
Rosethorn didn't turn from the task at hand. "It was a lovely day outside, and I thought what with you cooped up indoors for most of it at the loomhouses, I should share." Her shoulders hunched ever so slightly towards her chin, and she kept her head lowered and elbows tucked tight at her sides.
Lark walked cautiously towards her. "Thankfully, I did get to come home for some sunlight at lunchtime. Regardless, that’s very kind; they’re so cheerful. What are the yellow flowers? And the purple ones.”
Rosethorn’s hands paused for a fraction of a second as she answered. “Honeysuckle. Heliotrope.”
“He-li-o-trope.” Lark savored the word. “That one’s new to me. Honeysuckle, I remember now. My mother used to pick the blossoms when our caravan was stopped in places it grew, and she’d feed us the drops of sweetness… But Rosethorn..." Lark stood directly behind her now, and resisted the impulse to lay a hand on Rosethorn's broad, firm back. "Why did you give me the flowers?"
The knowing tone was enough to coax Rosethorn to turn and face Lark, who subtly leaned toward her. "Because..."
Rosethorn had to look up slightly to meet Lark's eyes. The kindness brimming there made her want to swallow in terror and run, but she forced the impulse away. Their faces were so close now. Swiftly, gently, Lark tucked a finger beneath Rosethorn's chin, and kissed her.
It was brief, and tender, and wondering. They pulled away from each other, disliked the distance, and pressed their lips together once more. This time it was firm, Rosethorn initiating as much as Lark was. She grasped Lark's hips and pulled her tightly against her body. Their embrace deepened, each of them a bit breathless. Lark felt Rosethorn's teeth graze her lips gently and exhaled with a shudder. She was suddenly very conscious of her position directly between Rosethorn's legs, and that knowledge alone was thrilling. She kissed harder, cupping Rosethorn’s face in her hands, and a light moan escaped her as their mouths met again and again.
Rosethorn pulled away suddenly, cheeks sporting two very red blotches of color. "Well," she said, voice a bit husky, "at least I didn't have to explain myself. Thank you for that... minor grace."
Lark laughed merrily, bracing her hands on Rosethorn's shoulders for support. "It's alright. Sometimes it takes me longer to catch up. You gave me time to work things out in my head."
Rosethorn's hands still rested firmly on Lark's hips, and she moved them up to lightly tickle Lark’s waistline. Lark giggled and squirmed out of her grasp, eyes playful, smile enormous. She grabbed Rosethorn's hands, sneaking in for another attack. "Rosie, I'd rather kiss you again than wrestle. It can't hurt to see if another try is as fun as the first were."
"Won't argue there, if you're asking." Rosethorn pulled her close for another embrace. She buried her fingers in Lark's fresh-cropped curls and held on tight. Heat built between their bodies as Lark’s curves shifted easily to meet Rosethorn’s, her calloused fingertips grazing the smoothness of Rosethorn's chest and neck. Rosethorn’s breathing hitched with the sensation of Lark’s mouth on her own, Lark’s hands on her bare skin, and she found her knees going weak at the prospect of what would happen were this to continue. She nearly fell backwards off the stool and braced her hand on the table behind her.
Lark pulled away to place a wet kiss just below Rosethorn's jawline. Rosethorn gasped, wondering how Lark had guessed that particular weakness, and felt her hand slide through the seeds on the counter behind her. They sprouted with her touch, cracking open and thrusting forth wild tendrils. She pulled away from Lark again, resigned, and cleared her throat.
"As much as I would like for this to proceed—and I very much would—it cannot happen here. I've upset things already." She pointed meaningfully at the sprouted seeds.
Lark's mouth flew open and she covered it with both hands, eyes dancing. "Mila, I didn't even think—"
"Well, neither did I. You seem to have that aggravating effect on me."
Lark blushed, and her breathlessness returned. This was almost too much, and she wanted to savor it. "Rosethorn, would you mind... I'm already quite flustered enough for one evening. There are... things to mull over. I think I should sleep."
Rosethorn regarded her with level eyes. "I don't share intimacy unless it's wholeheartedly wanted by both parties. Go, rest, I'll be here when you wake."
Lark clasped Rosethorn's hands gratefully, and kissed her soundly on the cheek, then on her reddened lips. "Goodnight, then." Rosethorn only managed to give a shaky smile in response.
She had almost reached the door when Rosethorn barked, "Wait! That thing you called me... Rosie. Whyever would you say that?"
Lark turned back, and blinked. "I said that?"
Rosethorn threw up her hands. "Yes, you said it not moments ago, bless it, Lark, sometimes you have the mind of a Water Temple Dedicate."
Lark made a face. "Don't imply such things. You know I almost wound up there." She shuddered at the thought. "I don't know why I called you Rosie. Maybe... perhaps it's because I’ve been seeing you at your most vulnerable, and also... well, I think, your most alluring?" The words seemed a bit insipid coming out of her mouth, but she knew they held truth.
Rosethorn considered this, lips tugged to one side. "I suppose," she finally allowed. "But not all the time, and not around other people."
Lark saluted jauntily, winked, and turned out the door. Just before she closed it, she peeked through the crack. "Rosie!"
Already surveying the mess of seeds, Rosethorn smiled blithely. "Yes?"
"Kiss me again sometime, would you? I'd like that."
Rosethorn looked up and Lark’s wide eyes blinking in the darkness outside the room met with her own. "I think that’s something I can manage." The door shut with a click.
Rosethorn pivoted on her stool to properly face the mess before her. Well, that's one thing sorted for the time being, she mused, picking up a sprouted seed between forefinger and thumb to get a better look. Now, what to do about normalizing these growth patterns?