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In a small town in the countryside, there is a flower shop
To others and passers-by, it is just a common flower shop, with strong and dark colors that resemble the land and forests worthy of fantasy books.
But to those who think the store is worth looking at more than once, they can see when the rain falls and blooms blue matte flowers like the sky in the dark days, small flowers and weeds creeping along the brick walls and forming natural gardens among the pipes and culverts. They can see the glow that emits from the small establishment in the spring and warm colored flowers in the autumn. On festival days, plants shine like lanterns to match the festive look of the small town.
For many, the flower shop is just another store like all the others in L'manburg
For some, the rarest, the flower shop is a place beyond the mundane, but they never get too close, for fear of being wrong and jeopardizing the beauty of the place
When asked about the nature of that store, the owner, an aged man with gold-blond hair and blue eyes that shine with youth, never responded coherently, smiling gently and saying in a firm and confident voice. Interestingly, no one ever asked him more than once, perhaps satisfied with the answer or irritated by the man's "petulance".
After all, few believe that the answer is magic.
In a small town in the countryside, there is a flower shop
And in this flower shop there are five children
Many who pass by say that only the youngest is the son of the mysterious florist. Running through the streets, rampant and screaming, smiling like a summer sky, arrogant but gentle, mischievous but dedicated, so young and childlike. So different from the father, but at the same time being the only one in the family who is as similar.
"Gold-colored hair and bright blue eyes don't lie" is what they say, so sure of their answer
Well, the second eldest would be so annoyed by that answer.
Almond curls like his eyes, a velvet voice and overflowing charm, he may not look like his father, but he is still a son. The callused fingers of their work, their passion for what they do, the laughter that illuminates the environment and the romanticism they carry for what they do, because flowers and music are romantic, as almost everyone would say.
"Maybe he is like the mother" is what the most attentive passersby, but still, oblivious, would say when they saw the two young men
If one is like the father and the other, the mother, the middle child is the perfect balance, dark hair like oak and sparkling blue eyes like jewels. Sometimes forgotten, other times, remembered fondly for his natural chaos as the younger brother, his constructions and inventions made of scrap metal and for his random facts about bees that are said in the wind and spread like pollen. Few in the city are unaware that bees flap their wings 180 times a second or that one of humanity's first drinks was fermented honey.
The oldest is a known puzzle. Pink tutti-frutti hair, falling like a waterfall and stuck in loose buns or braids, a carefully neutral face and eyes as red as ruby. So different from his brothers and his father, but there is no denying that he is as much a son as the others. Dedicated and striving to the limit, stubborn as the youngest, controlled as the father, immersed in his interests as the younger siblings. Their smiles and expressions of affection are reserved only for the family, an occurrence as rare as the blue moon, but always welcome.
One of the youngest is as different as the oldest. Strands of black and white hair, red and green eyes, so shy and anxious, looking so out of place from that noisy family. Nobody knows where they came from, they only know that one day, the florist appeared with another child and was declared as part of the family between one breath and another. Nobody dared to say the opposite.
One day, a traveler decided to ask who the mother of his biological children was.
The florist blinked, frowning and gave a wry but gentle smile.
"They are not children of blood, I adopted them a long time ago"
Nobody else questioned this.
In the small mystical flower shop, there is a family, not of blood, but connected by bonding and by a gentleman who was kind enough to take each of the children with him, deciding that their lives would be better surrounded by strange flowers and teas.
He has never been more certain in his life to raise them as his own.
