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Nether travel was never particularly enjoyable. It was hot, dangerous, and the portals made Scar’s stomach churn with nausea.
Or maybe that was just his excuse.
He stepped out of the purple, feeling the cool forest air blowing against him and soft, well-trodden mud beneath his shoes. He rolled his shoulders back, wiggled his arms and fingers, and let the tension in his muscles fade after his journey. Now back in the Overworld, he used one hand to straighten the lapels of his jacket and the other reached into his pocket to feel around for his leather aumoniere.
Most of the Hermits traded in diamonds, though he’d heard through the grapevine that Joe accepted copper. He’d brought a little of both with him - it would be difficult for Scar to part with the newest ore - so he’d be prepared for whatever Joe wanted.
The man in question stood a few paces away from the portal, the surprised smile on his face enough to tell Scar that his arrival hadn’t been expected, but that it wasn’t unwarranted.
“Hello, Joe.” Scar said, chuckling to himself at the rhyme. “What a lovely place you’ve got here!”
And it really was a lovely place. Barrels were lined up either side of the path, flowers neatly arranged in pots atop to signify what was inside. The colours were bright and vibrant, and the smells were beautiful. It was almost enough to distract him from the butterflies he could feel doing somersaults inside him, or the tingling of nervousness trying to burst from the tips of his fingers.
“Why thank you! I’ve not seen you since… Well, since the season started! What brings you here today?”
Just like that, his stomach clenched like a vice and Scar felt his cheeks begin to warm. He hadn’t admitted how he felt to anyone, not even to his closest friends, and now he was about to tell Joe. Even if it wasn’t going to be spelled out for him, he knew the other was no idiot. At least Cleo wasn’t around: she would never let him live this down if she heard about it.
“Flowers.” He eventually managed to say, his voice a little strained, but the word was followed by a puff of air and a slight laugh. Joe already seemed to be picking up that this wasn’t going to be an ordinary visit, and Scar watched as the cogs turned behind his eyes.
“Well, you’re at the right place for flowers. What’ll you be needing? We’ve got plenty of stock, the fields around us are in full bloom if you need something I don’t have, and you can mix and match til the cows come home.”
“When’s their curfew? Or, wait, no! Their cur- moo? Or maybe their cow- few?” Scar pondered aloud, doing his best to extend his search for a satisfactory pun and put off the inevitable. It didn’t work to buy him more than a couple of seconds, and he let out a quiet, resigned sigh as he worked up the courage to admit the truth. “Do you… Do you offer delivery by any chance?”
“Delivery?” Joe asked. “I haven’t thought about it, but I’d be more than happy to arrange something for you if you needed it! Planning a party?”
“No, no no no no.” Scar shook his head, another nervous laugh leaving him. “I was actually hoping you’d be able to deliver some flowers for me to another Hermit… Anonymously…”
Scar watched as he threw the metaphorical penny in the air, then watched as it dropped right in front of Joe’s face.
“Oh!” He exclaimed. “I absolutely can do that for you! Cleo might actually be able to help with that, the last thing I’d want is for whoever you want me to deliver these to to think they’re from me. Who is it you’d like them delivered to? If they’ve bought something from me before I’ll be able to let you know what they liked, we can make sure you get something perfect!”
Joe’s response was a weight off his shoulders. There was no teasing, no joking, just a man that wanted to give him the best shot possible to win a heart.
“Gem.” He admitted, and Joe’s face lit up. He made a beeline for the tulips, gesturing for Scar to follow, and he began to speak again.
“Gem was here just yesterday getting flowers for her greenhouse!” Joe said, the smile on his face audible. “She bought alliums, lilies of the valley, and a couple different colours of tulip. The pink ones were her favourite, I’ve got just the idea for this.”
The next few minutes passed an awful lot more easily and comfortably than Scar had anticipated they would. Joe talked about the meanings of different flowers and about the different ways he could shape the bouquet, then asked Scar about Gem and his plans for the season. He watched as the stems were twisted together, the leaves pruned and the colours made to pop perfectly. With Joe’s extensive knowledge of flowers, Scar left a lot of the exact choices to him, but he was quizzed comprehensively so the other was sure the choices of flower were perfect.
In the end, Joe held a beautiful bouquet made up of lilies of the valley, ox-eye daisies and pink tulips. A ribbon was tied around the stems into a bow. It was better than Scar could have possibly envisioned, and his soft gaze lingered for several long moments before he reached into his pocket once more.
“How much is all this gonna cost me? I presume with delivery it’ll be a couple diamonds at least?”
“Don’t be ridiculous.” Joe said, shaking his head. “You’re not taking these flowers for a project, or to make a load of dyes, this is for love. And since it’s for love, this is on the house.”
“What?” Scar asked, but he was unable to inquire further as Joe continued to speak.
“I’ll give these to Cleo now and tell her to take them to Gem. Cleo won’t know who sent them, and neither will Gem. I’ll let you know how Cleo says she reacted, though I don’t doubt you’ll find an excuse to go see her yourself soon.” Joe teased ever so slightly, and Scar nodded and smiled. He would find a way to visit her, whether it be another Swaggon restock or just happening to be in the area.
“Thank you so much Joe.” He said, starting to head back toward the portal. “If there’s anything I can ever do to repay you, or anything you might need from the Swaggon, let me know. I owe you one!”
# # #
Cleo stood at Gem’s door with the third bouquet in just as many weeks and just as beautiful as the last, and Gem looked at it with wistful eyes. The flowers were an excellent addition to her home, they made her feel loved and special, but there was no way to tell who they were from. Cleo had assured her that Joe had given her the flowers to deliver without mentioning who had bought them and there was never a note to try and reverse engineer the speaking patterns from. She had nothing to go on other than the fact that this person clearly cared about her, and she wished there was more that she could do to figure out who it was.
“Have you spoken to the other Hermits?”
“What would I even say?” Gem laughed, but the sadness didn’t quite leave her eyes. “If Joe’s been sworn to secrecy by whoever is sending this, what makes you think they’ll have told anyone else how they feel about me?”
“But if you don’t try, you won’t find out.” Cleo said. “I’d ask for you, but I don’t think it’s my business if you’d rather this remained a secret.”
Gem nodded, taking the flowers from Cleo and holding onto the stems a little more tightly than she’d like to admit to.
“The Big Eye Crew might know something, or Boatem. You’re good friends with Pearl, right? Maybe she’d be a good place to start. She lives with a good number of the boys after all.”
“I suppose she’ll be as good of a lead as any.” Gem said, one hand coming to play with the petals of the flowers. They were perfect, and her bees seemed to be in agreement. They flew into her home through open windows, perching on the flowers in the hopes of receiving some pollen. She wondered who on the server thought she deserved them, but her mind could only come up blank. Who could possibly--
“I’ve got to get going, but if you think you’re any closer to figuring it out let me know. Only if you want, of course.”
“I will.” Gem smiled. “I guess I’ll see you next week?”
“See you next week.”
# # #
Pearl hadn’t been expecting a visit from Gem, but she never minded. She definitely hadn’t been expecting Gem to land with a bunch of flowers and a story about how she’d received several bouquets from a secret admirer and had no lead as to who it was. On the few occasions she’d thought about the idea of a secret admirer she’d considered it romantic, but hearing about the frustrations that Gem was going through made her change her mind. Now she could see how exasperated it could make a person, and she felt terrible for having no real information to provide.
No one in Boatem had ever voiced having a thing for Gem - or anyone, for that matter - but she wasn’t going to just say that and send Gem away with no more knowledge than she’d arrived with.
Instead, the pair sat on the grass in the middle of the village, slowly going over the list of server members to try and narrow down who it could be.
“Impulse?” Gem said, staring at the clouds above, but Pearl immediately shook her head.
“He’s never been gone from his base for more than 5 minutes to grab more resources. He wouldn’t have the time to organise something like this.”
“Grian?”
“No, he’s only got eyes for Mumbo.” Pearl laughed. “He thinks he’s so good at hiding it, it’s honestly quite funny to watch.”
“Mumbo?” Gem asked, before immediately answering for herself. “I don’t think I’ve spoken to him once, I don’t think I’ve even seen him since the season started.”
“Oh, what about Scar?” Pearl said. “Didn’t he leave his jacket on you?”
“I was sleeping, anyone would have done that.” Gem said dismissively. “Besides, I thought he and Grian had a thing.”
“I thought that too, once upon a time. I think it’s an easy mistake to make, they’re all such good friends that it’s hard to tell the difference.” She laughed. “Alright then, so not Scar. I guess that takes out all of Boatem, what about…”
Pearl was cut off by the sound of feet touching down and elytra wings closing. She turned her head to look behind her, her gaze following the same path as Gem’s, and she smiled as she saw which of her neighbours had arrived.
“Well, hello ladies, what are you two up to on this gorgeous day in Boatem?”
“Gem just came to say hi.” Pearl said, not wanting to disclose anything that Gem didn’t want to reveal, but she immediately added to her statement.
“We’re trying to solve a mystery - do you think you could help us?” She asked. “Someone’s sending me flowers and I have no idea who it could be. We don’t think it’s anyone in Boatem, but that’s as far as we’ve gotten.”
As Gem spoke, Pearl looked over to her. She’d gone back to teasing the petals of the flowers between her fingers as a distraction from the pain of not knowing, and when she looked back to Scar she saw an expression she wasn’t expecting.
Disappointment.
Her lips parted, a silent breath leaving her mouth as she put two and two together, and her heart shattered in her chest. She knew Scar had given up his jacket, and if Gem hadn’t so quickly brought up the fact that she thought he was with Grian then she might have thought on it longer. But now, with Scar standing in front of her and that look on his face, she knew.
And Gem had just said that they’d figured out it was no one in Boatem.
“Do you have any idea of who it could be?” Gem asked, looking up, and Pearl watched as Scar wiped the hurt off his face in an instant. She did the same, not wanting to give him away, but it remained inside as she watched Scar shrug. It was effortless, the way he hid it, but she’d been around him long enough to pick up on a few telltale signs.
“It could be Bdubs.” He said after a moment. “He seems like the type of guy to get flowers for a girl he likes.”
“Ooh, you’re right!” Gem said, her eyes lighting up. Pearl couldn’t tell if that was because she had some kind of answer, or if it was because she wanted it to be Bdubs, but she didn’t need to look at Scar to know just how crestfallen he would appear. “Thank you Scar! You’re the best!”
The laugh that came from beside her was strained at best, but Gem was already getting to her feet and starting to head in the direction of Moose.
“I’m going to go talk to him! Maybe if I bring up the fact that I’ve been getting flowers he’ll admit to it! Thank you for your help, both of you!”
As Gem waved, the pair waved back, and Pearl shook her head.
“Scar, I need you to understand that I mean this in the nicest way possible, but you may just be the biggest idiot I know.”
“Pearl, I know. I completely agree with you.”
“Bdubs, really?”
“He was the first person I could think of! And she seemed happy with the answer--”
“She’d have been happy with any answer.” Pearl pointed out. “I have absolutely no idea how you’re going to fix this.”
“But you’ll help me, right?”
Pearl finally turned to look at Scar, his eyes beseeching her, and she pursed her lips together in a tight smile.
“I’ll help.” She said. “But no more sending her on wild goose chases across the server. If I’m helping you with this, we’re doing it properly.”
Scar let out a breath, a smile returning to his face, and he nodded promptly.
“Of course, anything you say. How can I thank you?”
To that, Pearl could only laugh.
“Never be my wingman.”