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"That reminds me, Miorine-san."
Miorine looks up from her monitor, Suletta is lingering at the door between the small greenhouse and her room. She had thought the pilot had left a few moments ago. But she's still hovering at the threshold.
Maybe she forgot something?
"I brought you another flower petal." Suletta crosses the room in a few long strides and places a single pale flower petal in Miorine's open palm. “A good luck charm… for your GUND-ARM trip with Aerial tomorrow…”
"It's damaged," Miorine murmurs, smoothing over some of the creases in the petal and the tears in the fragile item.
The petal itself is slightly damp, perhaps from Suletta’s palms. She squints at it, trying to identify the flower with a single crumpled petal. It’s a large petal, with a slight curve towards the central longitudinal axis and a faint wavy shape around the edges. This is a flower that she’s definitely seen before in her many botanical texts. She gives it a sniff — definitely a strong floral scent, slightly sweet but very pleasant.
"Sor-Sorry," Suletta stammers, looking down at her feet, hands folded meekly in front of her. She's hunched in on herself, trying to take up as little space as possible.
She looks tired, something Miorine never thought possible, given her never ending stamina and endless energy. Well, they’ve all been running a little ragged lately with the GUND-ARM company finally getting on its feet. Perhaps she should arrange for some gardeners to take care of her plants instead of Suletta, give Suletta some time to rest and recuperate — that would be something that she would have to take care of on her trip, it’s far too late to hire someone for that now.
It’s somewhat anxiety-inducing to think that strangers would take care of her greenhouse while she was away instead of someone that she knew and trusted, but if Suletta could get a little more rest, well, what’s a little bit of anxiety? And Miorine would be sure to hire professionals. It shouldn't be a problem.
"It's fine," Miorine sighs. She turns the petal over, tracing over the delicate veins that run through it, barely visible in the artificial lights of her room.
This is definitely a flower that didn’t normally grow on the grounds of Asticassia. Miorine is certain of it, she had spent so much time when she first got here exploring all the different flora, there was no way that she would miss a flower like this.
“Where did you find this petal?” She finds herself asking even though she has come to expect the stammering excuses that Suletta gives her.
“Oh.”
Suletta looks panicked. The smile that had graced her face as Miorine had taken the petal is gone. She does every time that Miorine asks where she got the petals that she keeps bringing her, like a puppy returning with her latest stick. It’s rather endearing, actually.
“Just around,” Suletta finally says weakly. “I don’t really remember.”
Miorine narrows her eyes. Suletta is clearly hiding something, and not well, but she has remained tightlipped on the source of the petals. Perhaps this was Suletta’s way of trying to get into her good graces? It would be hard to keep surprising Miorine with petals if she knew where they came from.
At least she had the sense not to bring her entire flowers, just fallen petals. Cut flowers are dead flowers, and Miorine would rather they live.
The sound of clothes shuffling against themselves reminds her that Suletta is still in the room. She looks up at the other girl, who’s looking away, fingers fidgeting with the hem of her uniform. It looks like she wants to say something but can't like the words caught in her throat.
“Did you need something else?” Miorine asks, in what she thinks is her most gentle manner.
Suletta flinches. (Not as gentle as Miorine had thought then.)
“No no no. Sorry for bothering you. I’ll leave now!”
Before Miorine can even say anything, Suletta is sprinting out of the room, taking her unsaid words with her and leaving Miorine with the damaged flower petal.
The words of thanks hover right on the edge of Miorine’s lips, too slow for Suletta to hear them. Miorine is thankful for these little moments and little gifts. They’re like little moments of reprieve for her in an otherwise hectic and chaotic world. It’s especially appreciated since she’s been so busy running the GUND-ARM company.
Reverently, Miorine places the petal in a small glass specimen jar and tucks it away in one of her drawers amongst the handful of matching jars, each one with a different white flower petal inside.
Suletta is so thoughtful.
There’s a warmth that Miorine feels in her chest every time that Suletta hands her a petal, or smiles at her. She’s reminded of all the times that her mother would bring her a new strain of tomato to try, studying her expression to see how this tomato fared against all the other ones that she had created. Once, her mother spent three weeks in the lab working on a new variant because a young Miorine had complained that the last ones weren’t round enough.
Her mother had gladly put in the effort to make the perfect tomato — the same ones that Miorine so painstakingly tended to now.
She doesn’t look forward to being away from her beloved plants for extended periods of time, and having to see her father more often, and all the extra work that she has because she’s running this company, but for Suletta?
It’s worth it.
Miorine turns the petal over in her hand. She loves it, crumples and all.
The name of the flower that she has just carefully saved comes to her unbidden, like a seed that had fallen into the cracks, forgotten by the gardener until it started to sprout.
Camellia.
Devotion.
Suletta had never really understood the intricacies of petals and flowers and leaves and plants until she reached Asticassia.
She knew that plants existed, and they were fundamental parts of sustaining human life in space colonies (and on Earth) but they were always clinical and scientific gardens sequestered away behind giant panes of glass.
Even the decorative grass and trees and shrubs of Asticassia are all new to her, stretches of green against an otherwise familiar steely backdrop. Perhaps it’s because it's so novel to her — she had only ever known metal walls and floors and ceilings, enclosed tightly for function and not for aesthetics.
Open spaces with plants growing like this were a waste of space on Mercury.
It’s a luxury that Suletta relishes in at Asticassia.
Or well, she had, but a few short days after her sudden duel with Guel, she was choking and had coughed up a single white flower petal. One minute she had been smiling at Miorine, the second minute she had been doubled over, breathless and coughing into her hand. It had stunned her into silence, and she hastily stuffed it into her pocket, playing it off like she had eaten too fast at lunch.
The others chalked it up to a silly mistake, haha, classic Suletta. While she was secretly glad that she could make her friends laugh, worry plagued her for the rest of the day.
She had thought that she must have been seeing things, that she had coughed so hard that her vision was playing tricks on her. But when she checked her pockets later that night, in the quiet of Miorine’s greenhouse, there was definitely a flower petal, whole and real.
In hindsight, she should have checked when she was alone in her bunk or in the bathroom because Miorine spotted the petal from the other side of the room.
“Where did you find this petal?” It was a harmless question, mostly, but it sent Suletta into a panicked spiral. Miorine continued on unaware of Suletta’s racing heart and picked up the petal, turning it over in her hands with an awed look on her face.
“I just found it… on the ground…” Suletta had never been a great liar, but she pressed on, “It’s for you.”
Suletta didn’t know what pushed her to say such things — perhaps it was the look of wonder on Miorine’s face as she examined the petal. The light in Miorine’s eyes, whenever she was placed in front of something that she genuinely was interested in and passionate about, is dazzling and beautiful.
Vaguely, Suletta wondered if Miorine ever looked at her like that — a foolish but noteworthy idea. Miorine was far too busy for someone like her.
“For me?” Miorine repeated looking at Suletta with nothing but delight in her eyes.
“Yes…” Suletta looked away, suddenly feeling shy and foolish, “It’s a gift for you.”
No sooner had she said the words were Miorine pulling out her student notebook, flicking through the apps on it while turning the petal over in her hand and mumbling to herself. This gave Suletta a welcome reprieve, realizing what she had just done, how she could never tell Miorine the true origin of the flowers.
It felt like the flowers were telling her that she didn’t belong at Asticassia, haunting her with their unfamiliar presence. Nobody else seemed to be afflicted with such a condition, so it wasn’t contagious either.
“I didn’t think that these grew here at Asticassia,” Miorine murmured at last.
They don’t, Suletta wanted to say, but she kept quiet, words catching in the back of her throat like they were trapped by more petals.
“No?” She managed to say.
No, they don’t.
She would never realize what they were called, or realize that this was the beginning of a large bouquet of flowers that she was gifting to Miorine, petal by bloody petal.
Ranunculus.
I have a crush on you.
Suletta’s dying.
That much she’s certain.
She rolls over in her bunk, coughing as quietly as she can into her sleeve so she doesn’t disturb any of the other girls in the Earth house dorms.
It’s a horrible sensation, like something tearing at her throat, trying desperately to get out of her chest. Every breath that she takes is laboured and feels like her last. After a few more wheezing coughs, a few snow-white petals fall from her lips into her cupped hands, flecked with little spots of scarlet blood.
She’d have to carefully rinse off these petals to return them to their original white colour before she could even think about gifting one of them to Miorine. That’s the only thing that she can do, seeing as how there’s nothing that she can do about her disease.
She’s still managing to keep up appearances at classes and around campus without many suspicions. But she has been coughing more and petals as time went on, a sure sign of how this disease was progressing.
“It’s a disease of the heart, Suletta.” Her mom’s voice crackles faintly over the speaker of her student notebook.
“But my lungs hurt. Not my heart.” Suletta says weakly.
“I know.” Her mom’s voice is kind and soothing, a balm to the painful piercing sensation in her chest. “It’s most prominent in the lungs. But it’s your heart that will hurt the most.”
How can anything hurt more than this? It feels unthinkable.
“You’re sure there’s no cure?”
“Confess your love.”
It’s a straightforward statement, a better answer than anything that the doctors at the medical bay had given her but it's worse all the same.
“I can’t do that!” Suletta wheezes, the force of the sudden exclamation makes her break down into a coughing fit.
“Why ever not?” There’s no judgment in her mom’s question, just curiosity.
“I can’t burden Miorine-san with this…. She’s so busy… I’ll only be adding to her worries if I tell her.”
“Suletta…” Her mom starts.
“Please, mom.” Suletta tries her hardest not to let her voice waver. “You said it has to be reciprocated… So I won’t be cured even if I confess to her. I’d rather not bother her then. ”
She’s only the groom out of necessity, by accident. Miorine is beautiful, smart and brilliant, and has so much ahead of her. Suletta is none of those things. She’s the Holder — a placeholder until Miorine is legally old enough to do what she wants.
There’s a long sigh over the other end, like a mother who knew her daughter too well, how stubborn she could be.
If it was going to hurt just as much even if Suletta said something to Miorine, then it's better if she didn’t say anything at all.
“Suletta?” Nika’s voice floats up to her from somewhere below.
She lets out one last cough, tamping down on the urge as best she could before she rolls over in bed to face the mechanic, closing her fist around the petals to hide them from view.
“Nika?” It comes out more like a shriek once she realizes how close the other girl had gotten.
Nika is hanging half off the ladder leading up to Suletta’s bunk, face mere centimetres away from Suletta’s.
“You’re ill, aren’t you?”
“No!” Suletta yells with enough force that sends her into another coughing fit. Even as she doubles over, she’s frantically checking over the edge of her bunk, making sure nobody else is in earshot.
Nika just gives her another pointed but sympathetic look, rubbing her back soothingly as Suletta finishes her latest coughing fit. It’s a nice feeling, reminiscent of her younger days that Suletta had spent with her mom.
“Have you been to the medical bay?” Nika asks.
Suletta nods. That had been her first stop after the first two petals. The doctors at the school couldn’t find anything wrong with her and sent her off with an inhaler and cough medicine. Neither of those things really helped at all.
“There’s no cure,” Suletta lies weakly.
“No way,” Nika ushers Suletta further into the bunk so that she can sit next to her instead of dangling off the ladder. “There are so many different medical technologies, I’m sure that there’s a cure for what you have.”
There is a cure, Suletta wants to say, it just won’t work.
Not for her.
“No. This is incurable.” She doesn’t mean to say it so bluntly but this is a truth that she has long grappled with and come to terms with.
Her only wish is to not burden her friends and Miorine with her own burden.
The expression on Nika’s face flickers to one of hurt, clearly taken aback by Suletta’s words.
“I just want to enjoy my time at school…” Suletta tries again, apologetically this time. “Please don’t tell anyone else, I don’t want to worry them.”
Nika’s hand rubs a few more circles against Suletta’s back, she looks like she wants to argue but the pleading look that Suletta gives her seems to do the trick — Nika is kind and understanding enough not to push the matter.
“Alright, I won’t tell anyone,” Nika promises. “But is there anything I can do to help you?”
They fall into silence for a moment. A rarity in the usually rambunctious dorms. Suletta thinks about Nika’s offer — it feels rude to reject the other girl's offer, especially given the worried look that Nika keeps shooting her when she thinks that Suletta won’t notice.
“I-” Suletta pulls her student notebook out, scrolling past the different apps until she finds her list. “I’ve always… wanted to do these things.”
“Oh.” Nika’s eyes widen a little bit, her expression seemingly growing sadder. “A bucket list.”
A bucket list?
Nika must see the confusion on her face as clear as day. “It’s an Earth thing,” she explains sheepishly. “People would list things that they wanted to accomplish before they died and try to do them all.”
Oh. Suletta does want to complete all these things before she died. There are actually many more things she’d like to do, beyond her life at this school, beyond what she has experienced thus far.
She’d like to spend more time with Miorine.
But that's selfish. She couldn’t ask that of Miorine, not when this is her problem. She couldn’t make this Miorine’s problem as well.
“Yes, this is my bucket list.”
Her fists clench, crushing the flower petals still clenched in her hand. '
Gardenia.
Untold love.
“Miorine-san?”
Suletta finds herself stumbling, nearly tripping over the other girl waiting at the doorway of the Earth house’s dorm. It looks like she’s been waiting there for a while.
“Oh, Suletta.” Miorine looks equally surprised to see her.
“Are you… waiting for someone?”
For me?
That part goes unsaid.
“Nika emailed me and said that I needed to meet her here this morning,” Miorine waves her student notebook at Suletta.
“Oh, Miorine,” Nika comes out of the dorm room, bumping into Suletta, who is still standing right in front of the doorway.
“You wanted to see me about something?” Miorine pushes off the wall from the spot that she was leaning against.
“Right!” Nika smiles at Suletta, “I actually forgot something in the dorm.” She makes an exaggerated show of pulling out her own student notebook and checking the time. “Oh, you two should head out first, or you’ll be late for class.”
Suletta gives Nika a confused look. “We can wait for you.”
“No, no,” Nika insists, she turns slightly so that Miorine can’t see her expression and shoots Suletta a wink.
Suletta remembers the list that she had shown Nika almost a week ago.
Oh.
She can cross ‘meet up with friends to go to school’ off.
Nika gives her a gentle shove. “You’ll be late. I’m sure you have much to talk about for the upcoming duel against Elan.”
Still confused, Suletta lets herself be ushered off without Nika, falling into step with Miorine as they make their way to class.
“You look tired,” Miorine says. “Are you sleeping properly?”
“Huh?” Perhaps the deer in the headlights look is not the most convincing. “I’m fine!”
“There are bags under your eyes,” Miorine stops in her tracks, frowning deeply as she examines Suletta closely. “You’ve been working hard. Make sure you get to sleep early tonight. Rest is important. Don’t worry so much about the duel.”
“I- I will…” Suletta looks away, face warming at how close Miorine is.
Miorine looks absolutely radiant, bathed in the artificial sunlight streaming in from the line of windows behind her. Perhaps this is what angels looked like.
Suletta’s hands cram into her pocket, embarrassed. The back of her hand brushes against something soft, something that she had completely forgotten about.
A petal.
It’s one of the acceptable specimens that she managed to save, its snowy surface untainted by the red of blood.
She pulls it out, trying to hide her embarrassment. “I brought you a gift.”
“A gift?” Miorine asks, confused.
Suletta grabs Miorine’s hand, holding it as she places the petal in Miorine’s hand. Surprise and joy flits over Miorine’s face as she sees the flower petal. It should be impossible for anyone to look even prettier than Miorine already does, but the slight smile that graces her face clearly says otherwise.
“Where did you get this?” Miorine wonders aloud, stroking a finger over the wide rounded petal. The white petal is so thin that it's nearly translucent.
“Uhm... around?” Suletta scratches the back of her neck awkwardly. She doesn’t like lying to Miorine but there really isn’t any choice.
Miorine narrows her eyes. “I haven’t seen anything like this around the school.”
“I just found it,” Suletta insists, doubling down on her lie. It’s not quite a lie, she did just find it. She starts walking again, quicker now, as she tries to literally run away from this situation. “We’re going to be late, Miorine-san!”
Miorine hurries to catch up with her, shorter legs working double time to match Suletta’s longer strides as she carefully tucks away the petal of a plant that doesn’t exist on any patch of soil here.
Dendrobium orchid.
You’re beautiful.
The artificial sun is shining brightly across Asticassia, bright rays reflecting off the metal buildings and windows. Suletta squints as exits onto the roof of the main school building.
She’s never really been up here.
There’s never been any reason for her to be.
The three flights of stairs up to the roof had very nearly taken her life. It had been getting harder to breathe over the last few weeks. Every breath that she took hurt, like her lungs closed around thorny stems, piercing her and letting air escape instead of reaching the rest of her body.
She took a few moments to rest at the top of the stairs, doubled over and panting as she struggled to catch her breath. The last thing that she needed is for anyone to notice that something was wrong. Normal Suletta would have never had any issue climbing three flights of stairs.
To her surprise, she only finds Miorine sitting on the roof.
Quickly, she checks her student notebook, confirming that Nika asked her to come to the roof for lunch. Well, Nika never said that she would be here, just for Suletta to go to the roof.
The sound of her boots on the roof alerts Miorine to her presence and the white-haired girl looks up at her.
“You’re late,” Miorine says.
“Sorry…” Suletta dips into an apologetic bow.
“Sit, sit.” Miorine pats the empty space next to her on the blanket.
It’s clearly one of the blankets from the Earth house dorms, two trays of food from the cafeteria set in the middle. Nika sure is efficient. Curious though, Suletta sits down on the blanket next to Miorine, wondering what Nika must have told her to get her to come up here with this spread.
Miorine hands her one of the trays. The metal is warm in Suletta’s hand, probably from sitting out in the sun. Having the weight of the tray on her lap is a grounding feeling that pulls Suletta from the depths of her worries, just something for her to hold on to. Parts of her still cling desperately to the worry that Miorine would be able to tell something was wrong with her.
The two of them tuck into their food, with Suletta continuously sneaking glances over at Miorine to see if she noticed anything. Cafeteria food has never tasted like much, but lunch today is especially delicious. Maybe it's the sunshine beaming down on her, maybe it’s the good company, but Suletta finds herself enjoying it.
She’d have to thank Nika later.
It’s nice to be able to just sit down and eat with Miorine without the usual chaos of an impending duel or crisis hanging over their heads. (Well, there’s a crisis hanging over Suletta’s head but that’s not something that she’s going to let cast a shadow over Miorine.) The simple domesticity of this moment warms her from the inside out.
It’s a welcome change from the icy pain that floods her veins whenever she does anything with more than moderate exertion.
“I’m worried about you, you know.”
That makes Suletta’s head swivel so fast that she’s worried that she may have given herself whiplash.
“You’ve gotten thinner,” Miorine presses on, completely unaware of the battle that Suletta is fighting in her head. “Don’t think I didn’t notice. You’ve been working hard prepping for the Grassley House duel and I know sometimes you skip meals. Idiot.”
Did Nika say something to Miorine? She promised that she wouldn’t. Panic floods Suletta’s veins, her heart thunders in her chest and she can feel the pinpricks of thorns pressing against the cages of her ribs.
“Did- Did someone say something to you?” Suletta stammers.
"No. But I asked Nika about it. She said that I should eat more meals with you to make sure you're eating properly," Miorine continues, scooping up a large spoonful of rice.
She holds it up to Suletta's face, pausing just before her lips.
"Mi-Miorine-san?” Suletta squeaks. "What are you doing?"
"Making sure you're eating enough,” Miorine says simply.
The spoon of rice bumps gently against her lips, insistent.
“Huh?”
Suletta opens her mouth just enough in surprise that Miorine seizes the opportunity to feed her.
“See? Not that hard,” Miorine tells her somewhat smugly. “You’re running around all the time. You have to eat more.“
Fortunately, Suletta remembers to finish chewing before replying to Miorine, washing down the mouthful of food with a gulp of juice. “But what about you?”
Miorine waves her hand dismissively. “I have snacks and instant ramen in my room that I can eat later if I get hungry.”
“That’s not real food!” Suletta protests.
She gasps suddenly, staring at Miorine with wide eyes. Miorine had just fed her with the same spoon that she had just used.
“What?” Miorine looks over at her confused and concerned.
“That was an indirect kiss!” Suletta claps her hand over her mouth.
Miorine frowns. “An indirect kiss? How old are you? Eight?”
“I’ve- I’ve never had a kiss before!” Suletta pouts.
“I hardly think that an indirect kiss counts,” Miorine says.
She holds another spoonful of her food up to Suletta’s lips.
Suletta presses her lips into a firm line with a shake of her head, she wasn’t going to accept another indirect kiss.
Exasperated, Miorine sighs swipes Suletta’s spoon from her tray along with a scoop of rice from her own tray.
“There, is that better?”
“No- mmph.” Whatever protests Suletta might have quickly dies in her mouth as Miorine feeds her another bite of her food.
“You need to take better care of yourself,” Miorine chides gently, putting the spoon back into Suletta’s hand but pushing half of her food into Suletta’s tray. She looks firmly at Suletta, a mixture of sternness and concern written all over her face.
They fall into an easy silence, accented by the sounds of cutlery clinking against the tray and the quiet sounds of chewing.
It isn’t long before Miorine breaks the moment, though.
This comes as a surprise to Suletta.
“It’s nice to be able to just do nothing.”
Suletta looks over at Miorine questioningly.
“I’m often so busy with everything, it’s nice to be able to just sit, even for a moment.” Miorine leans back on her hands, tilting her head back and basking in the sun.
The light plays over her features, casting soft shadows over half of her face. It’s very nearly blinding to look directly at Miorine like this, but Suletta perseveres, screwing up her face against the sun.
If she’s dying, and she is dying, then she would like to stare at Miorine a little longer. Perhaps it's pessimistic to think this, but Suletta hardly cares. Perhaps the blinding sunlight will burn the image of this relaxed moment of beauty into her soul so that she might carry it into her next life.
Suletta pauses.
She had been causing worry for Miorine, hadn’t she?
“We-” What could she even say to assuage some of that worry? “We can sit here and do nothing whenever you want.”
Miorine simply shakes her head, giving her an unreadable expression. “I don’t know if I’ll have the time for something as frivolous as that.”
Frivolous.
If Miorine worried less, then perhaps she could.
They finish eating the silence. Suletta chews slowly as she mulls over Miorine’s words. She’s right, Suletta couldn’t be causing Miorine so much worry. The other girl already has so much on her plate. It’s simply unfair for her to add to that burden.
Perhaps there could be something extra that she could do for Miorine- oh!
Hurriedly, Suletta rifles through her pockets, nearly knocking the tray from her lap. She pulls out a single white petal. It’s on the small side compared to some of her previous gifts, but she had coughed out nearly a dozen this morning, all spattered with blood and impossible to clean. Most of them remained stained a pale pink.
Even this one, as Suletta sees it against the white of Miorine’s hair, she realizes, is also just very faintly pink.
Miorine looks surprised when Suletta presses the small petal into her palm, hoping she won’t notice the faint hue.
“You’re really going to have to tell me where you keep finding these,” she says with a small smile on her face.
Suletta laughs awkwardly, trying to play it cool. “Maybe one day.”
She’d sooner die than tell Miorine.
She’d probably die before she’d tell Miorine.
Forget-me-not.
I’ll remember you.
Suletta gets worse.
There’s no getting better, she supposes.
She spends a lot of time hiding in her bunk, and then in Miorine’s greenhouse, and then Miorine’s room while Miorine is away with Aerial.
They’ve been gone for two months.
Suletta was surprised that she had two months.
Without Miorine and Aerial, Suletta felt like she'd been cut adrift. The two most important people in her life, gone. She knew that they’ll come back but everything feels empty.
Wrong.
Instead, she distracted herself with all the things that there were to do in both the standalone greenhouse and the smaller one connected to Miorine’s room. From watering the plants to making sure that there’s enough fertilizer for the tomatoes, it was a never ending list to accomplish.
A lot of the time was spent alone, but it was freeing to be able to hunch over, head between her knees and hack up petals without fear of someone (Miorine) finding out. She cleaned up the petals, tossing them into the compost so at least something good could come of them.
Maintaining her strong facade with the rest of the Earth house as they work on various GUND-ARM projects was no easy feat either. Nika had made good on her promise, saying nothing but looking over at her with nothing short of concern in her eyes. Suletta ended up going with her to the school store just to assuage some of Nika’s concerns. It was incredibly taxing to pretend that nothing was wrong and browse the varying aisles but she did find a set of matching keychains.
The blue one immediately reminded her of Miorine, with how adorable it was.
Maybe she could cross another thing off her list with this.
(She wasn’t going to be able to complete her list, but perhaps this would be enough. It would have to be enough.)
Most nights though, Suletta spent them on the floor of Miorine’s smaller greenhouse just to find a moment of peace in her rest. She wasn’t brave enough to use Miorine’s bed, but she found the cold metal floors a welcome balm against her feverish skin.
She couldn’t burden Miorine.
All she could do was take care of the tomatoes and plants like Miorine asked her to.
It surprises her when she arrives at the greenhouse one day to find that there are strange men wandering around. Alarm bells immediately go off in her head — men sent by the Jeturk house perhaps to wreak havoc in Miorine’s sanctuary?
There are the two keychains clenched tightly in her fist, the metal chains digging into her palm but it matters little to the adrenaline pumping through her veins. She bounds up the stairs in two easy steps, a feat that she hasn’t been able to do in months in her now weakened state, and is shouldering both the intruders out of the way immediately.
“This- This is Miorine-san’s greenhouse! What are you doing in here?”
Her lungs are screaming with exertion, a cough bubbling up in her chest but she can’t show any weakness. Not here, not in front of these strangers, not when something as important as Miorine’s greenhouse is on the line.
Neither of the strange men are particularly strong but neither is Suletta at the moment, she feels like jello bouncing off of a brick wall.
“Suletta!”
The sound of Miorine’s familiar voice stops her in her tracks.
Miorine.
Where is she?
Is she safe?
Suletta spins on the spot, trying to find the owner of the voice.
The owner of this sanctuary, the gardener who had sown the flowers in Suletta’s chest, the ones that she watered with her own blood and tears.
Miorine stands at the back of the greenhouse, hands on her hips, a stern frown on her face.
“Mi-Miorine-san?”
Suletta hadn’t expected Miorine to be back for another day at least.
“I hired these gardeners,” Miorine dismisses the two panicked men with a wave of her hand and they make haste getting out of there. “I know it’s a lot of work for you to handle all the things here on campus while I’m away. And I will be away more often in the future, so I thought it would be best to just hire some gardeners to take care of everything in my place.”
Suletta’s heart drops in her chest, plummeting off a precipice and crashing into the thorny masses of plants below. She can feel the sharp edges pierce into her, a cold sort of seeping pain making its way through her body.
Miorine had hired gardeners to take her place?
Strangers?
She would rather strangers take care of her plants?
Suletta looks around at the greenhouse around her. Had she done such a bad job? She looks around at the tomato plants around her.
Some of them were looking a little sad.
Perhaps she had.
She had only caused Miorine trouble hadn’t she?
The pain in her chest tightens, twisting like a knife, and she can feel a petal lodging itself in her airway. She has to go.
“Let’s go see the others. We can surprise them with my early arrival.” Miorine brushes past her, mind already set and actions already taken.
There’s the faintest touch of warmth along Suletta’s wrist, something that makes her look up but Miorine’s already gone, pausing at the doorway to give her a quizzical look.
“Are you coming? We can go see Aerial.”
Suletta shakes her head frantically, trying her best to force the petal back.
“I uh I forgot something!” She bites back the cough that’s threatening to escape. “In the back, I’ll- I’ll catch up with you!”
Miorine frowns but doesn’t push the issue, turning on her heel and disappearing into the afternoon.
Suletta holds herself together for another beat. And then another, just to make sure that Miorine was truly gone, before collapsing on the floor.
Flower petals spill from her lips, each one stained red with blood. Dozens of them now, long and thin like fingers tearing their way out of her chest, demanding to be free.
Everything else falls away, leaving Suletta alone with the petals, bloodied and dying. She gives herself the moment of reprieve to try to catch her breath (she never quite does, always one gasp short).
She has to get up, lest she take too long and Miorine comes back, looking for her. Shaking, she sucks in another shuddering breath, air never quite filling lungs too full of roots and leaves and thorns and blood. Hastily, she collects all the petals that she finds on the floor, uncaring that they’re still wet with blood when she shoves them into her pocket.
Suletta leaves.
Her mom was right. Her heart does hurt the most.
Aster.
Take care of yourself for me.
Suletta has never really considered what should happen to her after her death.
Her body would probably be returned to Mercury, where she had grown up. Her mom would take care of funeral arrangements, there’s nothing for her to worry about.
What she does worry about, is Miorine.
She’d be bounced around from Holder to Holder again, wouldn’t she? Just another trophy to be placed on the mantle of her future groom — Suletta doesn’t trust any of the other houses to look after her properly.
They wouldn’t mistreat Miorine per se, Miorine would never let them, the other girl is far too smart and headstrong for that. But Suletta doesn’t know that she would be happy either.
Was Miorine happy with Suletta as her Holder?
No, she’s just a placeholder.
Once Miorine was of age, she’d be able to do whatever she wanted. And Suletta would let her. That was the deal.
Suletta wouldn’t make it that far though.
None of the other houses would let Miorine go either if they became the holder.
There’s only one thing that she can do. The one thing that truly governed this school, something that all the students were seemingly bound by.
“And you, Suletta Mercury, what is your stake in this duel?”
This isn’t her first duel.
But perhaps, this would be her last.
It would hopefully be Miorine’s last too.
“If I win…” Suletta starts, and she pauses. No. There’s no if here. She has to secure Miorine’s future with her own two hands. This, this is the moment that she had prepared for, not the duel itself, but this.
She straightens up, standing tall and squaring off properly against Elan. He’s the only one who agreed to this duel in exchange for being able to use Pharact against Aerial. Suletta knows that he can tell she’s not doing well. When she had cornered him in one of the hallways, she had been leaning heavily against the wall, hardly able to keep herself upright.
This is an advantage that he can press — perhaps this is the best chance that he and the Peil house would get.
The only chance that they would get.
Miorine would be pissed to hear about this.
“When I win, I want the rules for passing on the title of Holder to be changed.”
The handful of people witnessing her chitter quietly amongst themselves. This was unheard of, but the rules that bound a duel were the very foundation of Asticassia. The school was honour bound to follow them — whatever that was worth.
Suletta presses forwards anyway, ignoring them. This is something that she has to do.
“If I am still the Holder when I die, the title of Holder dies with me. Miorine’s hand in marriage returns to her. She can choose to marry whomever she likes.”
The room is silent for a moment, everyone staring at her with wide eyes. There's nothing in the rules that said that she couldn't do this.
“Alea jacta est,” Shaddiq claps his hands together finally, his usually carefree expression is replaced with a stern frown. “Your stakes keep getting bigger."
She offers him a weak smile, it’s taking every ounce of strength that she has not to break down into a coughing fit.
“Have tactical testing sector thirteen set up right away, as she’s requested.” Shaddiq glances over at Cecilia. The white-haired girl is typing furiously at her student notebook.
“You’re sure that you want to duel right now?” Elan looks at her, there’s something in his gaze, pity perhaps. “I hardly feel right duelling someone in your weakened state. They’ll say that you only lost because you’re not well.”
“I’m fine,” Suletta swallows stiffly.
Even that small action reminds her that there are thorns climbing their way up her throat. She doesn’t have much time left, that much she knows. She needs to complete this duel before she couldn’t even properly pilot Aerial. She needs to complete this before Miorine finds out.
It's not that she's worried that Miorine would try to stop her, but rather what she would do when she finds out that her groom is dying.
There’s a whole flower in her hand, bloodied and crushed in her grip. She had been wise to stop in the bathroom before she came to the dueling committee lounge.
Her disease is in her final stages, she knows.
But perhaps, she can lift this burden from Miorine’s shoulders.
Then her suffering would be worth it.
Anemone.
This love will never come to pass.
The greenhouse is quiet, lights dimmed to match the fading afternoon sun outside.
Miorine sits on the floor in the back room, her tomato plants and pots of hydrangeas standing sentry. Spread before her are all the flower petals that she has collected and on her student notebook, is an old text that Lilique had sent her on the language of flowers.
“Miorine-senpai!”
Miorine winces as Lilique knocks loudly on the doorway to the greenhouse. The sound is grating and not at all like how Suletta would announce her arrival so as to not frighten her.
She hadn’t really seen Suletta since she returned with Aerial. There were many things to do on campus: missed classwork to turn in, reports for GUND-ARM to go over. The list never seemed to end, and just when Miorine thought she was almost done, more reports would arrive in her inbox.
“Wow, you have so many plants in here!” Lilique doesn’t quite enter the greenhouse, still evidently intimidated by Miorine’s presence in a one-on-one situation but curious enough to look around.
“Yes, I grow all of them myself.” Miorine can’t help but bristle a little with pride.
These plants are her pride and joy after all, an homage to her late mother, a living shrine to her life.
“Oh, do you collect flowers?” Lilique kneels down next to Miorine, peering into the open specimen jars on the table.
“Don’t touch those!” Miorine snaps and Lilique recoils back like Miorine’s words cut her. “Sorry. They’re just delicate.”
Lilique seems to take this in stride, smiling widely. “I didn’t know you like flowers so much too! And you have so many! They must be very important to you.”
Miorine dusts the soil off of her hands off awkwardly. Maybe she shouldn’t have left her collection of flower petals from Suletta out in the open like that, but she noticed there was some moisture in the one that Suletta had given her just before she left on her business trip, and decided to let them dry in the sun for a little bit.
“Are they from a suitor?”
Lilique is still looking at the petals, from an acceptable distance away, but looking nonetheless.
“They’re just precious to me,” Miorine says in lieu of a proper answer.
“Hmm, do you just like the white ones or the pink ones better?”
It feels like an interview at this point, Lilique is clearly taken with the idea of flowers that Miorine seemingly collects. (Honestly, she half expected Suletta to give her another flower petal when she returned from her business trip with Aerial and Pharact in tow, but nothing ever bloomed.)
Damn that Suletta tricking her to expect something like that.
There would be no ringing bell here.
Pink ones?
Miorine hurries over to her collection of petals, with all the petals out in the open like this, side by side, it’s easy to see. The first couple of petals are white, pale as snow. But as she goes down the list, the petals take on the faintest pink hue. It’s unevenly pink, little splotches here and there, down to the last petal which is entirely a pale pink, dark lines gathering at the creases and tears in the material.
She hadn’t noticed that at all.
“I wonder if the pink ones mean anything different,” Lilique muses out loud and pulls out her student notebook.
“Mean anything?” Miorine echoes dumbly.
She’s lost and confused, and she hates being lost and confused.
“Like the language of flowers!” Lilique exclaims excitedly. “When I was younger, my mom made bouquets for people and she told me that each flower says something different.”
Each flower says something different.
Suletta had given her many different flowers, no repeats. Was this intentional?
Lilique seems not to notice Miorine’s silence or conflicting thoughts, “I can send you a copy of the book that my mom used, you can look up all the meanings yourself.”
Of course, her botany texts would never include something as frivolous and unscientific as the meaning of flowers.
“Maybe your suitor is trying to tell you something.” Lilique’s smile is bright and hopeful.
It reminds Miorine of Suletta’s — how long had it been since she had seen Suletta smile?
So she had petals from a ranunculus, dendrobium orchid, forget-me-not, and a camellia. She scrolls through the text, trying to piece together whatever message Suletta was trying to say.
That’s when she noticed something underneath the desk, something blue and small, kicked into the corner and covered in dirt and dust.
Curious, Miorine picks it up.
It’s an ugly little blue creature on the end of a keychain.
Who could have dropped this here? Nobody else has been here since — there’s a handful of petals in the dust. They’re dry now, a dark red in colour. They don’t look anything like the only flowers, the hydrangeas, that Miorine’s been keeping in the greenhouse.
She wanders back out to the actual greenhouse, picking up one of the fallen petals from one of the hydrangea pots. Definitely not one of her flowers.
Another flower that doesn’t belong in Asticassia. Another flower that doesn’t belong in Miorine’s greenhouse.
She turns it over carefully in her hands — it doesn’t smell like a flower at all, but rather the distinct metallic tang of blood.
Blood?
Her gaze falls on the subtle pink gradient of flowers in the other room that Suletta gave her.
Before she can think about it too hard though, the sound of a scooter screeching to a halt outside her greenhouse makes her look up.
“Miorine!”
Nika comes sprinting into the greenhouse, eyes wide and frantic.
“Nika?”
“Suletta’s dueling Elan!”
“What?” Miorine drops the petals in her hands.
They had been over this before. She isn’t allowed to duel anyone without discussing it with Miorine first.
“Not only that,” Nika looks hesitant, in a way that Miorine hasn’t ever seen before. “I heard from some other students what her stake is—”
I want to understand.
Hydrangea.
Aerial is perfect.
Suletta knows this.
Her sister has never let her down before, and certainly would never let her down now.
Too bad she’s letting Aerial down.
Grimacing, she dodges another blast from Pharact’s beam cannon. The other Gundam is flying high above her, taking shots at her as she retreats across the field. It’s difficult to close in on it when all he does is fly out of her range and keep firing.
A nuisance.
Suletta weaves around some of the rocky outcroppings dotting the field, losing sight of Pharact for a moment. It’s not the most ideal, but she needs the moment to think,
She can’t risk losing all of her GUND-Bits in an all-out frontal attack. Weakly, she coughs, feeling more and more petals rising up from her lungs. She has to end this; she has to end this quickly.
The sound of her comms turning on to her left makes her look over in surprise. Miorine’s face blinks onto the interface. She looks angry.
No, she looks downright furious.
“Mi-Miorine-san?”
She had hoped that Miorine wouldn’t find out about this duel until it was over.
“You’re dying?” is the first thing that comes flying out of Miorine’s mouth.
“No?” It’s a pathetic lie that sounds more like a question and Suletta knows it. Even speaking is too much exertion for her and she gives another gut-wrenching cough, enough to bring tears to her eyes.
“You idiot!” Miorine spits. “Why didn’t you tell me that you were ill?”
“I didn’t… want to burden you…” Suletta replies quietly.
Aerial’s cockpit has always been one of her favourite places to be, one of the safest places to be. But right now, it feels too big, too empty.
“Burden me? You’re my groom! You’re supposed to come to me with these things?” Suletta can see Miorine pulling on a pilot suit of her own.
“I won’t be the Holder for long,” Suletta rasps.
“You should’ve told me!” Miorine insists.
“I’m going to fix-” She doesn’t get a chance to finish her sentence, as she erupts into a vicious fit of coughing.
She can feel something wet splatter against her chin as petals fall from her lips. Still coughing, she tears the visor of her helmet open, letting blood and petals spill across the front of her suit artlessly.
“Suletta!”
Suletta hangs up.
She can’t let Miorine distract her from winning this. She has to win this. She has to win this for Miorine.
Move forward, win two.
She’s been running, she knows. That’s all she’s done. All that she can do.
But this is what she needs to do.
Pharact comes flying over the top of the rocky outcropping and Suletta immediately throws Aerial into a backwards hop, leaping away another blast from Pharact’s beam cannon. It narrowly misses Aerial — Suletta’s reflexes are definitely slower.
Noticeably slower.
She can’t drag this out any longer, but perhaps she can use some of the terrain to her advantage.
With a few inputs, she activates her GUND-Bits, sending them soaring behind her and out of Elan’s sight. She just has to trust Aerial.
Even if she can’t trust herself, she can trust Aerial.
The particular bit of the terrain that she had been hiding behind is large enough and angled enough that Elan couldn’t see her behind it even when he was high in the air. She keeps her distance, pulling away, so that Elan has no choice but to follow her or risk losing sight of her again.
Fortunately, he plays right into her hands, even as his own GUND-Bits zip around, trying to set up a web of electromagnetic beams, but she doesn’t let them, keeping her distance as she curves around the rocks and firing at any bits that do dare to stray to close.
Aerial puts on a burst of speed, dipping behind a particularly large rock, and continuing back around it. Pharact is very maneuverable — it comes speeding around the rock right into Aerial’s hidden GUND-Bits, lying in wait.
The other Gundam changes directions abruptly, sending its own GUND-Bits after hers and- there!
In trying to outmaneuver Aerial’s GUND-Bits, Elan had piloted the Pharact directly into Aerial’s path.
Suletta presses forward with all the speed that Aerial can muster, all the speed that she can muster. She worries that she doesn’t have the strength left in her arms to push the throttles all the way forward but the Aerial moves, in complete sync with what Suletta wants. Still, her arms tremble with exertion.
Move forwards, gain two.
Even with the Pharact’s blast boosters working at maximum thrust, it’s a net that’s pressing in around the other Gundam. The GUND-Bits drive Pharact back towards Aerial, expertly dodging around Elan’s feeble control over Pharact’s GUND-Bits, and taking chunks out of it with precisely aimed blasts of energy. Suletta wastes no time drawing the beam saber and charging forward.
There’s no time for Elan to properly react as Suletta slashes downwards, cleaving Pharact’s arm away and clipping the antenna, her true goal.
It’s completely silent in the cockpit as Pharact falls away from Aerial. The only sound that could be heard is the rapid thudding of Suletta’s heart, trying desperately to keep her alive but each beat is painful.
Her heart fights against the thorns that wrap around it, her lungs struggle against the chains of vines that restrict their movement.
Suletta looks down at her hands, dazed.
Perhaps she’s lightheaded from the oxygen that’s never quite been able to get over the last few months.
Perhaps it's the blood loss making her head spin.
Perhaps it's the adrenaline of this duel finally fading.
Perhaps it’s the pain in her chest making her delirious.
Suletta’s hands are red, covered in blood and yellow six pointed flowers with a pointed yellow bulb in the center.
The tomatoes.
Miorine’s tomatoes.
She’s gotten blood on them.
That thought is white hot, burning her with a pain far harsher than the beats of her heart.
There’s a sudden flash of light. Bright white light.
She has died, she thinks, because she messed up Miorine’s tomatoes. But the cockpit of Aerial opens with a faint whirring noise and there’s Miorine, staring down at Suletta, completely out of breath and hair completely tousled. Her pilot suit isn’t even zipped up all the way, and the helmet is missing.
“Suletta!”
Miorine sounds distant, muted.
“Suletta, talk to me!” Miorine’s pulling her out of the cockpit, yanking her helmet off of her head.
Suletta’s only dimly aware of the coughs that wrack her body, more blood and more tomato flowers tumbling from her lips.
Miorine’s not here.
There’s no way that she’s here.
“Suletta!”
Warm hands cup her cheeks, drawing her unfocused eyes forward to look at the girl standing in front of her.
She’s not real.
“I love yo-”
Tomato.
I love you.
Miorine sets a pot of white lilies down next to the small memorial plaque.
It’s a traditional funeral flower, she had been told. She’s not sure why flowers have specific occasions, like funerals, but she couldn’t bring herself to cut these lilies, keeping them in a pot instead.
Quietly, she bows before the plaque. She had it made a while ago, but never got around to hanging it up, perhaps it's because she couldn’t bear to see that face again, smiling gently at her from the plaque as if nothing was ever wrong.
So many things are wrong.
How could things have gone so wrong?
Miorine stares quietly at the face in the picture, so serene, so carefree. She remembers how tired she looked in her last few days of life. She remembers how much was sacrificed on her behalf, to try to keep her happy, to keep her well.
Perhaps in death, she finally finds peace.
Miorine hopes so.
“Miorine!”
It’s not the voice that Miorine desperately wants to hear calling her name.
Give me strength, mother.
Lily.
There’s a weight on her chest, pressing her down into the deep.
She’s tired.
So, so tired.
Every part of her aches, and she wishes that it would all fade, even just for a moment. She had done her part, hadn’t she? She had done her best.
Miorine would be upset with her.
But she would understand.
She would move on.
Some part of her does have regrets — regrets that she wasn’t able to move forward, like she always wanted to, regrets that she ran.
Regrets that she never got to voice.
I love you.
Petals tumble from her lips instead of words, a deluge of unspoken words that were never heard pouring forth.
I love you.
A waterfall of petals, red with blood, but the colour slowly fades, until just the bottom edge is awash in a light pink like they’re being washed away by the rivers of time.
I love you.
She plucks one of the petals out of the air, turning it over in wonder. It crumbles to ashes before her eyes, not meant for her.
I love you.
She claps a hand over her mouth and coughs, a single yellow flower falling from her lips.
A tomato flower.
I love you.
She looks up. There’s a pinprick of light that grows rapidly, like the sun finally rising over the horizon after a long and lonely night.
A figure steps through the light, dazzling and radiant, as always.
Miorine.
She looks around at the rapidly crumbling flowers around her wordlessly and then kneels down to pick one up. It stays whole in her hand as she straightens up, taking a few steps closer.
She shouldn’t be here.
Miorine shouldn’t be here.
She had done her best to keep Miorine happy, to stay out of her way, to keep her safe.
Miorine shouldn’t be here.
But she closes the distance between them, the white petal still intact in her hand. Carefully, Miorine plucks the yellow bloom out of her palm, holding it out between them.
She wants to apologize. For everything. For the tomatoes which have seemingly taken root in her heart, if she could tear them out and return them to the home in which they grew in, she would.
I love you.
Miorine smiles, a soft and gentle thing that warms Suletta’s soul.
“Why don’t you come tell me that yourself?”
Periwinkle.
I love you.
When Suletta wakes up, it’s white.
White like the petals that she’s been giving voice to all this time.
White like Miorine’s hair.
She groans, shifting in place as she slowly realizes that she’s in a bed. A comfortable bed. With comfortable sheets. And a weighted blanket. Something is wrapped tightly around her arm.
Suletta blinks, clearing the last of the hazy white petals from her vision.
A gentle rhythmic beeping noise pulls her further into reality. She’s in the school medical bay, she realizes. Tipping her head down ever so slightly, she realizes that there isn’t a weighted blanket at all, but rather, it’s Miorine, asleep in the chair next to her bed, head pillowed on Suletta’s chest.
One of her hands grips Suletta’s tightly, fingers intertwined.
The sight of the sleeping girl brings a small smile to Suletta’s face. Miorine looks so peaceful at this moment.
That’s all Suletta has ever wanted for her.
Oh.
She’s caused her trouble, hasn’t she?
As if sensing Suletta’s inner turmoil, Miorine slowly stirs.
No, no, no, Suletta panics. She lets her head fall to the bed with a thunk, pretending to be asleep.
“I know you’re awake, you idiot.” Miorine’s voice isn’t angry per se , but it’s not not angry either.
Suletta cracks open one eye hesitantly.
Oh, she’s a little angry.
Suletta closes her eye.
“Hey!”
A fist hits her in the chest, and both of Suletta’s eyes fly open in shock.
“You idiot!” Miorine is standing next to the bed now, both hands on her hips. “What were you thinking, dueling Elan like that when you were clearly in no state to pilot?”
“I-” Her voice is hoarse from disuse, how long had she been out? “I wanted to help you.”
“By almost giving me a stroke?” Miorine smacks Suletta in the arm this time.
It’s not hard enough to hurt, but it’s certainly a bit of a surprise.
“I didn’t want you to be stuck… with a Holder… who wouldn’t let you go…” Suletta looks away to the side. “It was the only thing I could do.”
“And you thought that dueling Elan to change the rules would be the right idea?” Miorine hisses.
“Yes?”
It was probably her best idea that she’s ever had.
“You idiot!”
“I’m sorry-”
“You almost died!”
Miorine collapses to her knees, like a puppet whose strings had been cut, she buries her face against Suletta’s side.
Suletta’s full apology dies in her throat.
Miorine is crying.
She’s hiding it against Suletta’s medical gown, but she’s definitely crying. Her shoulders shudder with the force of her sobs.
“I’m sorry.” Suletta tries again, feeling extremely awkward.
Gently, she reaches out, grabbing Miorine’s hand and pulling her closer so that she was partially on the bed. The exertion definitely sends a sharp twinge of pain through her body but she ignores it, insistently pulling Miorine along until she was no longer on her knees, even if it meant putting her weight on Suletta’s battered body.
She runs a hand through Miorine’s hair, scratching gentle circles against her scalp.
Her mom had done this when she was upset. Perhaps this would help.
“You should be sorry!” Miorine doesn’t look up, rubbing her face against the fabric of Suletta’s gown. “You should’ve said something to me.”
“I couldn’t burden you with that,” Suletta says pathetically. “You were already so busy.”
“And you didn’t think I could make time for you?”
Suletta flinches. There’s offense in Miorine’s voice, that much Suletta knows, but it’s so hard to get a read on her without being able to see her face.
“What happened to move forward, gain two?”
“I... couldn’t,” admits Suletta. “I kept telling myself to move forward… but it terrifies me. I couldn’t… not when it came to you… I couldn’t move forward and be selfish. You’re already doing so much. I know you had other plans before I came along….”
“So? Don’t pretend you know what I was like, what I want. I’m happy now.”
“You’re happy now?” Suletta asks in disbelief.
“Is that so hard to believe?” Miorine’s fist comes up and smacks Suletta lightly in the side.
“... You just seemed so tired.”
“I am tired! Tired of people thinking that they know what’s best for me. I have to run a company and bow my head when my father criticizes me, I can’t just run off like I used to. I can’t just hide in my greenhouse without any thought as to what’s happening around me, all because of you and your ‘move forward, gain two’, all because I’m your bride!”
Suletta winces when Miorine’s fist comes into contact with a particularly tender spot along her side. She coughs, a familiar and vicious feeling. It doesn’t stop after one, something is caught in her throat, and Miorine immediately sits up, concern written all over her face.
It’s too late, Suletta remembers, all the flowers that she had expelled before.
Miorine rubs a hand along her back, trying to soothe her as best she can, until finally with one gasping breath, Suletta spits a crushed yellow flower into her hands speckled with blood.
Just one.
At least it was just one.
All she can do is smile weakly at Miorine with the flower in her hands.
She knows now.
Perhaps Suletta can finally move forward then.
“Suletta?” Miorine asks.
There are tear tracks running down her face, Suletta realizes, and even with the bags under her eyes, hair slightly unkempt and red-rimmed eyes, she’s still beautiful.
Miorine’s beautiful.
Suletta holds out the single flower to Miorine, an apology on her lips.
Miorine takes the flower, bringing it up to her own lips.
“I love you,” Suletta says instead.
Her voice is hardly more than a whisper. She knows not why those are the words that finally escape her. Miorine’s eyes widen just a fraction.
“I love you too.”
The flower between them crumbles, drifting away, and suddenly Suletta can breathe again. Her whole body feels warm, and light. The aches in her bones and chest fade into nothing. She gasps, choking on the freeness of the action, but that’s not what surprises her most.
“You love me?” She echoes dumbly.
“Yes, you idiot!” Miorine sniffles, wiping at her eyes with the back of her hand.
“You keep calling me an idiot.” Suletta finds herself saying, brain screeching to a halt.
Miorine loves her?
“You’re the one who thought that you could change the rules about being a Holder with a duel. My father would probably just overrule them whenever he wants.”
There’s a smile on Miorine’s face and she winds her arms around Suletta’s midsection, all the tension draining out of her body as she leans against Suletta again.
“Oh, I didn’t even think about that,” Suletta mumbles, embarrassed.
“If you’re going to run next time, you run to me.” Miorine’s words come out muffled against Suletta’s chest. “You’re my groom. We’re going to move forward, together.”
“Gain two,” Suletta says quietly.
“Gain two.” Miorine affirms.
“I love you.”