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There were times when Anisphia Wynn Palettia felt so utterly suffocated by the world she lived in. From the stuffy nobles to the duties she had as a royal princess. From the way others looked down on her magicology even when it was her driving force. All she wanted was the one thing she didn't have. Magic.
Was that so hard to understand for some people?
Anis didn't think so. But evidently others felt different. Her technology was branded heretical. She was called a troublemaker, a problem child, and a peculiar princess. Individually that didn't bother her much. She knew firsthand how much of a headache she was to her father but he still graciously allowed her to do her own things.
The suffocation was just when the weight of everything became too much to bear. The combination of it all felt crushing, as if there was a heavy burden placed atop of her head. Waiting for it's time to slowly shackle her to her duties.
She hated thinking about such things. So she escaped to her private garden before the nausea overtook her. Before her throat closed up and her eyes would threaten to spill tears.
To call it a 'garden' would be incorrect. But it was what Anis categorized it as. It was much more akin to a tiny field of flowers hidden away in a corner at the detached palace. No one went here, not even Ilia. Anis herself rarely visited besides the occasional check in to make sure everything was fine and the rare moments when the world was too much for her to withstand.
There were flowers brightly blooming in nearly every spot of the garden. There was a small patch in the direct center of the area where there was only grass. Anis stepped carefully to reach it, taking care not to mindlessly tread on any of the colourful hues that decorated the area.
She sat down, smoothing out her skirt first before resting onto the slightly damp grass. The sprinkler had just gone off, it seemed. It was a nice invention that she made using a water spirit stone. She hadn't initially intended to make it, but the creation was an accident that had some use. She was glad that she did, especially if it was able to maintain the beauty of a garden like her own.
She plucked a singular flower from the ground and brought it up to her nose. The sweet fragrance filled her and melted away her worries. It was a daffodil, the bright yellow petals matched her golden locks. She slowly applied pressure to the stem, twisting it slightly up and down to make it more pliable.
"I'm sorry." She murmured to the flower. She didn't feel guilty for severing it from the ground, but she felt the need to say something nonetheless.
She plucked two more, another daffodil and a daisy. She repeated her earlier process with the daffodil, bending it until it could safely curve without risk of tearing the stem. She brought the two together, one end of the daffodil to the other. The two stems curved in tandem and Anis used the more flexible daisy to wrap them together.
Her fingers were steady, years of swordplay and tinkering with technology coming into action. She hadn't made one of these in a long, long time, but the sudden urge had overtaken her.
She plucked a few more flowers from her garden, some of them the same type, some of them different. She repeated her actions of adding onto the growing curve of flowers until it nearly came onto a full circle. She weaved the two ends together, using another daisy to secure it and placed the finished product gently in her lap.
The crown of flowers held, it shifted slightly without her hands upon it, but it settled nicely into a neat oval. It wasn't perfect, but it was her creation. She was proud of it.
"Anis?"
Anis twitched at the sudden calling of her name. She looked up to see silver hair and magenta eyes staring at her. There was an obvious shade of worry expressed on her face.
"Oh. Euphie. You scared me." Anis said, relaxing as she recognized the girl.
Euphyllia frowned at her response. The girl stepped forward, treading a path forward through the field similar to Anis before her. She was fast, but not a single flower was crushed underneath her. The silver haired girl stepped into the small circle of grass that Anis was in and crouched down.
"Euphie you'll get your dress dirty!" Anis protested.
The girl in question fixed the princess with a flat look and a raised eyebrow. Like you? Was the unspoken remark.
“W-Well it’s a bit different for me…” Anis replied sheepishly. She was going to play it off as it being nothing more than usual since she was just ‘the peculiar princess’. But the deepening frown on her friend's face stopped her.
“What’s this?” Euphie said, bringing her hands onto Anis’ lap and gently lifting the crown of flowers.
There was a foreign sense of embarrassment that welled up in Anis. It was odd, as she hadn’t done anything embarrassing or wrong, but she felt strangely vulnerable at the fact that someone had walked into her little slice of paradise. The one place in the world where she felt she could truly let everything else fade away until it was just her.
Anis opened her mouth to respond, but the words refused to come out. They were lodged in her throat. She recognized the emotion that prevented her from speaking. She was scared. Scared of being judged, even if she knew the girl in front of her would never do anything to intentionally hurt her.
“Anis?” Those pure, curious, magenta eyes prodded her again.
“It’s uhm- A flower crown. I guess.” Anis couldn’t help but break her gaze.
There was a soft smile, one that seemed to pierce through any defenses Anis had set up. Euphyllia lifted the crown of flowers up into the air and slowly turned it. Observing each small little detail in a way that left Anis feeling naked.
It wasn't something like her magical tools, where she had spent hours upon hours detailing each and every thing. Doing back and forths with a blacksmith to make sure everything had come out perfectly. It was unrefined, a simple thing made to keep her mind off the suffocating reality.
A shift in Euphyllia's stance brought Anis' gaze back to her. The slightly younger girl was staring at her intensely.
"Beautiful." Euphie murmured.
Anis could feel her entire face bloom into a blush. A part of her inferred that she was simply talking about the flower crown. But the intense stare as she said that singular word was enough to absolutely captivate the princess. Enough to give her hope that she wasn't talking about flowers, but instead about her.
It brought up complicated feelings, ones that she had previously shackled down in favor of making the younger girl more comfortable with everything.
There was a sliver of movement as Euphyllia moved her hands upwards, the crown still held gently within her grasp. Her fingers angled closer to Anis, as if to set the crown upon the princess' head.
Anis stopped it by grabbing hold of Euphyllia's wrist. It had been an almost unconscious movement by the princess, but she knew why she did it.
She didn't create such a delicate crown to wear it herself, and as such, she didn't want to wear it. It felt as if it belonged on top of someone else instead.
Anis took hold of both of Euphyllia's hands. She couldn't help the slight shiver at how delicate, yet strong, they felt. She softly pried open her grip, taking the crown into her own hands, and instead reached up to put it atop of Euphyllia's head.
"Oh." Euphyllia exhaled. "Did you make this for me?"
There was something so utterly ethereal about the way the silver haired maiden looked in front of her. The only backdrop being the flowers surrounding them, and the only lighting being the full moon above. It framed her perfectly, as if she were a delicate painting, captured in a moment of ephemerality.
Then she blinked, and Anis knew she was no mere painting, but someone very real and human.
She didn't answer, she wasn't sure if she had made it for her or had not. Perhaps somewhere in the back of her mind she did make it for Euphie. Some sort of previously unfulfilled dream to just pass the time with just the two of them, driving her hands to create it.
Euphyllia must have seen something in her expression, because she smiled brightly. "Thank you." She whispered.
Her smile was blinding, enchanting, captivating. She could think of a million different synonyms to describe it yet none of them would fit correctly at how right it was to see such a bright smile.
Anis nodded shyly. Nodding to what exactly, she wasn't sure.
Euphyllia's smile turned softer, less blinding but more warm. The magenta-eyed girl plucked two daisies from beside them and carefully, slowly, twined their stems together into a small loop.
A hand touched her own, and Anis couldn't help the twitch of her fingers at the feeling. She let her right hand be dragged outwards, fingers splaying out softly as Euphyllia slowly slid the loop of intertwined daisies onto Anis' ring finger.
The action caused the golden haired princess to gasp lightly. Her cheeks bloomed into a blush once more and she could feel the strength of her pounding heart. Feelings welled up and fluttered inside of her at the gesture.
"If you're going to give me a crown, and make me queen." Euphyllia Magenta said to her in a whisper. "Then there's only one person that I want by my side."
Anis wondered if Euphie knew exactly what she was doing to her. If she knew just what kind of complicated feelings were rising up like hot air, threatening to break free into the world.
There was a sudden movement and something soft and warm pecked her, right at the corner of her lips. Too close to be anything but deeply intimate, yet too far to be considered a kiss.
"Don't stay up too late, Anis." Euphyllia said to her as she got up.
She disappeared quickly, her feet stepping over the same path it had taken to enter, and then Anis was left alone once more.
Anis stared at the place Euphyllia had exited. She was like a fairy of some sort. Appearing out of nowhere and completely captivating her entire being, before disappearing as quickly as she came. Her gaze fell downwards, onto the hand that was now adorned with a small ring made out of daisies.
Ah.
Perhaps her feelings weren't so complicated after all.
She was just so utterly and completely in love with Euphyllia Magenta that she wasn't even able to truly understand it.
The feeling of suffocation, the original reason Anis had come to the garden, seemingly evaporated into the air. She was able to breathe easy again.
All because of Euphie.