[OPEN] Flower gleam and glow

[windeity]

WHO: Everyone in the Town
WHERE: The community garden(s)
WHEN: Anytime in August
WHAT: Flower crowns! Teach each other to make flower crowns, exchange them with each other, succeed in questing
WARNINGS: No



[At any point during the month you may come across the community gardens in the Town and see a couple of different set-ups.

For one thing, someone created a sign painted with purple paint that reads "FLOWER CROWNS HERE."

For another thing, there are bushels and bouquets of different kinds of plants and flowers that have their color restored that have been gathered.

And finally, there are smaller slips of paper that read "RED", "YELLOW", and "BLUE."

At least once a day people passing by the garden will find John sitting there and monitoring the situation. Anyone who approaches will be greeted with a large grin and a wave.]

You saw the forum, right? I thought we could all make this a little easier on each other.

[Grab some flowers and some friends! Questing has never been so easy.]

[ooc: Hello! For ease of use to complete quest 23, this is an open log that people can consolidate and thread with each other! Please feel free to label in the subject what color your character is, thread out making and gifting crowns to each other, and have fun!]

Comments

[whichcraft]

You're doing the irises, too, huh?

[Guess who's coming wandering over with an ivy wreath already in her hands, this one bedecked with irises and blue tulips that quickly ends up dropped unceremoniously onto Prompto's head.]

There you go. Consider yourself crowned.

[photoshooter]

[He laughs and pushes the wreath up a bit in the front and down a bit in the back so he can smile up at her.]

Oh, yeah? Guess I better tell Noct he's not the only royal in the house anymore. I mean, getting crowned by the Prince of Flowers herself? That's legit.

[There's a stack of blue crowns next to him by now, but one of them's already been set aside. He pats the ground next to him before he makes any move towards it, though.]

How's it look? Super dashing?

[whichcraft]

Pretty great. Very "Midsummer Night's Dream" — uh, assuming you...have that.

[Pop culture references are so hard when the person you're pop culturing at is from a completely different world as you. But at least where he's from, they have Jersey Shore or its equivalent? Maybe they've got Shakespeare, too.

She plunks down, pulling her cloak underneath her so she's sitting on the fabric instead of on the grass, and crosses her legs powwow-style.]

Brings out your eyes.

[photoshooter]

Yeah? Well, I guess they are blue.

[He's never really thought about his own eye color. Prompto adjusts the crown again, fiddling with his hair to make sure the ivy isn't literally cramping his style, then casually leans back, one hand oh-so-subtly edging towards his own masterpieces. But he slows.]

...Did you pick those colors on purpose? For me?

[whichcraft]

...Not the colors. That was just a neat coincidence. The flowers, though...

[She shrugs a little.]

Where I'm from, they mean things. Knowing what some of them mean is one of those stupid trivia tricks I can do.

[photoshooter]

Really?

[Curiosity stops that hand in its tracks. Prompto blinks, then reaches up to touch the leaves and petals instead, grazing the edges with a fingertip.]

So what do these mean?

[whichcraft]

The bigger ones, those are irises. They mean "I have a message". So, like...you put them with another flower, and it's like a "hey, pay attention to what this other one means" kind of thing.

[She hesitates, though, on the second one, and ends up plucking at the hem of her cloak, looking for something to do with her hands.]

Blue tulips mean, um. ...Trust.

[photoshooter]

[A flower can say something like that? That important, so important it makes his heart quiver?]

So... it says you trust me. ...That you want to tell me you trust me.

[The difference between the two isn't lost on him. He looks at her, wreathed in her trust, and then picks up the crown he'd set aside, the one a little different from all the purple-blue.]

What do these mean? I just picked them for colors.

[There are a couple of his irises, unwitting messengers, but instead of blue throughout, they shade into violet and white and then lighten into one pink, bursting peony, and then, tucked alongside it, just to one side and beneath, a single red rosebud, just beginning to open to fullness.]

[whichcraft]

...If I tell you and you don't like what it says, are you going to take it apart?

[Because the implication is that it's for her, but she realizes after a second that he hasn't actually said that it is. It...probably is, but nothing says it has to be. Better not to leap to that assumption right off. Better to just...assume it's a crown, just an average one, and see what happens.]

Lemme think, um. That's a peony, I think, and obviously that's a rosebud, and it's red, so.

[Peonies are hard, though, so it takes her a minute of trying to remember, and even when she does she's not entirely sure, but —

She coughs a little, uselessly.]

It. It'd be a good one for, uh. ...Ignis? Um.

[Too late, even looking away can't save her from the way her face is heating up.]

[photoshooter]

[??????????

He looks down at it, then back up at her.]

What? Does it mean he's a good cook? ...Is it a mom flower?

[whichcraft]

It means "you're the most beautiful."

[She...sort of blurts out, before she can think better of it or regret it. She's probably still going to regret it anyway, but here we go.]

When you put the two of them together, it — you know, it kind of suggests that if there's overlap in the meanings, that that's the meaning you're trying to draw attention to. Red rosebuds and peonies both mean "beautiful". And then with the irises...

[She coughs again.]

It means "I think you're the most beautiful."

[photoshooter]

[Oh. It takes a moment, but then color suffuses Prompto's whole face, deeper than the pink of the peony, and he freezes in place like someone called time.

If he gives this to her now, then it means he's giving it to her knowing what it means, and thus, meaning it. When he put it together, it meant one thing--the rosebud hiding but beginning to bloom, the way she hides but is so full of life and depth and color. Blues for Jericho, the pink peony because it seemed friendlier than a red rose, which Prompto knows is romantic. A crown woven to offset her hair, set that hidden rosebud above her ear where it could continue to be a surprise.

But now it's not just a crown he made for her. It's a letter that says, I think you're the most beautiful.

He murmurs,] I wouldn't give this to Ignis.

[Even that tips his hand too much. He winces and puts the wreath down, not in her hand, not back in his pile, but between them as he hurries clumsily to his feet.]

I'm--going to go get a drink, d-do you want anything.

[As if forgetting that, as a member of Noct's Crownsguard, he can have his favorite drink on hand any time he hecking wants.]

[whichcraft]

...N-No. No, nah, that's okay, I'm good. I'm good, go ahead, I'm all good.

[She wants the earth to open up and swallow her whole. Stupid. What a stupid thing to do, opening her mouth and telling the truth. Stupid. She should've just kept her mouth shut, shouldn't have stuck her hand in the bear trap. Stupid.

Leave, everything in her says. Leave, just leave, just run. Run every time something is uncertain or nervewracking or exposes too much, leaves her too vulnerable. Run and kill it and leave it dead in your wake. Run and leave it behind because feeling like this is awful, she hates it, it's so much easier to just not feel anything except she's always feeling something when she's around Prompto Argentum.]

...All good.

[Stupid. Stupid. Just leave, Summer, run, just run, just go and run and never come back.]

[photoshooter]

[Still, he's still stuck there, hand pressed over his burning face, standing over her where she sat down to hang out with him, and his head is full of noise too loud to chunk into syllables, into meaning. Prompto's crowned in irises and never learned how to speak.

His eyes fall over his depleted piles of flowers and rest on a little yellow sun.

Prompto crouches once more, picks up the single cheery dandelion left, and pushes it into Summer's hands. For the second his face is unshielded, his eyes meet hers once more, their blue almost violet, brought out by the tulips and irises in his hair, close.

And then he leaps up and bolts with a noise that could be "bye!", maybe, in translation.

She's not the only one who can run.]

[whichcraft]

[It will occur to her, later, to consider the possibility that maybe Prompto isn't running because he objects to what she'd told him. Maybe he isn't running to escape having to tell her that the flowers in the circlet he'd made were never supposed to mean anything she'd attributed to them. It'll occur to her that maybe they're more alike than she thinks they are, in that moment, and maybe he's running from the same impulse that has her wanting to run, too.

Right now, she's not thinking of any of that. Right now she's thinking of his hasty escape, and the dandelion he'd shoved into her hands, and how she still wishes that the earth would open up and swallow her except that she should be careful about wishing for that, because that's apparently how some people have been ending up in Fight Club lately.

Right now, she's thinking about how the inclusion of one thing sometimes suggests the exclusion of another, and he'd had his chance to put the wreath in her hands but he didn't. He didn't do anything with it. It's just...abandoned.

That's the word that breaks her, ultimately, just from letting it into her conscious thoughts. Abandoned. Emotion starts to buzz along her nerve endings like an itch beneath her skin, and all of a sudden she doesn't want to be here anymore.

She reaches up, hastily scrubbing at her eyes as she gets to her feet, and before she can think better of it she darts to where they've got the available flowers stacked and snatches a handful before hurrying back and throwing them to the ground near the crown and the stacks he'd been using.

(She wants to take the crown, but she can't. She can't make herself, because it wasn't given — just abandoned.)

She sweeps her hand through the air in an arc over the scattered blooms, whispering magic as she makes the pass, and then bites down on her lip as she takes the dandelion and leaves.

Maybe Prompto won't come back. He'd said "bye" instead of "be right back", after all.

But if he does, he'll find that his depleted stacks of flowers have been joined by a handful of scattered roses, all of which have been enchanted with a perhaps-familiar illusion, rendering the blossoms yellow and red.]