As the memory begins, you find yourself walking through a long, quiet room with bare wooden floors. Small, plain beds line the walls on either side, a trunk laid at the foot of each one. The gold-orange light of a summer's evening beams lazily through the windows, illuminating the drifting dance of dust motes that normally float about the room unknown. Outside you can hear the muted sound of playing children and the lilting chorus of cicadas. Your young, eager feet carry you to the bunk you know to be yours, perhaps the only place in the 'verse you could call your very own. Yet, this austere bed is a sacred place to you not because of the respite that it offers at the end of each day, but because of the most cherished artifact that it harbors.
As you come to the bedside, however, a slight weight of concern settles on your brow. Something seems amiss. It should be here! Where is it?! Your concern blooms fast and frantic into worry, as your small hands clutch at the coarse blanket and cast it aside. "Rose?" you mutter quietly. Nothing! Dropping prone, your vision carefully searches the shadows under the cot, only to be met with the flat, barren planks of the floor. Where could it be?! Pushing yourself up onto your knees you straighten your spine, head poking up like a periscope that slowly pans the room as you deny the smirking shadow of panic that looms over your shoulder.
The room seems deathly quiet as your sight purchases for the precious thing you seek, but all you see in the familiar room are the two uniform rows of made beds like your own. Perhaps you missed it. Check again! But before you can dip below the mattress again, a sound from outside cuts through the wall, a hollow knock and clatter chased by a yawning, raucous ring of strings. That brooding specter of fret taps a cold, bony finger to your shoulder, and before you can decide otherwise, your legs scramble to whisk you from the room, down the hall, and out into the yard like a swift, sudden wind, doors carelessly left ajar in your wake.
Your sprinting halts with a bounding step, your feet stayed on the balding lawn as you freeze at the sight before you. Three human boys, perhaps ten summers old, who look to be playing keep away with a ball made of bound up rags. The child in the middle however, sets a swell of bile boiling in your gut. There it is! In his malevolent clutches is the treasured thing you sought, a simple, shabby looking six-string lute. Gripped by it's neck, he swings the instrument wildly at the arcing path of the projectile, laughing as he swats it from the air.
"Hey! Stop it! Leave Rose alone!" Your voice cracks with dismay as you protest. Your panicked plea wrenching the boys' attention from their game, their contemptuous gazes turned on you all at once.
"Ohh, Leave Rose alooone~!" the boy repeats in a mocking tone, wagging the lute about haphazardly. Snickering laughs hiss from his compatriots at his antics "She's es havin' plenny a' fun with us. Aren' ya Rosie~?" he taunts as he nods to his friends and they go back to their play. Flagrantly disregarded by them, your teeth and fists alike clinch tight as you look on.
"Give her back! Now!" You bark
The boys halt their game once more and slowly turn to regard you "You wan' her back?" The lute wielding lad queries, a sneering smile crooking his lip. In his expression you sense the pure venom that only a child can muster, cruel, sour, and senseless, not yet bitter with experience. In the moment your stomach crudely pirouettes and your mind goes blank. A speechless numb falls over you as all you can do is hope that the worst you can imagine doesn't manifest in reality.
Your tormentor lofts the lute high above his head, feigning a swing towards the ground. You flinch and cry out, and it elicits a cackling chorus of amusement from the trio. Just as acrid anger begins to bubble and churn at your core, the antagonistic child recognizes it and his smug sneer dares you to act on it. You seethe in the silent challenge, but before you can answer it he brings the prized lute down hard with a chopping swing. The instrument's impact sounds with a crack and abrupt, discordant ring like a pet's crippled cry, thorny despair gripping your heart as you see the impossible angle where the neck juts from Rose's rounded face.
With a cry of fury and grief you you charge the boy head first and tackle him to the ground, the splintered lute flung from his grasp. Your tiny balled fists rain down on him, vicious and graceless through your tear blurred vision, but before you can dole out your anguished retribution, his companions wrangle and wrestle you off of him. You struggle and thrash, and In the chaos of the scrap one of them buries a fist in to your gut, the air forced from your lungs with a hollow, barking yelp. With a ragged, shallow gasp you fall to your side, the boys scurrying off to leave you to sputter and wheeze.
The breathless paralysis only lasts a short while, but with each effort of your seizing solar plexus the agony seems to linger on so much longer. As your lungs start to drink in air again, you sit up, your rueful gaze falling on Rose's ravaged form, broken and still in the dirt. The sight grows fuzzy through the tears flooding your eyes, and slowly, you reach to touch the ruined lute, perhaps in the hope that it was some horrible illusion. A few sobbing breaths pounce forth from you, thistly hurt constricting in your chest. It's then that you hear a matronly voice call from the front door. She says something about all the noise and the doors being left open, but her words are distant and hard to make out over the whelming wave of grief that crests over you. Unable to fathom the feeling, you scramble to your feet and bolt for the front gate, unlatching it and bursting onto the dusty, cobbled street as the motherly voice calls after you. You push your legs as hard as you can, as though you might just outrun that brooding wave of heartbreak before it came crashing down, but before long you find it hard to carry on through your short, sobbing breaths.
Unable to run any further, you resolve to hide. Your fleeing strides bring you to a familiar inn, a surreptitious spot between two decorative shrubs just outside it's walls. The shady canopy is an oft visited sanctuary, a tiny pocket of the city that seems shrouded from the world of the grown-ups. From within the tavern, you hear the evening performance of the booked musicians murmuring through the masonry and as the orange sun hangs low over the skyline, you quietly weep.
Long minutes creep by as you purge your misery, until a rustling and a close, quiet voice seize your attention. "I knew I wud find you here." The mousy voice says. With a start, you paw at your tear-streaked cheeks and reddened eyes, and as you lift your gaze you're met by the large, canary crown of a sunflower. The carnation's brilliant bloom is flanked by the friendly, freckled face of a half elf girl with short, sienna hair. Her pointy-eared head cants with a sympathetic frown as she thrusts the flower towards you in offering. "I couldn' git you another Rose, so... how 'bout a sunflower instead?"
You accept the bowing flower, wrapping both hands around the long stem. With a sniffle, you partake a slow lungful of it's earthy, honey-sweet scent, and in the moments after, the meager, tepid tears that roll down your face are forced to snake around the high curve of your smiling cheeks. The plucky little girl crawls to your side beneath the canopy, and in a clumsy, but sincere embrace, she wraps her arms around you with a tight, consoling squeeze. "I'm sorry 'bout Rose." She offers softly, canting her head to catch your gaze with her big, kelly green eyes "Thom es a dumb jerk... and we're gonna get 'im back, okay?" She offers with a mischievous little simper.
A sobbed laugh leaps from your shaky breath and you give a nod, gaze turned to the yellow petals of the flower as twilight slowly blankets the dirty stone streets. "Okay..." You agree.
With the muffled, mollifying music from the inn, the warmth and care of a friend's embrace, and the subtly sweet scent of sunflower, your eye drifts wearily shut. With a deep, peaceful breath, you exhale a simple gratitude. "Thanks Moira..." and as her teeny arms tighten around you in response, the memory fades.
Sunflower
