"Here," Rukelion said as he approached Veronica carrying water buckets to the yard, holding them out in his closed fist.
Surprise lit her eyes first. Apparently, she hadn't expected him to do something like this. Then he was the one who was surprised because they filled with tears shortly thereafter even though she was smiling.
"They're beautiful! Thank you," Veronica replied thickly as she took them from him and held them up to her nose to sniff.
The water buckets had been completely forgotten by this point. She smelled the flowers once more before doing something unexpected. She began weaving the stems together until a crown of sorts took shape and she placed it on her head with a giggle.
Rukelion's heart stuttered. The morning light made a halo behind her head, emphasized by the flower crown she wore. She looked absolutely beautiful and he had the strange thought that she would look even better with a real crown.
"What do you think?" she asked. "Not bad for a first try, eh?"
He recovered quickly. "You've never made a flower crown before then?"
"Not with these. I used to make them out of dandelions but the stems are a bit different so I wasn't sure if it would work the same. Everyone always said they were weeds but I thought there was something special about them."
Rukelion was fairly certain she could find something special about nearly anything at this point but for some reason he didn't mind. Finding joy in common things seemed to be something she excelled at. It didn't annoy him the way it would with anyone else.
This girl was far too pure and good to be spending time with someone as dark-hearted as him. He suddenly felt ashamed of himself for so much as daring to be near her for fear of contaminating her with his thoughts of revenge.
"What do dandelions look like?" he asked in an effort to dispel such thoughts.
Veronica's expression grew thoughtful. "Hmm, how to explain…they're small, sort of fuzzy looking, and bright yellow. Like the middles of these but larger and fuzzier."
"What are these, anyway? I've never seen them before."
"Daisies. They're my favorite."
A sort of wistful smile had appeared on her face and Rukelion didn't know what that meant. He did take note of the fact that she especially seemed to like these though and filed it away for future reference, unsure why he was doing so. He was acting seriously out of character this morning.
Why was he asking questions about plants when plant magic had ruined his life and the lives of everyone he ever cared about? Why should he care what sort of stupid flowers these were? Why had he bothered picking them for her in the first place?
He sighed. He sort of knew the answer to that last question. He had done it because he thought it would make her smile and he had been right.
The real question was why he cared about such a thing. This girl didn't matter to him. They may be temporary allies now but she had nothing to offer him long term. He couldn't stay here working as a farmhand forever.
Rukelion had only stuck around because he didn't like owing people and had needed a base of operations from which to further his plans. This place was as good as any even if he wasn't making as much headway as he would like at the moment.
He had been so worn out from other things he hadn't had much time, if any, to practice his fire magic. He would absolutely need it to destroy the Mirean royals and anyone else that stood in his way so he needed to figure something out soon. It would help if the dumb mercenaries would just teach him so he wouldn't have to waste so much time spying.
"I'm glad you like them," Rukelion said lamely. "I'm…going to get to work."
He headed in the opposite direction to meet with the Krinzels and get started on his daily duties but peered over his shoulder once and noticed Veronica smiling and twirling as she examined her reflection in one of the buckets she had put down.
He could easily see her doing the exact same thing in a fine gown and jewels. It was all in the way she carried herself.
===
Daisy had kept her curiosity about the quiet, deeply wounded boy who had come under her care to a minimum because she didn't want to upset the delicate balance they had achieved. That was why she didn't ask where he went despite knowing he disappeared twice a day doing who knows what.
It wasn't any of her business as long as he did what he agreed to do to help her out, which he did and then some. He didn't have to help her do her work after he got back but he always did.
She originally asked because it seemed like a good way to break the awkward silence of him coming in so unexpectedly but then he kept sitting near her and staring at what she was doing. It was easier to keep asking.
Making conversation with Leo was difficult at first since she couldn't ask him about his past or talk about her own. They mostly talked about trivialities having to do with farm life and she was usually the one initiating it. It seemed he wasn't much of a conversationalist.
Daisy didn't mind. She wasn't either, really. She had been winging it this whole time to make things less stifling.
The silences after they had talked were always more comfortable than the ones when he first arrived and said nothing. So she wracked her brains to think of things to say that would be lighthearted enough to distract him from whatever was on his mind.
It seemed to be working, which was why she kept at it. Her efforts paid off in a surprising way one day a couple of months after he arrived. He rather gruffly handed her a bouquet of daisies that he had clearly picked himself.
No one had ever given her flowers before so she got more emotional than she should have. Especially because they were the ones she was named after.
That was the one good thing her deadbeat mother ever did for her. She named her daughter after something pretty. That proved that at one point she had loved her, no matter what ended up happening later.
Perhaps that was why daisies ended up being her favorite. There were so many different varieties too—she had learned about them from a flower book she read at the library when she was homeless. She spent a lot of time hanging out there when it was cold and read as many plant guides as she possibly could.
The flowers Leo brought were marguerite daisies, to be specific. She hadn't realized those grew naturally around here.
Daisy made a crown out of them because she had been so happy to see something she loved for the first time since arriving in this time and couldn't resist the childish urge. Unable to pick daisies from public parks since that was an act of vandalism, she used to make them out of dandelions. No one cared if you picked those since they were weeds.
She used to make them as a kid all the time because it kept her out of the house and away from her mother when she was high on her drug of choice that week. She would pluck them from cracks in the sidewalk if their stems were long enough and try to make them the way she had seen some of the neighbor kids do it.
It took a lot of practice to get it right but eventually she became a dandelion crown expert. She hadn't done it in more than a decade when suddenly presented with that bouquet of wild daisies but hadn't been able to resist the urge. Repeating one of the few positive memories from her childhood made her day.
After that, Leo brought her flowers almost every morning. She had no idea where he was getting them since she hadn't seen them on the farm. Was he disappearing into the forest every day? They might be growing near the stream or even deeper into the trees.
Daisy was beginning to run out of places to put them. She had flowers in vases, dried flowers pressed in books, flower crowns, flower necklaces, flower garlands strung around the house.
Seeing so many flowers every time she walked inside filled her to the brim with happiness but she couldn't help but wonder why the boy was doing this. Was it because she had been kind to him when he was having a hard time? She knew better than most that a little kindness could go a long way when you were struggling.
She continued accepting his offerings with a smile. One day, she even made a necklace for him out of baby's breath and a wild type of red carnation.
"This would match your hair perfectly if you weren't dyeing it," Daisy told him with a smile as she placed it over his head. "It's a shame, honestly. It's very pretty. I've never seen a color like that before."
Leo's ears turned pink as he lifted the long necklace to examine it more closely. For a moment, Daisy thought he was going to rip it off and say it was too girly but he kept it on for the rest of the night. The next morning when she went in to collect his dirty clothes to do the laundry, she saw that he had hung it from one of the bed posts in a place of honor and was more touched than she should have been.
He could be surprisingly sentimental for a twelve-year-old boy. She supposed it was because she was all he had right now.