World of Orrison

They were doing something to the gardens, again. Despite Lukial’s insistence, none of the servants would let him see. Waved away with explanations that it’d be too dangerous to get in the way of the workers, Lukial squeezed Elegy close and tramped off to the library.

He flicked on the lights, watching the lamps glow one by one. “Sit there,” Lukial told Elegy, placing the Luto on the seat of a plush armchair. The book he wanted would be up on the sixth shelf, so Lukial ran for the rolling ladder and pushed it over. The tome itself, Lukial pulled into his arms, wrapping his arm around it and descending the ladder.

Elegy watched him put the book on the coffee table in front of the armchair and kneel on the carpet before the chair. Leather-bound cover pushed aside to reveal illustrations of botanical nature, Lukial displaced Elegy from the chair and into his lap. “You like flowers,” he said, and flipped to that section.

Settling on the dog-eared page with gardenias in swirling pen-strokes, Lukial propped the book up and sat back in the chair. Elegy moved then, tilting its head toward the page as if reading the text there. “These were my mother’s favorite flowers,” Lukial told Elegy, who, like the many other times it had been informed, said nothing. “My father put these in the sun room.” He pointed at the text. “Gardenias don’t like the cold.”

Lukial moved on. A field of crocus bloomed across the bottom of the page. He brushed aside the ribbon to show Elegy the diagram. “My father liked crocuses. He put them in the garden. I wasn’t allowed in the garden when there were crocuses.” Elegy put a cloth paw on the paper. “They bloom three seasons in a year.”

Flipping through the book again, Lukial stopped on a bush bursting with flowers. “This is your favorite flower.” Tracing a finger along the edges of the hydrangea flower, Lukial looked down at Elegy. “We don’t have hydrangeas in the garden. We should tell them to put some in the garden.” That way, Elegy could have the flowers whenever they bloomed.

Elegy tapped the page before tapping Lukial’s hand.

“I don’t have a favorite flower,” Lukial responds. “I spent very little time outside. I am very busy.” Elegy wormed its way under Lukial’s arm then, and he stared down at it for a moment before looking away.

He drapes Elegy around his neck and gathers the book up in his arms, tottering out of the library. “Come. We should go tell Butler to put hydrangeas in the garden. They are still working on it now.”

Lukial strode out into the garden, assuming that Butler would be there. Butler usually oversaw these things, but he wasn’t there at the moment. A group of workers were busy pulling up a bush that made up the inner hedge, a pair were discussing a scroll, and more workers brought in potted shrubbery and soil.

Ignoring them for now, Lukial came to a stop under a curious looking tree. He didn’t remember the tree from the gardens before, and paused to look at the purple blooms covering the spindly branches. Lilac petals drifted down to the ground, splashing their pearly purple across the paved path.

He tilted his head up, and Elegy moved with him. Sunlight rippled through the boughs of the tree, scattering across Lukial’s face. “I don’t know this flower,” Lukial said, but didn’t open the book. Stepping under the low-hanging limbs, Lukial stepped up to poke his nose into the flowers. Fragrant.

Elegy reached up for a blossom and dropped it on Lukial’s cheek.