Withering Petals

Summary: Each was soft to the touch, veins running along the surface, beautiful.

"Hmm," Ib made the noise around a ribbon in her mouth as she looked down at an order in her hand. The words were scrawled in blue pen ontop of thin grey paper. It was a script she had memorized by now with the loops of cursive present, twisting along the background of ripples in a stream.

It was his handwriting, his request for more of her bouquets.

They had been present even at his first gallery opening and ever since she would put together the flowers that would be present for the guests to enjoy.

This time it was roses. To compliment his artwork he said he wanted red and blue, spirited and fear.

A giggle slipped past her lips at the comparison. She didn't really get it but he had insisted that it was true. Just before he called her the red rose. That was even more unlikely to her. Brave? She had jumped just last night from the shadow her cat had cast upon the wall!

With a soft laugh and shake of her head Ib gripped the flowers carefully between her fingers to avoid the thorns bringing them out from their separate pots and into a glass vase on the station. She pulled the ribbon from her lips, weaving the thin violet threads along the flowers, crisscrossing around thorns before allowing the roses to fall into the water below. The ribbon was just above the surface and she smiled at the small bow in front. Each vase would need to be delivered carefully down the hall to their spots in the gallery so the violet color didn't darken from the water.

She ran her fingers over the red and blue petals; each was soft to the touch, veins running along the surface, beautiful. It would be perfect she knew without even needing to see what pictures Garry had drawn for this showing.