AN: Just a little something I wrote for a prompt (Which was lilies) given to me over on my roleplay blog.
Terra stood before the stove, just barely keeping her grip on the large pot she had wrapped in her arms. She stood on her toes, and tried to slide the pot onto the burner; not high enough. She shimmied her hands down the metal, staring hard at the wobbling surface of the stew, as if that would keep it from sloshing over the sides. Finally, the pot found it's place on the stove with a small clank. Terra stepped back and wiped her arm across her forehead. Feeding fifteen was no easy task.
"Mama! Mama!"
Terra turned just in time to catch the little girl that came hurling through the doorway. "Whoa, there!" she laughed. "What's the hurry?"
The little girl stepped back, holding out a slightly rumpled piece of paper. Terra took it and looked at the drawing. It was little more than a child's scribble, but as far as Terra could tell, the doodle was of a bundle of flowers, with long petals that curved back. Terra smiled.
"Where could Locke have disappeared to?" Terra asked Edgar and Sabin. The later shielded his eyes with his hand, to better see across the crowded market place of Nikeah.
"I don't see him," Sabin said, dropping his hand.
Edgar pinched the bridge of his nose. "That rascal's probably off getting into—"
Shouts erupted from the other end of the square. Edgar threw his hand in the air and made a face that said, "See?"
"I'll go see what that is," Sabin said quickly, not really disappearing into the crowd, for he stood at least a head over everyone around him.
"We really can't take him anywhere," Edgar sighed, watching as Sabin reached the source of the commotion and someone who was unmistakably Locke leapt onto Sabin's shoulders and jabbed a broom at whoever it was that he'd upset this time. "What else did you say we needed to get?" He paused, awaiting Terra's response, but when it didn't come, he turned and found the girl staring in the other direction at a colorful stand in a less crowded corner of the marketplace. "Terra?"
"Are all of those flowers, Edgar?"
The king smiled softly. "Ah, that's right, you've been rather sheltered from the wide variety of flowers in the world, haven't you, m'lady?" He took her gently by the elbow and guided her to the flower vendor's stall. "It's a pity. A young woman of your beauty should always be showered in beautiful blossoms."
Terra glanced away, still not used to Edgar's boldness. And he'd said Locke was the one they couldn't take anywhere.
They stopped before the stall, the combined scent of the flowers over powering any other smell in a ten foot radius. Edgar pointed to a basket of red blooms. "Those are roses, the most romantic of flowers. And those strange looking pink ones there are orchids, given when one wants to convey affection."
He went on, naming flowers until he came to one with long, pale purple petals. He gently pinched the stem of one between his thumb and forefinger, plucking it from the basket. "This one is called a lily." He smiled at her, his eyes twinkling with something she couldn't identify. "It stands for a fair number of things, my favorite being hope." He reached into the pouch on his hip and removed a coin, flipping it in the direction of the vendor. He pushed the lily into Terra's hands.
She looked from the flower in her hands to Edgar. "Wha—"
"It's the same shade as your eyes," he said simply, before turning and walking back into the throng of people.
Terra looked down at the lily for one last, brief moment before wrapping both hands around it and holding it close. She ran after Edgar. "Hey, wait for me!"
"Did you see this in a book?" Terra asked the child.
She shook her head and tugged Terra's pinkie. "No! I'll show you, Mama!"
Terra allowed herself to be lead from the house and through Mobliz. She thought that the girl was going to lead her into one of the abandoned houses and show her an old painting, but they soon passed the house on the farthest edge of town.
"Where are we going?" she asked.
"Right there!" The girl pointed to the base of a tree, one of the few still standing, though it was little more than a charred stump. Terra gasped. There, among the roots, bloomed three purple lilies. She dropped to her knees and and ran a finger along one of the petals.
"'Hope,' he said," she mumbled, pulling the little girl into her lap and sitting back to admire the flowers for a while longer.