Fertile Garden

-

"Hey, sis," Ewan said. He waltzed into the room where Tethys was sitting and sat down in a chair next to hers. "I got something to tell you."

"Uh oh," Tethys said. "Let me guess: Bad news."

"Oh come on, just because I came to talk to you doesn't mean something bad happened. Right? I mean, theoretically, I could be coming to you to talk about something good…right?"

Tethys gave him a deathly stare. Ewan gulped.

"Ewan, with you, it's either bad news…or worse news."

"Okay, okay," Ewan said, rolling his eyes. "Um…um…well…it's sort of…about a girl."

"That's the worst news. You didn't get caught peeping at the girls' side of the mountain spring again, did you?"

"No!" Ewan yelled, genuinely offended. He wasn't stupid enough to do that again, not after what his big sis had done to him. He could still remember—well, his ass still remembered—the punishment he had gotten for that. "I'm not that stupid. I'm actually pretty smart. I mean, come on, I'm a mage! Besides, I have a girlfriend now."

"Oh, that's right. That girl Amelia, right? She's cute…wait, what did you do?" Tethys sat forward. "Ewan," she said sternly.

"Nothing!" He threw his hands up in the air. "Well…except I gotta marry her now."

Tethys blinked several times and stared blankly at Ewan for a while. "You 'gotta' marry her?"

Then she facepalmed. "Wait. Don't tell me—"

"N-Now, sis, before you go—"

"DON'T TELL ME…THAT YOU AND HER—!"

"N-Now wait a minute, sis, I didn't, uh…"

Tethys stood up. She was wearing her big puffy, humorously frilly red dress that Gerik had bought her, and Ewan reckoned that his big sister was much more frightening when she wore a lot of clothing.

"What did you do, Ewan?" Tethys asked sternly.

"I…um…I sorta, uh…planted a…uh…seed! Flower…in her…garden. Ah! That's right!" Ewan snapped his fingers. "In Grado, you know, they have a custom—they take their gardening terribly seriously, you know—that planting your seed—er, a seed—in a girl's garden means you pledge your undying love to her. So, because I, um, bought her a whole bunch of pretty seeds so she'd have a nice flower garden, but honestly, I didn't know about that little, um, custom, so…well, I accidentally kinda sorta maybe pledged my undying love to her. Magically speaking. So now we have to have a wedding or her, uh, uncle or something is going to come after me with a shot—er, crossbow."

Tethys blinked.

"W-What?" Ewan said, sweating profusely. "Why are you looking at me like that, sis? Don't you, uh, don't you believe me?"

"Ewan."

"Y-Yeah?"

"What really happened between you and Amelia?"

"Gulp."

-

Ten Minutes Later…

-

"What did your sister say?" Amelia asked, placing her hand on Ewan's shoulder.

"Well, aside from 'I thought you were more responsible' and 'I raised you better than that' and 'I hope you really do love her', (which I do) and 'Now you'll see what I had to put up with', she also said…"

Ewan pointed to the big red lumps on his forehead. "This."