Disclaimer: I don't own Final Fantasy VI
Well, you've probably already guessed what I'm doing here. You've probably seen 'Fairy's Eyes and Sandcastles', 'The Blue Sky', and maybe even from 'White Lilies and Monster's Eyes' (Cough Cough, shameless self-promotion). If not, then this is a series of one-shots. Gau/Relm this time; I thought I'd take the least popular pairing on here (even though I can't ship either one with anyone else...). We seriously need to up our game with this pairing!
Here's the first, so please enjoy!
050. Flower
White Roses & Purple Carnations
"Hey, Gau, come and have a look over here!" I called to him, waving him over to where I stood. We'd gone out together, past the woods surrounding the town of Thamasa and onto the great open plains of rolling, green hills past that. Flowers had started growing again in the early spring of this year, one year after Kefka died. And by now, in the ambient temperature of the late summer, the flowers were growing furiously, getting in one last burst of colour before finally fading for the year.
Gau ran over my way, to the willow tree on the hill, sheltering the group of flowers I'd found. "This... Is a Willow tree. Green willow." Gau stated in a half broken way, looking the tree up and down, paying close attention to the string like leaves. His language had much improved since we first met, thanks to Cyan, and he was finally becoming somewhat articulate. Granted, it would still take a while to be perfect, but it was getting there. Even I had to verbally acknowledge that.
"How did you know that?" I asked, shocked at that he even knew the specific name for this kind of willow. I only knew that because old man Strago told me so, and about the story surrounding it. A looong time ago.
"It's re..quired in Doma. For the heirs." He explained succinctly.
"Huh. The more you know."
"But I don't like this tree." He declared and something of his former posture returned, the slight hunching of his shoulders and gathering together of his hands. He almost looked like a rabbit or a squirrel or something. But still, he was very upright by then, standing tall next to his adoptive father.
"Why?" I asked, leaning up against it.
"Feels false. Like a liar. Like it'd give you false love." He explained, raking the tree up and down with uncertain red eyes.
"Oh." I looked back at the tree too, looking at the trunk and the face like arrangement of knots and suddenly, I too saw something insincere about the tree. "Huh, wired. I get that vibe too." I shivered unconsciously and my eyes were draw to the stringy leaves, and I couldn't help but break off the ends of one of the tendrils, much to Gau's umbrage. "We have a story about it in Thamasa, that a man and woman promised to meet here on the eve of their wedding, but the man never showed up."
"How... bad." Gau stated simply, looking somewhat repulsed at the slowly drifting tendrils of leaves.
We stayed there in a comfortable silence for a while, the both of us watching the setting sun leave a fiery stain on the sky. "Oh, yeah, I forgot but don't you think these flowers are so pretty?" I asked, pointing at the collection of purple flowers lying at my feet.
Gau looked at them with discerning red eyes and bent down to pick a few. "Purple Carnations." Gau declared, arranging the few flowers in his hand. He'd become unnervingly good at his new job, awe inspiringly, even. His father should've been leaping at the chance to know him, he should've been so proud... But Cyan was his father now, for all intents and purposes. "They remind me of Relm. In my studies they did." He smiled coyly to himself, looking at the flowers intently, as though he were in on a personal joke.
"Oh yeah? Well, I think that... White Roses remind me of you!" I declared with a coy smile. I'll never know why I chose that particular flower then, but it couldn't have fit more.
Gau snickered to himself slightly, and before he could say anymore, Shadow (Pa, as he was now called) called us both back in with a slight growl to Gau. Pa was way too overprotective, even from when I was that age. And before we could even think about walking, Interceptor herded us back at a quick sprint.
I will never know why the Doma royalty are required to know the language of flowers, but I suppose it's just tradition. And it can be quite handy, if I want to be all pretentious with my painting and assign each flower I paint in a scene a meaning. Of course if it were a landscape, I'd probably go mad by the end.
But more to the point, I also know why Gau smirked so much when he said that purple carnations remind him of me. Apparently 'Capriciousness' and 'Changeable' are two qualities that stand out in me. Still, I took solace in the 'whimsical' attribute and I think I agree. And even if a White Rose was certainly every inch him back then, 'innocent' to a fault, I've no longer got such luck. Heck, he's nigh on salacious sometimes. Who am I kidding, he'd be boring if he still were at that stage of life.
Maybe the teaching outsiders to Doma the language of flowers is a good thing - I now know that when the snootier members of the Nobility have a portrait painted of themselves holding a thistle, for example, they think they're royalty. That they're better than us. And when they are coincidentally in the same room as my poor potted Angrec when it dies, and then 'suggest' that I shouldn't grow anymore, they're also telling me that I'm not qualified to be their queen. Like they're qualified any better! Besides, it's a pretty ugly flower anyway.
So, here's what the flowers mean (oh, I love this. It's the one pretentious activity I can take part in with glee!)
White Roses = Innocence (amongst others).
Purple Carnations = Capriciousness, whimsical, changeable, unreliability.
Angrec = Royalty.
Well, there we go. I've always felt like Gau and Relm's relationship would be more of a banterous one. Please follower for more, and review if you liked it. Thanks!