one:
but a caged bird stands on the grave of dreams
his shadow shouts on a nightmare scream
-maya angelou, sing

it's not her best day.

it's not her day at all, actually.

lexa's head is throbbing, a persistent white noise refusing to let her breathe, her eyelids heavy. when it comes down to it, having a bad day just means having a really bad night prior to it. it was all the nightmares and heavy breathing and tears too stubborn to fight. it's getting better, thought. she's getting better. this is a first bad day in over three months.

but that fact didn't help the snappy mood she was sporting the whole morning. it also didn't help the poor customer who's entrance was signaled by the little bell lexa put above the door.

she takes a deep breath, breathing out the sadness that has an iron grip over her ribs, before putting down her copy of ikarus - the mythical flyer, and leaving the backroom and the warmth of a small, entirely to warn out blue couch that lexa grew to strongly appreciate. (she has this theory that if one was to take every petal from all the flowers in the shop and make a couch from them, it still wouldn't be as soft as the opening gift from lincoln.) when she enters the shop she spots a woman; baby blue blazer, long blond hair, worried look accompanying the frown on her lips.

lexa clears her throat, alerting the girl of her presence. "may I help you?"

the girl jumps nonetheless, and lexa sighs. It wasn't like she didn't try, at least. "uh, yeah." the girl turns to face her and lexa can't help but notice how the blue of her eyes was the blue she never saw before, not even in all of the flower books she read. "i'm looking for a...birthday flower arrangement?"

it's the way girl's face turns into a frown as soon as the word 'birthday' leaves her lips that lets lexa believe she was one of those i-don't-like-you-but-i'm-too-nice-to-admit-it people who buy flowers because they can't think of anything else.

(lexa hopes for people like that on days like this because she can take all of her frustration and anger out on making the prettiest things with worst messages and no one notices because no one cares enough about meaning of flowers as long as they look good enough to show off.)

"okay." lexa says.

she moves from behind the counter, her gaze searching the flowers on display. "tell me about the person they are for."

"well, they are actually for my mother." girl explains, the tone of her voice telling more than her words. "we aren't really close, i guess. she had this dream i would follow her footsteps and become a surgeon since i was little. i ended up going to art school."

lexa nods and moves swiftly around the room. the girl watches, a bit mesmerized. she thinks: there is a florist; all dark eyeliner and black boots and tribal tattoos and yet she touches flowers with such a delicacy it feels like she should look away.

lexa is a picky person, and she is especially picky when it comes to her flowers. they are honest and it's what lexa loves about them the most. (they are also the perfect example of how you need to get to know someone before you can judge them; they can be in all of your favourite colours and yet, they can represent all the shades of betrayal.)

in the end, it's all about the story flowers carry between their petals and lexa was awarded more than once for creating the best stories of all. today she could feel the boxes she spent so much time building inside of herself shattering, the glass boxes around her heart and lungs and every particle of her body, boxes that are supposed to shield her feelings. so when her hands reach for yellow carnations and pink gladiolus and white violets, she doesn't fight it.

"is this okay?'' she trims the edges and puts the bouquet full of soft, pastel colours in simple, elegant white paper before offering it to clarke.

"yes, that's..." lexa's eyes are fixed on girl's face as she takes the arrangement from her with such care it makes lexa think it might actually shatter into million pieces at any moment. she is looking at it closely, her eyes big, as if looking at piece of art. lexa looks away, going back to her spot behind the counter. "that's really pretty.'' the girl finally says. "you have an eye for colour."

"it's my job."

"you are good at it."

lexa clears her throat and says nothing, because yes, maybe she was good at it, but a stranger should not be a judge of that, especially not a stranger who doesn't know a first thing about flowers. however, customer is always right. ''so, you will take it?'' the girl nods and lexa prints out the check. "should I write something on the card?"

it takes few seconds, but then "yes. 'with love, clarke' should do."

lexa misspells the name twice, and clarke says it's okay, that it happens in starbucks all the time. lexa raises her eyebrow, but says nothing.

(as lexa predicted, question about what flowers mean didn't come.)

sometimes lexa wonders if there's ikarus in all of us. we all desperately want something, and when we finally get it we want more and more and more and it's never enough. or, maybe, as william blake said in his proverbs of hell: 'you never know what is enough, until you know what is more than enough'. she thinks that maybe costia was her wings and love was her sun. she got burned, she fell, she lost her wings, she never tried to fly again.

the fucking wind chime lets out that annoying sound that reminds lexa of glitter and shiny things and happiness, and she could swear it was going to make her head explode one day. "we are closed!" she yells from her couch, her soft, warm, blue couch and wonders how can someone not see 'CLOSED' sign on the door. People are annoying and dumb. lexa doesn't like them.

"you know you can't just close your store when you feel sorry for yourself, right?"

lexa groans as soon as she recognizes the voice, trying to hide deeper in her blanket. "go away anya."

"can't do that. brought you food."

"make it go away with you."

"you gotta eat."

"whether i eat or not is none of your business."

"it is, actually. when you don't eat you turn into whiny, annoying five-year old and at the end of the day it's gonna be me who will have to deal with that."

lexa considers this for a moment or two and sighs in defeat. "i hate you." she sits up and puts her legs in front of her as far as they can go, stretching them. more than few joints pop.

anya smiles. "bad night?"

lexa mumbles something around her mouthful of food, and okay. maybe she is hungry. she is also grumpy and knowing look anya sends her way does nothing but annoys her further. "getting me my favourite dish, from other side of town, does not prove any point you might have."

anya rolls her eyes. "a simple 'thank you' would do, you know."

"i don't know what that means."

"when did you become such a brat?"

"i learned from the best."

"no arguing there." anya agrees with a slight shrug of shoulders and lexa tries to imprint the moment to her memory; they rarely agree on anything. lexa watches as she walks around the small backroom lexa uses as more than just a storage; along with flowers, there were also numerous piles of books scattered all over the floor, few framed pictures decorating the shelves, and when anya lets out a sudden breath of lough, lexa knows she is looking at the disney action figures that lexa somehow just keeps on buying. she doesn't comment on it.

soon, she's done with her food and anya's done with her little tour. this time she sits across from lexa, taking out her pack and lighter (it has bugs bunny printed on it and now lexa knows why anya didn't mock her). she lights her cigarette right then and there and lexa frowns.

"you can't smoke in here."

anya ignores her. "indra wants us on dinner this sunday."

"i know." she wonders if anya smokes from the same reason she wishes cigarette smoke doesn't make her want to vomit; it was a passive, subtle way of trying to speed up death.

"don't forget about it."

"i won't."

"good."

there are few things she likes about anya, but what she likes the most is how anya never forces her to make unnecessary promises, never forces her to use more words then she feels comfortable with. it's also the fact she cares, lexa doesn't have many people in her life who do. anya would never admit that but lexa knows because it's monday and anya's excuse to visit her is to remind her of dinner on sunday.

"gustus has been talking about your cover shot for past three days. its annoying. and creepy."

that made the corner of lexa's lips twitch. gustus was the one who thought her everything she knows about the flowers, and when daily garden contacted her last week and offered her to make arrangement for their cover page, she knew she had no one but him to thank too.

"is that jealousy i sense?"

"you wish, rocky."

lexa rolls her eyes.

rocky was a rather stupid (in lexa's opinion) nickname anya gave her in what seemed to be a lifetime ago and it was all because, according to anya, she looks like a raccoon ready to fight whoever looks her way with all the black eyeliner she applies. raccoon rocky.

"i thought we were done with that nickname."

"oh, we will never be done with that nickname."

lexa doesn't expect anything else.

"anyway, i gotta go. some of us actually have better things to do than cry." and she is out of the door as suddenly as she entered them.

when she gets home, she is exhausted. she lives in small apartment, across the hall from anya's. it's the apartment indra helped her get and pay for until her business became steady. she doesn't need help anymore.

one day lincoln helped her paint the walls. it wasn't much of work, really. the decision to paint small living room in soft colour of beige is momentary; one of the walls, the one they put old, rusty, entirely too big work table lincoln found in trash and renovated (just painted in white, actually) next to is decorated with long, lilac stripes - top to bottom.

little kitchen that's connected to living room through half window/half bar is, along with bathroom, covered in tiles. they never bother with that.

her bedroom is white, walls are decorated with large pictures of simple, pencil-drawn and too detailed flowers with latin names. her sheets are green.

she throws her bag alongside of the couch and slumps down on it, the pressure against her back knocking out all the air she had left.

she thinks about crying and about boxes inside of her, she thinks about flowers and how they need water to grow.

she thinks back to times when she was in orphanage, about how she would sneak into the small library that had only few books appropriate for her age and how she would have to climb the bookshelves to get something that wasn't a picturebook.

she thinks about the chinese philosophy book she once stumbled upon and she thinks about words of chuang tzu: the fish trap exists because of the fish. once you've gotten the fish you can forget the trap. the rabbit snare exists because of the rabbit. once you've gotten the rabbit, you can forget the snare. words exist because of meaning. once you've gotten the meaning, you can forget the words.

she thinks about all the words kids used to shout at her and she thinks about their meaning.

she's grown enough to understand that there is no solid meaning behind them. they were kids, they were left alone, they were angry.

she wonders when she'll be able to forget them.

the sleep doesn't come easily and when it does, its dreamless.

tomorrow, when short, furious looking blonde storms into her little shop lexa will think that maybe meaning of flowers could kill her sooner than cigarette smoke.

(she will also think about how thundering of her heart must be similar to ikarus' when he got his wings)

AN - good job on making it all the way to the end. tell me what you think! also, if you want more content or ask some questions, you can find me on tumblr as badasskru c: