Blossoms

Sixteen Years Ago

The three children played together in the gardens outside of Kaytake's mansion. The two boys, ages nine and ten, used wooden swords to spar as the eight-year-old girl sat on a bench, her bare feet dangling several inches above the carefully cultivated grass. "Get him, Kai!" She giggled, bright hazel eyes squinting as she watched her brother back his red-headed opponent against a flowery bush. "Don't let him beat you!"

The nine-year-old redhead grunted as his sword crashed into Kai's weapon. "C'mon, Nya," he whined. His deep blue- if seen in the right light, purple- eyes narrowed as he threw his weight forward, forcing his adversary to take a step backwards, lest he lose his balance. "Can't you take my side for once?"

Nya's long, shiny black hair rippled as she threw her head back with a dramatic laugh. "Why should I?" She asked.

Kai smirked at his taller- albeit younger- opponent. "Nice try, John," he said. With a sudden jerk, he leapt backward and let his sword hand fall to his side in a pose that somewhat mimicked what his father always did during a spar. "Just give up now, while you have the chance."

John pitched forward with a startled squeak. He hardly managed to catch himself before his face hit the ground. He righted himself and held his katana in a left-handed stance. A wide grin colored his face. "No fair," he exclaimed with a giggle.

Kai swung his sword in a wide arc, aiming for John's vulnerable left leg. "What's wrong?" He asked. "Can't take a jab?" His stick made impact with the boy's knee.

John, to Nya's surprise, held his ground, although the grimace on his face indicated great pain. "That pun was terrible," he said. "And are you trying to decapitate me?"

Nya cocked her head curiously. "Decappawhat?" She asked. "Stop using big words. It makes my head get all dizzy."

"Discombobulation," John corrected, his grin showing through once again. The pain in his leg was quickly forgotten as he fell into a much more graceful stance than his older friend had assumed moments earlier. He held his sword in two hands. "The word you're lookin' for is discombobulation. It's when you get so confused that-ow!" He dropped his sword and brought his hands up to rub the spot in his hair Kai had hit with his wooden sword.

The Southern noble reached for John's sword and held both at the stunned Western noble's neck. "Just stick to being the whiz kid," he said. "I'll stick to the fighting, 'kay?"

John rubbed his head ruefully as he nodded. But even through all of that, he was still smiling. "I'll keep that in mind," he said. "Great match, Kai. You've gotten better."

Nya had to admire that about this Western lord's only child. She had never, ever seen him grow sore over defeat. John seemed to take everything in stride, absorbing people's insults like backhanded compliments and bouncing them back into the faces of whoever threw them as true compliments.

She wasn't going to sugar coat it; she really liked him. They had been good friends since infancy. The unfortunate part of their friendship was that they only got to see each other every twelve months, during the annual meeting when the grown-ups would talk about boring grown-up stuff in a bunch of meetings that her mother said had to do with politics.

This year, strangely enough, the grown-ups faces had been grim as the Western Lord- Drenn Keith- left his ship and greeted his fellow nobles and their families. Nya had not heard much of why this usually joyous reunion looked so sour, but one name in particular seemed to be passed around in whispers, as if to keep the children from hearing.

Overlord.

Although Nya did not know who- or what- this Overlord was, she definitely did not ever want to know. The adults were afraid of it, so she should be, too.

The little girl slid down from the stone bench. The grass tickled her feet as she trotted over to John's side. She gave him a tight squeeze around the waist- he was a good six inches taller than her- and giggled again. "You're getting better, too," she said. "Keep on practicing so that when you come back next year, you can beat him and win my hand."

John turned up his nose. "Eew," he wiggled out of her arms. "That's gross, Nya. Let's stick to being purely platonic for a while. You're only eight."

Nya let her arms fall to her sides as she pondered this new word. "Platonic?" She repeated. "It sounds dangerous, like one of those monsters in stories that daddy tells me before bed."

John blinked. "Your dad tells you scary stories before bed?" He asked incredulously.

Kai snorted as he tossed his swords onto the cobblestone path several paces off. "Hardly," he said. "The monsters in dad's stories are all out to tickle her or eat her cookies. Sissy stuff."

"Oh," John quickly dismissed this. "Well, no. Platonic is an adjective, not a noun. It's a word used to describe the relationship between-"

"Stop," Kai held up a hand. "This is no longer making sense to me. Keep your smartness to yourself, please. She's a girl, you know. If I can't understand what you're saying, she certainly won't get it, either."

Without any warning, John threw a fist into Kai's gut, making the brown-haired boy double over. "What was that for?" Kai gasped.

John backed away coolly and shrugged. "A man's first and foremost duty is to protect women," he said. "You were using words to abuse a noblewoman, and I was simply protecting her."

"Protecting her from what?" Kai asked. "It's the truth, don't pretend like you don't know that. I am smarter than her."

"Perhaps," John said. "Nya, should we beat him up?"

Kai's eyes widened with alarm. "No!" He exclaimed. With a quick flick of his heel, he turned and shot down the path toward the large redbrick mansion.

John snorted and turned to Nya. "I knew it," he said. "He won't pick a fight when he has no chance of winning."

Nya grabbed his hand and pulled him toward the fountain. "Will he ever grow out of it?" She asked. "If there's ever a time when he's gotta protect me, would he just hide and let me get caught?"

John squeezed her hand and allowed himself to get pulled along. "I can't say," he answered thoughtfully. "But I promise that if you're ever in trouble, I won't run. 'Kay?"

As all little girls would do in a situation like this, she giggled again and blushed. "Okay." She nodded. "And if my brother ever hits your head again, I'll make him pay for it."

"Sounds like a plan." The little boy gave her an affectionate smile. "What's your favorite color?" He asked.

Nya paused. The sudden conversation change bothered her, but only for a moment. "Purple," she said. "But I like blue, too."

John reached into a bed of flowers and plucked a bud from one of the many variegated plants.

Nya gasped. "Don't do that," she whisper-shouted. "Mother will get mad. She hates it when we pick her flowers."

John held the deep bluish-purple violet between two fingers daintily and shrugged. "Well," he said with a grin. "It was only one, and you won't tell anyone. So I'm safe." He held it out for her to take. "Press it between the pages of a book, and it'll preserve better."

Nya accepted the tiny violet bud. "Thank you," she beamed. "I'll find a book and hide it really well."

"You'd better," John said. "I don't want Lady Driniah to remove my head."

Nya held the precious bud close to her chest as she reached up onto her toes to kiss his cheek. "Your secret is safe with me," she said. Her smile widened as she noticed the light flush that had crawled to the surface of his skin. "You look cute with your face all blushed like that," she remarked.

"Gah!" John turned his face away and stared at the bubbling fountain. "Blush? Who's blushing? My face is flushed with...rage. Yeah, that's it. I really don't like it when girls do that to me. It makes me get all mad."

"Then why are you smiling?"

"I'm always smiling, Nya. Don't make this more embarrassing for me than it already is."

"Fine," Nya rolled her eyes. "What's your favorite color?"

John pondered this for a moment. His head was still turned toward the fountain. "Blue," he admitted finally. "I like greenish-blue, like the ocean."

Nya searched the grounds with her eyes and quickly found what she was looking for. Moments later, a deep blue petunia was in her hands, being held out for her friend to take. "There aren't any green flowers in mother's garden," she explained. "But...here."

John regarded the funnel-shaped bud skeptically. "Thanks," he said, hesitatingly accepting the gift. "But won't you get in trouble?"

"No," Nya shook her head. "Just hide it in a book. When you come again next year, we can do it again. By the time we're grown-ups, we'll have a whole collection of 'em."

John held the bud carefully in his palm- petunias were extremely delicate- and nodded. "Okay," he said. "It'll be nice, I guess, since there're no flowers in the West."

Nya's eyes widened. "You don't have any flowers?" She asked. "What about trees?"

"Oh, there's plenty of those," John said. "Mostly big, ugly ones with huge plumes of leaf growing out of the top."

Nya turned up her nose. "You should just live here," she said. "It must be awfully boring and weird over there."

John smiled. "It's not so bad," he said. "The island doesn't have a lot of people on it yet, but more and more come with us on the ship every year. Dad says that we're gonna need to start bringing two boats soon, 'cause so many families want to live in the villages around the mansion."

"My dad says that it's mostly the super poor families that go to Keitorin with you," Nya said. "He thinks they're all just desperate, and that they don't actually like living there."

"Don't be so quick to dismiss my home," John warned. "You know, I've heard stuff about you and me. My dad and yours have been talking about an arranged marriage, so ten years from now, you might be living on Keitorin with my family."

Nya sighed. "Yeah," she turned her head and looked into the forest of trees that surrounded the garden on three sides. "I've heard. But why couldn't we live here instead?"

"I don't know," John confessed. "Maybe 'cause Kai will hafta become the new Lord." He gave Nya a cocked eyebrow. "You don't sound very worried about the fact that our parents are already orchestrating our futures together."

"Orchestrating?"

John patted her head and showed a flash of white teeth with his smile. "Never mind," he said. "We don't have to worry about that for years to come."