A/N In case someone wondered:
White lilies – faith, purity, innocence
Zinnia – loyalty
Hydrangea – pride
Carnations – fascination, love
Yellow Camellia – longing, yearning
(Check four different web sites, and you end up with seven different meanings to one and the same flower (roughly). So I went with the Japanese "Hanakotoba" flower language and hope I didn't mess up all too badly. Feel free to let me know if I did.)
v. Yellow Camellia
For you, Zen Skye Wistalia, Second Prince of Clarines, this summer will forever be the summer before:
Before Shirayuki stepped into your life – or, before you stumbled into hers, more accurately – the summer in which your path was set by an accidental acquaintance made carelessly at the border of your country. The summer, you later realize, set on the brink separating your childhood and your adult life, before you finally learned to accept and even embrace the obligations you always knew you had but still had fought for so long. The summer before you understood that patience is a virtue, and that it takes the necessary balance of patience and action in order to not only live, but live a good and fulfilled life.
For you, just eighteen and already familiar with the obligations of the crown, it is the last summer you manage to push aside the weight of the duties that have always lasted on your shoulders and most likely always will. The summer you – maybe! – have a crush on a lady knight and maybe resent your best friend a little bit and realize that there is a difference, friend-knight-protector, but you are determined to blurr the lines as much as possible. That summer, you learn an important lesson even if there is no way you can voice it yet. This summer full of sun and heat and storm and the flames of a firework between the green trellises of wisteria beyond the training room windows: for you, it will forever be the summer before.
The summer before you will meet the girl that will be the love of your life and the woman of your dreams; the summer before you find the girl that you will marry, eventually; because she is everything that is good in the world, and because she finds the best in you no matter how great the darkness and how deep the shadows.
The summer before Shirayuki comes into your life.
For you, Mitsuhide Rouen, the Second Prince's guard, this summer will forever be the summer before:
Before Zen learns how to stand entirely on his own – before he stops leaning on you – the summer in which the one person you have dedicated your life to takes that one, last step away from you. The summer, you later realize, that is the defining moment for another person while you just stop walking forward, just continue to follow, the summer that one person younger than you sees what you should have been able to see a long, long time ago but you have refused to. The summer before you learn that people need to move forward, that nobody is content with staying the way one is; but also that you do not mind as long as it is for the sake of your most important person.
For you, twenty-four years old and having known nothing but duty and loyalty, it is the first summer you begin to confine the soft voice of doubt in your heart to the darkness hidden deep within it, a darkness that will remain even many, many years later. The summer something precious is taken away from you, and, up to the day, you are unable to say what exactly it was but you feel its absence keenly. This summer full of heat and familiarity and the soft scratch of a pen on paper, resounding through the silence of Zen's office from where he sits at the table, working diligently, will forever be the summer before for you.
The summer before you fail to realize that despite yourself remaining stagnant, some things change, and people do, too; the summer before your partner and the only person in the world you trust, Zen aside, leaves you behind to go to a place you will never be able to follow.
The summer before everything begins to change.
You know the song. You know the book.
You know these two men, the most important people in your life. You know what they think, how they feel. Maybe it is because you are a woman and can read their hearts. Maybe it is because you love them, each one of them, albeit in different ways.
This revelation will forever be the one thing you remember when thinking back to this summer.
For you, Katherine Seiran, it is not the summer before things change. It is the summer that changes everything.