Prince Rainier
Week One. Day Seven.
I find her just as she's slipping out the back doors, heading into the gardens. She doesn't like people. Or being around too many. She sticks to the shadows, the corners, emerging only when given no other option. There's something oddly elusive about her.
"You're not very good with balls," I guess when I catch up with her.
"Not terribly," she says, sinking into a curtsey. I don't like it when she does it. I don't usually mind it with anyone else. But with her it's unsettling.
"Is it the people or the music?" I ask.
"A fair bit of both, I suppose," she says. "The music is too thoughtless."
"Thoughtless?"
"Indeed. It's not to say that I think it's bad music. It's nice music. But I just don't really have a taste for music that doesn't make anyone stop and think."
"Do you play any?"
"I did," she says, pausing to touch a gloved finger to a flower. "Once."
"Only once?"
"I didn't say only once, I said 'once'."
"What did you play?"
"The piano. I used to write music with my moth…" She trails off slowly. Her brows furrow slightly and her gaze falls on the ground. She blinks a few times, gives me a tight smile, and keeps walking.
"And the people?" I urge. Mental note, Rainier: mother is a sore subject.
"Well, I don't really spend much of my time surrounded by so many strange people," she tells me. "I thought I could handle it at first, but I suppose after a while you just start to drift towards anywhere you can get some quiet."
She seems unsettled. But only since the word 'mother' almost passed her lips. What about that could have shaken her? Perhaps a recent death? It hardly matters now. All that does matter is that she was melting, just now. Those diamonds were cracking, and now she's been called to attention she's gone and pulled them back into place. I have to start over.
We slow our pace as we reach the rose bushes.
"My mother loved roses," I tell her. "She was heartbroken when she first arrived at the palace and found that there were none here."
"There were no roses in the palace?" she asks. "I'd have thought…they're so common."
"She wasn't terribly fond of the type that was already growing. So my father had these planted for her as a wedding gift. They're a better sort of flower."
"They're certainly bigger," she says. "I can see why she'd like them."
"She adored them," I say. "She adopted one as her personal sigil. She used it as her seal for everything."
"Red ones?" she asks. "Or these white ones?"
"Whichever ones she fancied at the time. Her tastes changed with her moods. One day she wanted the red, another day she'd have the white, another she'd have the pink, another the orange."
I reach into the bush and pick her the biggest one. She smiles and accepts it.
"What a good way to convey a mood without speaking a word," she says. "The colors could communicate for her."
"Communicate?"
"The flower language," she says. "Each flower means something specific. Her sigil was the rose, which means that she valued love and respect above all else."
"And if you could choose one as your sigil, which would you choose?" I ask as we walk ahead. We pause by a carnation bush. "Carnations, perhaps?" I ask, picking one and handing it to her.
"Carnations mean pride and beauty," she says, taking the flower. "It would hardly suit me."
"Lilies, perhaps?" I ask, picking one loose and holding it out to her.
"Magnificence," she says. "Which I can hardly compare to."
"The chrysanthemum, then," I suggest, picking one and holding it to her.
"Optimism," she says. "Now that could be appropriate…a small amount of the time."
"What of a Gardenia?" I ask, handing her a fine specimen.
"I do confess I'm not entirely sure what Gardenias symbolize," she says, accepting it into her bouquet.
"I do," I say. "Secret love."
She eyes me. It's a bold move, and I know it. But her eyes are still sparkling and the air around her is heavy with shadows and there's so much I want to ask her but can't.
"Well, I'm afraid I know very little of love," she says.
I'm not sure what that could be. Not entirely rejection, but not an invitation, either. I'll have to keep pressing.
"What of the iris?" I ask, spotting the nearby bush. I pick one free and hand it to her. "It symbolizes eloquence."
"Pretty," she says. "With a fitting meaning for yourself, but not quite suitable for myself, I fear."
"So if you would not have love, nor respect, nor pride, nor beauty, nor magnificence, nor optimism, nor eloquence, then what would you choose to symbolize?"
"I would not choose a flower based on symbols," she says. "I would choose it because I like the way it makes me feel."
"Well, what would your favorite be?" I ask her. "We have all sorts growing here."
"Hm…" she looks around the rows of colors and petals. "I don't see it here. My favorite."
"Really? The broadest collection of specimens in the kingdom and you don't see it here?"
"I'm afraid not," she says.
"I'm in shock," I say. "You've exposed some great and hidden fault in the royal gardens!"
"So soon before my untimely departure," she says. "I must go now."
She sinks into a curtsey again and bundles the bouquet in her hand as she turns to leave.
"Wait," I call after her.
"Hm?" she turns to look back.
"Which one is your favorite, then?" I ask her.
She gives me a small, wistful smile. "Orchid," she says, and then she is gone.
Why do I keep forgetting to ask for her name?