Prompt: Picking Flowers
"This is inane."
Minerva followed Augusta through the lush garden, her arms folded. The later did not turn around, instead leaning in to cut the stem of a newly flowered sweet pea with her pruning shears.
"So you've said," Augusta replied, a small smile dancing on her lips.
It amused her to see the usually dignified women in a state of childlike protest. She offered Minerva the shears, indicating the flower she was to cut. Minerva begrudgingly took them and, taking no care at all, made a rough and ragged snip.
"I rescued you from that tartan prison you call an office," Augusta said flatly, "but I can send you back there for the rest of the summer, if that is what you wish."
"No," Minerva sighed, "I'm sorry."
"Once more, with feeling," Augusta trilled.
Her companion said nothing and glared. Augusta just laughed, the sound one of ice-like clarity.
"You wanted to meet my friends, be involved," she reminded the other witch, "Well, I'm sorry, but this is what I do with these particular friends. We meet and arrange flowers, and I don't care what you think, because I am too excited about shoving my roses in Shirley Mendelson's smug face."
Minerva's face lightened.
"So it's floral warfare?" she asked teasingly.
Augusta laughed again.
"Something like that."
A moment of silence passed, Minerva watching as Augusta continued to work. Inane as she declared it to be, the witch found something rather captivating about the care her hostess took with the task. Augusta's brown eyes darted back and caught Minerva staring.
"Until I can read your mind, sweet thing," she said softly, "I must content myself to ask for your thoughts."
Minerva rolled her eyes at the language, though there was a slight flush in her cheeks. Then she looked serious.
"What do your friends think?" she asked bluntly, "About us?"
"About me bringing home my grandson's ex-teacher?" the other woman joked.
"I'm serious," the ex-teacher said.
Augusta frowned slightly, pulling herself back to her full height, only a few centimetres shorter than Minerva.
"I think most of them always knew, even when I was married, that I was equally attracted to women," she mused.
"Fewer," she added, "picked that I had a lasting chip on my shoulder."
Pausing, Augusta gazed at Minerva, tracing her face with her eyes as she did whenever it truly hit her that this magnificent person was in her life.
"I'm not sure how many realised," she breathed, "that the chip was shaped like you."
Reaching out, Augusta gently placed her fingers on Minerva's chin, slowly raising it so that her lover's head was held high. Then she took the first sweet pea flower she had cut and tucked it behind the woman's ear.
"Perfect," Augusta smiled, "The best arrangement I've ever done."
Minerva tried to look cynical, but could not. Tenderly, Augusta took her hand.
"Come," she said, "There is much to be done."
And Minerva was less reluctant to follow.