He always brought her flowers.
Every morning when Lin Xi awoke she would find a new variety of flowers and plants specially waiting for her.
Sometimes she would find them on the shelf at the head of the bed and other times on the table beside her medical texts. On rare occasions, she would wake to find a colourful arrangement of flowers waiting for her in the place of where he slept on their bed. After all these years, he still liked to surprise her.
Ping Jing was always an early riser, and it was normal for him to venture out at sunrise to gather flowers from whatever surroundings they travelled to. In his younger years he would have also taken this time to practice his sword technique.
By the time she woke, he would have returned to start on their daily chores. If she looked out the window, she would either see him tending to the horses or reading messages from the nearest pigeon house underneath the old elm tree.
On this crisp spring morning, however, there were no flowers and when Lin Xi went outside Ping Jing was noticeably absent.
Lin Xi returned inside the house to retrieve her cloak and basket. She followed the well worn trail by the side entrance of their home into the mountain forests.
The flowers were coming into bloom, and parts of the mountain were decorated light pink.
After some time, she found him sitting on the the grass slightly off the trail overlooking a valley. He sat with one leg raised, while his hands loosely held some pink wildflowers.
When she approached him, he turned his head to look at her. Slowly, she settled into a kneel beside him and stared at the mist moving across the valley.
"Ping Jing. Where does it hurt today?"
He gazed at her before taking a flower from his hand and placing it gently in her greying hair. His hand lingered by her ear, both remembering a similar moment in time. He smiled softly.
"Don't worry."
Lin Xi reached into her basket and pulled out a vial. She handed it to him and he silently took it from her and stared at it for a few seconds.
"Lin Xi. Will you stay with me?"
She answered quietly, still looking ahead.
"I will."
When he finished drinking, she took the vial and the flowers from his hands and placed them back into her basket. She helped him unsteadily to a stand, and ignored the slight tremble of his knees just before he found his footing. He leaned a bit more onto her.
"Will you stay with me in this lifetime… and the next?"
She look down at their feet and did not respond immediately. He waited for her, even though he already knew her answer.
She looked up at him and touched his cheek.
"No matter where I am, you will always be able to find me."
As they made their way down the mountain, pink wildflowers swayed with the wind around them.
"Lin Xi. You will be where the flowers are, right?"
- fin -
a/n: Wrote this listening to NIF 2 soundtrack #23 Love and I highly recommend! Sob!