Number of words: 3,059
Published date: December 31, 2012
Began chapter: December 10, 2012
Finished chapter: December 31, 2012
Chapter 20: Transient Life
After making her call to Mason, Lily immediately went out to the garden for some much-needed stress relief.
Not that the call had been bad. Far from it. Mason had sounded as cheerful and friendly as ever, happily accepting the additions to her regular order and not being the least bit suspicious when she explained that she had some "relatives" visiting. Selim had, yet again, been right: There had been no need for her to worry over making up a good cover story. Mason would come by the next day, she would let the others know and ask that they help bring in the groceries rather than leaving the poor man to do it himself, and with any luck he would save the difficult questions for them, not her. Selim was bright and Lust had a keen intelligence about her (albeit a dangerous intelligence, Lily sensed). They wouldn't even hesitate in coming up with an appropriate lie, and she imagined that Greed and Envy might not be as fast but were both perfectly capable of coming up with lies on the spot as well.
She, on the other hand, was terrible at lying. It left her flustered and exhausted. She absolutely hated deceiving the military and the townsfolk. Even if she wasn't lying per se, just stretching the truth amounted to the same thing and if it weren't for Selim and the need to protect him, she would never have been able to pull it off.
But for her son, Ms. Bradley did her best.
That didn't mean she had to like it.
Working in the garden was one of her favourite pastimes – both productive and meditative – and Lily went out with the intention of losing herself in the flowers and weeding and pruning and tending that she loved so much.
Her intention, unfortunately, didn't take her very far, for she found that she couldn't put Selim's siblings and their names out of her mind.
What kind of parents would give their children such odd names? she wondered.
And how had it turned out that their names, for the most part, fit?
No parent could know what their child would grow up to be like, so was it just a coincidence that Selim's siblings had grown to match their names? Had having such names moulded their personalities so that they grew to reflect them? Or had their parents waited until their personalities became evident before naming them?
It was all a bit too mysterious in her book.
The biggest concern was Selim's title:
Pride the Arrogant.
Ms. Bradley didn't want to think of her son as being arrogant, but if the other names mostly fit, there had to be a reason behind Selim's name as well.
But he was a child. Children couldn't be arrogant.
… Could they?
She tried to think back to their lives from before, but nothing came to mind that offered any help. Selim had been smart, studious, cheerful, and well-mannered. The image of arrogant that she came up with was of a cold, haughty individual, someone who sneered down their noses and thought only of their own worth in comparison to others, and her son couldn't be farther from that image.
Or maybe she was just too close to him to see it. It was hard to see the faults in those one loved.
His interactions with his siblings, Lily feared, told a different story than the one she had believed up until little more than a week ago.
Had she not heard him speak crisply and curtly to Envy? Hadn't she heard him speak to Gluttony as if giving orders? Selim was perfectly capable of putting warning into his voice and the others responded as if the threat was quite real. Despite his size and appearance, they treated him respectfully. There had to be a reason for that beyond just his (she still couldn't believe how old he was!) age.
She could feel her body tensing. She suddenly noticed that her hands were shaking in amongst the flowers and her chest felt tight.
It isn't good to be thinking about this, she thought. I'm just upsetting myself. Purposefully, she took a slow, deep breath to calm herself, and then mentally resolved to put the whole issue aside and focus entirely on the task at hand, the task that she sincerely enjoyed.
Smell the flowers. Pull up any weeds. Remove any broken stems. Look for signs of disease or rot. Remove slugs and other pests. Note which ones need water.
That was it. Just focus on the flowers. They smelled nice and looked pretty and there was no reason for her to worry over anything involving her son or his family. She trusted him and she wasn't in any danger and even if their names were odd, in the end it didn't really matter.
She still felt like she was missing something, though. Something obvious. Something important. Something that maybe Greed or Gluttony had said…
"Eww, gross! What did I just step on?"
She turned from her place on her hands and knees in front of the bed of dahlias at the disruptive outburst to see Envy perform a graceless hop-skip, arms wind-milling briefly to keep from toppling over while trying to look at the bottom of his foot at the same time.
"Damn slug," he muttered once he caught his balance. He seemed to take particular relish in scraping his foot back and forth on the grass a few times before noticing her and strolling over.
Ms. Bradley wisely refrained from pointing out that he wouldn't have stepped on it if he'd been wearing shoes. She knew that Alphonse had made him some proper clothes and she would much have preferred to see him wearing those, but it was summer. Lots of people went barefoot in the summer. She had to pick her battles; getting him into pants or a proper shirt to cover up his bare skin (and she had no idea yet how to go about accomplishing that feat!) trumped getting him to wear shoes. Even if she found going barefoot to be wholly uncivilized. Not even the Ishvalans went so far as to go shoeless. Not that she had anything against them, but she couldn't call living in tents and buildings made of sand and refusing to use sensible things like electricity and alchemy to be the practices of a civilized people, now could she? and even they didn't run around with bare feet like some sort of primitive!
Did he want her for something, or was he just bored?
"How is your eye?" she asked politely once he approached.
Immediately, he took it the wrong way.
"Don't make fun of me," he snapped, hand rising to press against his cheek self-consciously.
"I- I wasn't making fun… I was just asking…" she murmured meekly.
For some reason, he seemed stumped by the idea that she was asking after his well-being. Stumped, and perhaps a little bit uncomfortable.
"Oh…" he said. "… Fine then, I guess. It still hurts if I touch it."
She nodded reasonably. "Hmm, well, that's to be expected. I'm sure it will go away in a few days."
"Geez…" he muttered under his breath, still poking at his face and wincing slightly.
She looked up at him curiously. "Have you never had a bruise before?"
He shook his head. "No, I'm what you'd call a 'quick healer'." He emphasized the phrase as if making a joke and gave a brief chuckle, then added, "Or at least before…" He didn't finish the thought, words trailing off somewhat wistfully and brow furrowing grimly.
She allowed him a few moments of reminiscing, then asked, "Did you want me for something…?"
He placed his hands on his hips and looked down at her with a mix of disbelief and pity.
"What would I want you for?" he sneered, shaking his head with no little condescension. He jerked his chin back towards the corner of the mansion. "Greed and Pride- Oh, sorry, I mean Selim-" The sarcasm in his tone clearly indicated that he was not in the least bit sorry for the slip in name. "-are fighting, and that was fun to watch for a bit, but-"
Ms. Bradley didn't like to interrupt, but she couldn't help herself.
"What do you mean, they're fighting?" she asked with a hint of panic.
Envy only sniffed derisively at her concern.
"Play fighting," he clarified. "Training. Whatever you want to call it. You were there when they were talking about it, so you shouldn't be surprised. Unless you're going senile in your old age." He gave her a mocking smile. "How old are you anyway? By the looks of it, you must be pushing a hundred by now, huh?"
For a second, her breeding in polite society fell away, replaced by a glint of temper. It was only knowing that matching Envy's rudeness with her own rude reply would be counterproductive that caused her to bite her tongue and take a deep, calming breath before re-adopting her mildly polite bearing.
"I'm not quite that old yet," she corrected calmly, if just a tad crisply.
Envy shrugged carelessly. Obviously the question didn't matter to him as much as getting a rise out of her, and he continued with what he'd been saying without bothering to let her reveal her true age.
It only occurred to Ms. Bradley later that, if he really was the age he claimed to be, maybe Envy had only half been trying to antagonize her. Maybe he wasn't really able to judge a human's age and half of the question had been honest ignorance.
"Watching those two fight is only interesting for so long. Gets repetitive after a while. Besides that, it's a waste of time. Who's gonna' pick a fight with a kid anyway?"
The question was clearly rhetorical, so Ms. Bradley didn't comment, instead waiting for Envy to continue speaking. But he didn't, and after a few moments of silence, she suggested, "If you're bored, you could always help me."
He snorted incredulously.
"So not only are you a human, but you're also an optimist? Why would I waste my time on something like flowers, huh?"
She sighed and turned back to her work without replying. If he was going to insist on being rude, then she just wouldn't answer him.
Rather than being put off by her silence, Envy remained where he stood. Lily was able to watch him from the corner of her eye and, as she had first thought, he definitely seemed bored. He watched her without offering to help, but he also stayed out of her way at the same time, his eyes following the movement of her hands among the flowers as she worked.
Without paying her any direct attention, he wasn't nearly so unnerving. Or maybe she was just becoming used to him. His eyes, still sharp and that startling and unnatural reddish-purple colour, hardly seemed cruel when he was just standing there. And without his wide, eerie grin, he didn't feel dangerous to her at all. If anything, he seemed somewhat melancholic and listless. He didn't know what to do with himself and that was an unpleasant feeling for anyone. Briefly, she felt a tinge of pity for him before reminding herself that he had no excuse for being bored when she'd just offered him something to do and he'd rejected it.
After a few minutes of being watched, Ms. Bradley used stiffness as an excuse to move out from under her son's brother's eyes.
Maybe he wasn't being threatening, but she certainly found it uncomfortable to have him watching her the way he was!
She stood up to stretch, her back and joints cracking and popping in protest. King had sometimes grumbled over growing old and, coming from him, that had always seemed a fine joke to her; her husband had had the strength and stamina of men half his age and, rather than being grateful for his good health, he had begrudged the fact that he could no longer pull off those victories without some accompanying aches and pains. His mastery of his body had always astounded her; she, on the other hand, felt the passage of time more and more acutely. Yes, she wasn't a hundred yet and maybe she had another forty years ahead of her, but age and stiffness waited for no one.
Backing up a few steps, Lily studied the effects of her labour. She had affixed one of the plants back to its post, for it had somehow freed itself and the weight of the flower had been pushing the plant dangerously close to breaking at the stem. She had plucked off a few dead leaves, making the entire bed look greener. It wasn't really necessary, but she had also removed some stray debris from around the plants' bases, making them appear tidier. In her opinion, that made the garden look nicer, and it was easier to see and pick weeds if they weren't hidden under other detritus.
Envy watched her satisfied nod and, to her surprise, returned to his last comment with honest curiosity, "Why do you waste your time on flowers?"
"What do you mean?" she asked as she turned around and headed for the mansion and the bench for a rest.
Envy trotted lightly beside her and gestured towards the garden. "Well, it kind of makes sense to waste your time on vegetables. I mean, humans gotta' eat, so there's some practical value there. But flowers? You don't eat flowers, so there's no good reason to spend any time growing them. It doesn't make sense. Not that humans ever make a lot of sense."
Somewhat coyly, Ms. Bradley countered, "If you answer a question for me, I'll tell you."
"Oh?" He sounded intrigued and a bit amused by the idea of a trade.
They reached the side of the mansion and, with a soft sigh, Ms. Bradley settled onto the bench, making sure to leave enough room for Envy to join her, though he studiously ignored the small pat she gave the seat beside her.
"Why does Selim have the name 'Pride'?"
He glanced down at her and raised an eyebrow in surprise, grinned and opened his mouth to reply, and then hesitated, seemingly reconsidering what he'd been about to say. Absently, his hand rose to press against his bruised cheek again.
"Pride was pretty clear about not wanting us to tell you about it. I've been pushing my luck with him as it is. Besides, if I was to really explain it, you'd be completely lost. Wasn't the explanation you got before good enough?"
"Well, Greed said that your names all mean something, but I don't understand why the meanings are necessary. Selim isn't really all that arrogant, is he?" she asked innocently.
Envy actually laughed at that.
"Like I said," he said, "you're just a dumb, ignorant human, so of course you'd think that! Pride is plenty arrogant, but he wouldn't show you that! Trust me, the name fits him." And he continued to chuckle to himself, over the way she'd been tricked or over her ignorance in general, Ms. Bradley couldn't tell.
This 'humans-as-lesser-beings' theme that he seemed to find so amusing was starting to annoy her.
"Then how does 'jealous' fit you?" she asked in the hope of taking him down a notch.
As she'd intended, Envy's amusement cut off mid-chuckle, much as it had earlier that morning, and the dark scowl that crossed his face made Lily wonder if she hadn't made a poor decision in saying what she had. His hands clenched into fists at his side and his cheeks and lips pinched angrily. But his frown, rather than being directed at her, seemed focused on some thing or memory that she couldn't see.
He snapped out of it quickly, though, and the rapidity with which he replaced the frown with haughty self-possession was far scarier than the frown by itself.
"'Jealous' fits me," he explained in a disinterested tone, "because I make everyone else jealous of me."
This was surely a lie, but Ms. Bradley knew it would be far too rude (and probably dangerous) to call him out on it, so she merely hummed in acknowledgement.
"Well?" he griped after a moment. "This was a trade, wasn't it? Aren't you going to uphold your part of the bargain?"
Lily had almost forgotten that he had asked a question first and it took her a second to recall what it had been.
"Maybe there isn't any practical use in growing flowers," she acknowledged, "but they're very pretty, don't you think?"
The look he gave her was part dumbfounded, part amazed.
"Pretty?" he repeated in disbelief. "Pretty? Are you being stupid on purpose? Who cares if they're pretty or not! You'd waste so much effort for such a stupid reason? You know they're just going to die when winter comes anyway. There's no point!"
Sedately, Ms. Bradley ignored the outburst.
"It's true," she deferred gently, "they don't last very long and they don't serve any practical purpose. But I like doing it. And…"
She paused for a moment, enjoying the warmth of the sun on her face, looking out over the garden and seeing, with great pleasure, the vibrant colours of the flowers and the swaying green leaves and the flittering butterflies and bees; hearing the birdsong in the trees and the quiet babbling of the fountain; smelling the tantalizing scent of roses and soil and grass and a million other things.
"… There's something nice about nurturing life. Maybe the flowers will die in a short while, but I won't be around forever either. As long as I get to enjoy life, it's only right to help other things live as well, don't you think?"
She heard Envy's feet shift in the grass and when she turned to look at him, he had already started to walk away.
"If you'll excuse me," he called cordially over his shoulder, "I'm just going to find a particularly nice flowerbed to be sick in."
If there's one thing to be said about Selim's rude and inappropriately dressed brother, Ms. Bradley thought with a sigh, it's that he certainly knows how to ruin a moment!
