MYOSOTIS

Chapter Two

              While I walked in the castle, my destination was clear in my mind. Following the warm and familiar scents, my feet easily lead me to the kitchens.

              Just like I couldn’t leave without saying goodbye to Balm, I couldn’t leave without saying goodbye to Poppy. After my mother’s death she had taken an important place in the female figures in my life. While my maid Endine who had always been there for me, was still alive and going on strong, she wasn’t motherly like Poppy was. Maybe it was just the warm bread that made her so, but still, I found myself much more attached to the old cook then the old maid. Maybe it also had something to do with the fact that the old cook never reprimanded me though.

              When I stepped in the warm room, Poppy was there running around and giving orders, telling one to put more salt, and another to stop feeding the oven with wood before he burned the breakfast.

              The minute she saw me, a loving smile filled her flour covered face.

              “Child! I thought you’d leave without saying goodbye,” she exclaimed, and rushed over to me to pinch my cheeks for good measure and hug me.

              I smiled at her while she wiped the flour she had put on my face. “How could I leave without saying goodbye?”

              “Oh but I would have understood, busy girl you are,” she smiled and took my hand in hers. “Come, come, I have something for you.”

              I couldn’t keep from smiling around her. She just had so much energy and a happy aura around her. I didn’t feel this way around a lot of people. Actually I only felt that way around her.

              I followed her while she walked all the way to the other side of the kitchen, where she usually stayed to work and laughed when she slapped Mullein, her son, on the back of the head telling him to stir and stop looking at pretty girls.

              Mullein was a bit younger than me but seeing that I was so often hiding in the kitchens I knew the boy well. His father had died when my mother had. Since then, he had spent all his days following his mother in the kitchens, never going out of the castle. When his mother would be too old to work, he would surly replace her. His was still in the years where he looked lanky, his limbs gangly, but the boy knew his way around the kitchen.

              Poppy stopped behind her counter, and took off the cover from over the single plate there, revealing a single cinnamon bun.

              My smile grew and I took the food eagerly. I still hadn’t eaten today after all.

              “A full basket is waiting for you my dear.” Poppy smiled, taking the plate away “They won’t be as warm the longer you wait to eat them but they should still be good.”

              This was why I loved her. Nothing tasted more like home then those warm cinnamon rolls that just melted in my mouth.

               “So? What are the latest gossips,” I asked smiling and took a big bite.

              Poppy fanned herself with the cloth she had wiped the counter with. “You’re not going to like this sweetie,” she made a clicking sound with her cheek.

              “What?” I asked, hiding my full mouth with my hand.

              “I might be wrong… but with what I’ve heard from people passing by… I think someone might be planning an attack on you, while you ride to the Clematis castle.”

              I swallowed and nodded. “Predictable.”

              “Yes. Be ready Low-Lily,” she said solemnly before narrowing her eyes at something behind me and barking a command at the boy in charge of the oven again.

              After she was done, I felt the need to remind her, “How many times do I have to tell you to call me Acacia?”

              “And how many times do I have to tell you that you need to put some weight on those bones” she smiled, pinching my cheek.

              I felt just like a kid when she did that.

              I shrugged. “I’m too stressed.”

              “Well don’t be. Warn the Oaks that will escort you. They are trained men; they can protect you adequately,”

              I nodded, not completely convinced though and started to pick little pieces of my cinnamon roll.

              “I heard he was handsome.” she said, and in her tone of voice, it was evident that she was trying to cheer me up, “Very, very handsome.”

              I exhaled an amused breathe. “And that affects me how?”

              “Well you will be Ipomoea to him. Don’t you want him to be attractive,” she asked me, frowning.

              Again, I shrugged. “As long as he can use his brain, has common sense and judgement I will be happy. I will have to be with him either way. And I don’t see what all this fuss about men being handsome is. So what if he is pretty to look at. If he is not, look the other way.”

              Poppy had a small amused smile on her lips. “What,” I asked her.

              She shook her head “Nothing… you simply have a lot to learn Child,” she laughed softly and kept shaking her head.

              I narrowed my eyes. “I don’t like when people make fun of me,” I mumbled and finished my food.

              Yes, I knew I was young, but wasn’t a child anymore, I was Eighteen White Seasons, and I would soon Ipomoea with the Low-Lily of Clematis to ensure the security of my city, of Iris. The least I could ask for was respect for doing so.

              I had heard so many times, about the love a couple shared, this indescribable bound they had once they Ipomoea and were forever united. The stories I was told before going to bed always reminded me of it. But I didn’t understand it fully. I did not see the utility of it. To me, people that loved that much only ended up hurt. Love hurt. My father was proof enough.

              The old cook, with the slowly greying hair lifted my chin with her finger to make me look at her “I am not making fun of you Acacia. I simply find your innocence refreshing”

              “You make it sound like I’m naïve.” I grumbled, my eyes looking down “I’m not naïve.”

              “Yes I know that. I know you know what lies ahead of you. You understand duty more than lot of people of your age. But there are few things you still need to learn Low-Lily. Be happy about that. Be happy that you don’t know everything just yet.” I looked up at her smiling face before sighing.

              “I’d rather know everything right away, that way there is no surprises.” I admitted.

              “Don’t worry Low-Lily. Things will be alright. Our ancient believes rest on your shoulders, the Flora won’t leave you alone to accomplish your duties.” She smiled more, but it was a bit teasing now.

              “That does not stress me more, at all” I snorted and I think she noticed the sarcasm there because she laughed.

              “Enough chitchatting now,” she exclaimed, clapping her hands “Be on your way. You have a carriage to get in and a Low-Lily to bring home. The sooner the better, even though my son don’t agree with that fact.” She looked towards where her son was stirring the pancake mixing and I looked his way too just in time to see his cheek turn red.

              I frowned and looked back at the old lady. “What do you mean?”

              “Attraction Child. All about attraction,” she laughed.

              “You’re confusing me…”

              “Good. Now shoo. On your way,” she said, waving me away with her cloth and her hands.

              I shook my head, smiling a bit “Myosotis Poppy”

              “Myosotis Acacia, be safe.”

              I grabbed the basket full of cinnamon rolls and answered “I will” before leaving the kitchen.

              My next and final stop was to see my father. The stop I was dreading the most and trying as much as I could to delay. Technically, my father was supposed to accompany me to Clematis, but I was no fool, I knew he would say he needed to stay in the city to take care of it. Even in my mind this sounded more reasonable, but for some reason, even though my father was barely ever present anymore and only a shadow of what he had been, having him by my side for the next few days would help. Knowing that I could rely on someone older and with more power would feel securing. But of course he wouldn’t come. I should not even think about a different outcome.

              My parents hadn’t had more children then me. This was not an uncommon thing in the ruling Lily families. Too many potential heirs to the throne lead to conflict in the household. My father had lost his two brothers over fights to know who would be the ruler of Iris. So because of that, my father and I were the last two members of the ruling Lily family in Iris. When my father would die or relinquish his rights to me I would take his place. The fact that I was a woman didn’t matter. To rule over a city, to be a High-Lily the gender didn’t matter, what mattered is that you needed to be Ipomoea. And soon I would be.

            The walk to his quarters was quick. I wanted this to be done so I could be gone.

            When I reached the big double doors of his study, the two Oaks guarding it, smiled and opened them.

            Now that I was there though, I couldn’t help but walk slowly. The room that only contained my father’s working desk and another one for his page was big, too big for a simple study, the walls maybe ten times my height.

             As I walked towards my father, sitting behind his desk, still unaware of my entrance, my eyes glued to the wall on my right covered by a thick green curtain. Even though I couldn’t see it, I knew that behind it stood a great painting of my mother that almost covered the entire wall. In my mind it was kind of vain to have painted the thing in the first place. Now it was a weight on my father. He couldn’t bear to look at it but he couldn’t bear to have it removed either.

              I tore my gaze from the curtains and looked ahead, at the windows behind my father’s head, bowed over his work. The entire wall behind him was a window, the bottom part, doors that opened on a balcony and had a vu on the garden.

              How could he go day by day, with that sight behind him and not be affected?

              I took a deep breathe before speaking. I could do this. “Father?”

              “What is it daughter?” It took him a few agonizing seconds to answer and his tone made it quite evident that I was bothering him.

              “Well, I’m leaving soon,” I said in a small voice.

              “Yes that is right. I am sorry, but I will not be accompanying you.” He looked up from his work and at me “Someone has to stay and take care of the city, you see.”

              I nodded just a bit, scared to make any sudden move. “Yes, I see.”

              “Now remember this Daughter.” This time, his gaze was directed straight at me. I fought against looking away. “You will obey your Future and his parents every word and follow their orders. If we cannot conclude this alliance with them then we could lose our status as the First city of our Land. They are growing stronger and stronger and without this alliance they will be more than us. Iris has always been the Prime city. Things must stay this way. So do not compromise the future of our city for pity reasons. Do not jeopardize everything your family has worked centuries to build.”

              “Yes Father” I fought the tears building in my eyes. Even after all those years I still held on to the hope the father I had grew up with would come back. And every time those hopes were shattered. No kind words, no “be safe”, no “I am proud of you daughter for giving everything up”. Nothing. Just cold words and cold stares.

              “You may go now.”

              I bit my bottom lip to stop it from quivering with the tears I was still fighting against. “As you wish Father. Myo,”

              “Yes, yes, goodbye.” He waved, dismissing me, looking back down at the papers in front of him.

              I turned around and tried not to run out of the room crying. There was no reason to cry. This wasn’t the man my mother had loved, the man that had raised me. He didn’t deserve my tears.

              And I would save our city, I wouldn’t let Clematis supplant us and destroy our beliefs, beliefs that should be theirs too in the first place. And I would do it my way.