anti-otp: rosencrantz and ophelia are ... gardening?

[allsweetflowers]

Some days are kinder than others. Some days, she can feel life like sunlight, warm on her face and the back of her neck, warm on the top of her head as it is bowed over the flowers she's planting. Life like the seeds in her protective palms, like the earth beneath her careful, digging fingers, the stems and petals and tentative sprouts. (Days like

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[permanent_blur]

And what a day. There is nothing that Rosencrantz loves so well as warmth, as warm light, as warm life, as warm earth under his fingernails, digging up in the dirt beside her. There is nothing that suits him so well as sitting and smiling in the sunshine, and nothing like making things and making things grow --

He glances at her from time to time, and smiles, or he presses the seeds down one at a time as if each one is the most important thing in the world. Perhaps he whistles.

[allsweetflowers]

"There is water, in the can just there at thy left hand," she says softly (soft light and soft earth deserve soft words) and it's the first thing spoken in what may have been forever. "The sun is hot, and the seeds would welcome a drink."

(there is something earthy and homey and comfortingly resting about this, about gardening with a friend who has no expectations or agenda or issues of his own - beyond those belonging to every confused mortal, but none particularly dreadful - something relaxing, and sweet.)

[permanent_blur]

and imagine a confused young man, with nothing to be confused to be about -- or nothing more than usual, no one to mix him up or order him about, but an afternoon and a nice young girl, and a request to water the seeds, please. and he does, softly (like light and earth) but eagerly (like light) -- droplets from the watering can scatter all over the dirt --

"oh, they'll be quite happy for it, i expect. you must get a bit parched, mustn't you, stuck in the ground like that -- except they're not stuck, really. or at least --" the silly little edge of a smile. "not for very long."

[allsweetflowers]

She runs her fingers through the loosened dirt, the crumbles of soil dark against her always-pale skin. "Ay, not very long at all," she reflects, "coming from the earth as from a mother's womb; and not very long, either, until the endless return, as though into the tomb..."