crackplot.

[herfourthorns]

*a flower-pot, overturned where it had been left outside at the rose's request, spilling soil and one delicate little foot that flows into a leg and the figure of a girl, lain out in the sun asleep with only her long red hair to cover her -- like a sleeping princess, the blind and enchanted innocent, but as she wakes she can only become aware that

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[fingersofleaf]

Percy kneels by her carefully, though, with one of his old t-shirts in hand; he noticed her earlier and dodged into the house to get her something to wear, and now he's beside her.

"Hey," softly. "Hey--Rose?"

[herfourthorns]

The little rose no longer a rose stirs at the sound of his voice, stretching foreign limbs instead of leaves and yet not realizing those limbs are a part of her. "Oh ... ! What a strange dream I've been having ..."

[fingersofleaf]

"Like what?" He sits down, then, beside her, open.

[herfourthorns]

"I dreamed I'd ... changed. Like those caterpillars, you know, that they say become butterflies ... or the way I'd been a seed, once, sleeping in the ground." Her tone becoming a tone of confidence, as though this is sharing a great secret, and not one obvious to all gardeners: "Can you believe I was once a seed in the ground ...? It's true."

[false_kyllikki]

Kyllikki has been walking the edges of the mansion's grounds today, teaching herself not to dread the strange forests and the strangely hot sunlight--smiling on the gardens outside of the cottages, until she reaches Percy's cottage, and sees the girl sprawled upon the ground-- "Oh! Are you not well? Are you hurt?" she asks, scurrying to kneel at her side.

[herfourthorns]

The girl stifles a yawn, lifting herself on crooked elbows, hair hanging to dust the ground as she blinks behind it. "You needn't speak so loudly! How could I be hurt, who could hurt me, whem I have my thorns ..."

[false_kyllikki]

Kyllikki is a little entranced by her hair; she has never really seen red hair before, and it's beautiful-- "Thorns?" she asks, smiling uncertainly.

[herfourthorns]

"My thorns, my thorns ..." She extends a tiny hand, with tiny fingers -- and quite shrieks as soon as she glimpses them. "Oh!"