rocky road and strawberries with fresh peaches and pinapples
Story: Timeless { backstory | index }
Title: Peonies
Rating: G
Challenge: Rocky Road #23: a grave, Strawberries #27: ribbon
Toppings/Extras: fresh peaches, fresh pineapple
Wordcount: 648
Summary: A visit to Rosalind Ashdown’s grave.
Notes: Thanks for the inspiration, Phil! Peaches: Venus squares Saturn tonight and it’s hard to express real emotions. Pineapple: Though there’s no-one there to guide you/ No-one to take your hand/ But with faith and understanding/ You will journey from boy to man.-“Son of Man”, Phil Collins.
A year had passed since Rosalind’s coffin-made of brightly polished red wood, ornately decorated-had been lowered into the earth. It had been a frigid winter day: she had died not long after Christmas. People in black had surrounded the deep hole in the earth, saddened but not surprised, fog rolling up from the Thames despite the fact it was already mid-morning. Weak, strained sunlight had drooped from the sky.
A year later and the weather was exactly the same. A cycle, as everything seemed to be nowadays. It was a little earlier in the day, meaning that the grass was still brittle with frost, and the fog was far thicker and in more abundance. It lethargically hung amidst the trees and the graves, unwilling to leave.
Edward Ashdown stood at the foot of the grave, looking at it without expression on his face. He would be twenty in just a couple of weeks. His days of being called ‘the teenage businessman’ would be over. Despite his young age, he had risen quickly in the esteem of others, particularly because of his skills as a route-planner and strategist. His father made dealings in East India, almost always away, and his mother had died a few months before.
That hadn’t bothered him overmuch, though he felt like it should have.
His associate Isaac Prowse stood a little way behind him, arms folded, facing perpendicularly to his young master. He had been close to Rosalind, Edward reflected, and he had done everything in his power to prevent the two of them from becoming so. Perhaps he shouldn’t have. Rosalind had loved the stoic assassin’s company simply for the stories that he told, and the street-born roughster had fallen absolute prey to her innocent, fawn-like eyes. She used to wind him around her little finger, but it hadn’t been like that, and Edward knew it very well.
Crouching down, he laid down the lilies he had brought for her. They were white and sweet and pungent, petals bright against the earth. He’d never brought roses for Rosalind: they didn’t suit her. Roses were lively, passionate, vibrant, dark. Rosalind was a lily. An innocent, flawless, angelic creature. Pure.
He turned around and raised his hand. Prowse silently handed him the flowers he’d brought, a much smaller bunch, tied by a white ribbon. Edward looked at them for a moment.
“Peonies,” he said, voice cutting the unearthly silence. “Why peonies?”
The tiny, immaculate, scrunchy-petalled flowers looked up at him; the faintest pinks and whites, ruffled like tulle or lace. They were prettily fragrant, not with the same overwhelming sweetness of the lilies he’d brought; their scent was more subtle.
“I don’t know,” Prowse said after a long pause. “They look nice.”
That sort of response would usually have been followed by a stinging remark, but Edward said nothing for a while. He dropped them onto the grave and stood up, dusting his hands off.
“They’re beautiful, peonies,” he said, “but the blossoms are very short-lived. They’re there one moment, gone the next. The petals are scarcely open before the flower is dead. Fitting, I suppose. An ideal symbol for the brevity of life.”
Prowse said nothing. Edward reflected that there wasn’t really much that could be said in response to that. Was that what people meant when they talked about conversational skills? He knew a lot of words, but apparently not the right ones.
He looked at the flowers for a while, feeling unusual, though he wasn’t sure in what way. He supposed he just wished that she hadn’t died. That was normal enough, wasn’t it?
“Let’s go,” he said, and turned away, boots crunching on the hard grass, biting into the cold ground. He knew from the silence that Prowse didn’t move from the graveside for a moment, just a brief hesitation before he heard footfalls behind him.
He didn’t mind.
Title: Peonies
Rating: G
Challenge: Rocky Road #23: a grave, Strawberries #27: ribbon
Toppings/Extras: fresh peaches, fresh pineapple
Wordcount: 648
Summary: A visit to Rosalind Ashdown’s grave.
Notes: Thanks for the inspiration, Phil! Peaches: Venus squares Saturn tonight and it’s hard to express real emotions. Pineapple: Though there’s no-one there to guide you/ No-one to take your hand/ But with faith and understanding/ You will journey from boy to man.-“Son of Man”, Phil Collins.
A year had passed since Rosalind’s coffin-made of brightly polished red wood, ornately decorated-had been lowered into the earth. It had been a frigid winter day: she had died not long after Christmas. People in black had surrounded the deep hole in the earth, saddened but not surprised, fog rolling up from the Thames despite the fact it was already mid-morning. Weak, strained sunlight had drooped from the sky.
A year later and the weather was exactly the same. A cycle, as everything seemed to be nowadays. It was a little earlier in the day, meaning that the grass was still brittle with frost, and the fog was far thicker and in more abundance. It lethargically hung amidst the trees and the graves, unwilling to leave.
Edward Ashdown stood at the foot of the grave, looking at it without expression on his face. He would be twenty in just a couple of weeks. His days of being called ‘the teenage businessman’ would be over. Despite his young age, he had risen quickly in the esteem of others, particularly because of his skills as a route-planner and strategist. His father made dealings in East India, almost always away, and his mother had died a few months before.
That hadn’t bothered him overmuch, though he felt like it should have.
His associate Isaac Prowse stood a little way behind him, arms folded, facing perpendicularly to his young master. He had been close to Rosalind, Edward reflected, and he had done everything in his power to prevent the two of them from becoming so. Perhaps he shouldn’t have. Rosalind had loved the stoic assassin’s company simply for the stories that he told, and the street-born roughster had fallen absolute prey to her innocent, fawn-like eyes. She used to wind him around her little finger, but it hadn’t been like that, and Edward knew it very well.
Crouching down, he laid down the lilies he had brought for her. They were white and sweet and pungent, petals bright against the earth. He’d never brought roses for Rosalind: they didn’t suit her. Roses were lively, passionate, vibrant, dark. Rosalind was a lily. An innocent, flawless, angelic creature. Pure.
He turned around and raised his hand. Prowse silently handed him the flowers he’d brought, a much smaller bunch, tied by a white ribbon. Edward looked at them for a moment.
“Peonies,” he said, voice cutting the unearthly silence. “Why peonies?”
The tiny, immaculate, scrunchy-petalled flowers looked up at him; the faintest pinks and whites, ruffled like tulle or lace. They were prettily fragrant, not with the same overwhelming sweetness of the lilies he’d brought; their scent was more subtle.
“I don’t know,” Prowse said after a long pause. “They look nice.”
That sort of response would usually have been followed by a stinging remark, but Edward said nothing for a while. He dropped them onto the grave and stood up, dusting his hands off.
“They’re beautiful, peonies,” he said, “but the blossoms are very short-lived. They’re there one moment, gone the next. The petals are scarcely open before the flower is dead. Fitting, I suppose. An ideal symbol for the brevity of life.”
Prowse said nothing. Edward reflected that there wasn’t really much that could be said in response to that. Was that what people meant when they talked about conversational skills? He knew a lot of words, but apparently not the right ones.
He looked at the flowers for a while, feeling unusual, though he wasn’t sure in what way. He supposed he just wished that she hadn’t died. That was normal enough, wasn’t it?
“Let’s go,” he said, and turned away, boots crunching on the hard grass, biting into the cold ground. He knew from the silence that Prowse didn’t move from the graveside for a moment, just a brief hesitation before he heard footfalls behind him.
He didn’t mind.