la belle dame sans merci | carlisle cullen

45

TW: Blood, self harm for ritualistic reasons. Enjoy!

March 6th dragged its feet to arrive. The days following Waylon's funeral, Minerva felt more like a ghost than she had in the last two months. It was her mistake, really, to forego the February full moon. She'd been holding out that it would pass, that she'd derieve the meaning from the dreams she was supposed to and everything would be fine. It wasn't fine. Nothing was fine.

If her mind wasn't disracted by the horrors of her nights or the exhaustion, it was occupied by her mortal friend. He'd done a great job of distracting her during the funeral but when that passed, she was resigned to her thoughts once more. She hadn't seen him since. If Carlisle had even an inkling of mutuality to the feelings she had, she'd hopefully squashed his hopes. Keeping her heart in check would be a hell of a lot more difficult if he wouldn't do the same. It would make enjoying his company until her time in Forks expired nearly impossible if she had to stop seeing him all together, if there was no Carlisle that time would come a lot sooner.

Daylight and the responsibilities that came with it drug their feet just as much as the days proceeding. In better times, the likes of which Minerva could hardly remember, she might have been excited. Bella was coming in after school to learn the ropes, to get a feel for the place and make a final decision of if she wanted the job. It'd only be a couple hours but she still felt a bit of dread in the pit of her stomach. Dread that had nothing to do with Bella.

Minerva had been face down behind the counter trying to scrounge around for a dropped pen when the bell over the door jingled. She pushed herself up on her hands to glance over the counter, "Hey!" She greeted.

"Hi." Bella said nervously glancing around. "I've never been in here before." She admitted, taking in the space for a long moment as Minerva got off the floor. There's no way she'd forget she dropped the pen, as soon as she went to write something she'd be floored to find it missing- it was her favourite. "I like what you've done with the place."

"Thanks." Minerva said with a smile, glancing around. Her eyes were too well accustomed to the small shop, in her mind it could use some remodelling. The decor she'd a couple years ago was nice but outside of it, the walls were a monotone grey and the floors were covered in cracked linoleum. It was a project waiting to happen but for some stupid reason, she decided on starting with the basement. "It does the job." She responded.

"Is that real?" She pointed to the far wall, covered with greenery. It had been a hell of a task. The wall was water damaged but the structure behind it had been perfectly fine. Instead of replacing it, she put up a metal grate and encouraged a little life to cover it.

"Yeah, you can touch it." Minerva suggested as the girl stared at it in wonder.

Bella paced over, gingerly examining some leaves and flower pods waiting to bloom. "How do you get anything to grow? The suns never out."

"All the lights are grow lights." She admitted with a shrug. It wasn't a lie but it certainly wasn't the grow lights that kept things alive. Bella looked transfixed.

"I hate that the suns never out. Everthing outside looks so drab compared to this." The girl commented earning a slight smile. "It's beautiful."

"Well, hopefully you'll be seeing a lot of it." Minerva says, making her way over to the counter again. "Most of what I do is assembling orders, sometimes deliveries. It's never crazy busy in here but given the greyness of this town, some people are pretty consistent in getting flowers."

Bella rose her eyebrows a little, "Are you the only flower shop in town?"

The older woman winced, "I am now." She felt awful about it. There wasn't much she could do about the quality of her flowers. Once she'd came into town, the other shop closed down pretty quickly.  "You paint at all?" Minerva asked to switch gears.