All Around You (Troyler AU)

Chapter 17: Stunning Sage

Tyler's P.O.V

Just as Troye had suggested a couple weeks ago, I had been spending a lot more time with Tyde and Sage. Troye had been filling in for all of Steele's meetings why he was away, so I had a lot of free time to spend. Honestly, I was really enjoying my time with them. Sage and Tyde were so sweet and nice; I had no problem bonding with them. Due to our age differences, it honestly felt like any other time I had spent with my own siblings.

Today I was sitting out on the castle grounds, close by the gates, with Sage. We sat in the perfect spot in the cool green grass right under the shade of a few trees with large, hanging branches. We had picked this particular spot because it was alive with blossoming flowers of every shape and color growing every which way. Sage was sitting in front of me, a load of flowers placed on her lap as she tried to teach me how to make a flower crown. The flowers in my lap weren't as healthy as hers, as I had basically ripped mine out of the ground and didn't hold them so carefully.

"I don't know what my problem is but they're not staying together!" I whined.

"You're tying them in knots!" Sage giggled as she watched my pathetic attempts to weave the stems together. I paused and stared down at the flowers in my hands.

"...Is that not how you're supposed to do it?"

Sage laughed and shook her head quickly. She put aside the long string of flowers she had already created and held up a new fresh batch of flowers. "Watch me," she said slowly. She began to weave the flower stems together as carefully and slowly as possible to make sure I understood just what she was doing. I tried to recreate her movements exactly, but I just couldn't. She had an unfair advantage of spending much more time doing this than I had. It had only been about a minute and she already had what looked like half of a perfect flower crown, while all of mine looked horrible.

"Well, you got the basic technique down," she said softly. "It would've helped if you had experience in braiding hair. I've braided my hair so often, making flower crowns comes naturally. It's basically all one in the same..."

"Maybe next you could teach me how to braid hair! Braids look nice I want to know how to do it!"

Sage giggled as she worked. "After doing this, you'll basically know how anyways."

"Can I braid your hair after making this?" I asked and I held up the half-decent flower crown.

"No!" she objected with a playful laugh. "You're not getting your hands near my hair after you've done all that!"

I laughed right back at her. "But you're going to put the flower crown in your hair anyways! What's wrong with my hands?"

"Alright, you got me there," she conceded. "Maybe you can braid my hair. We'll see."

I smiled widely at her and kept working on my flower crown. I was looking at her work and comparing it to mine. Sage had picked a variety of brightly colored flowers of all different shapes and sizes. She had told me that it didn't matter as long as their stems were the right length. I, on the other hand, stuck to using only white flowers. Some of them were daisies but the rest was just a giant plethora of as many white flowers as I could find. I wanted to stick with one central theme and color before branching off into all of those wildflowers. Besides, I thought the whole thing looked very aesthetically pleasing.

"I hate the way mine looks. Why is this so hard?"

"I don't think flowers were created with the intention of braiding them together to wear," Sage laughed sarcastically. "But yours looks great! Don't judge yourself so hard! You're only a beginner after all, and for a beginner, that looks fantastic!"