A Garden of Flowers and Bones [Lloyd Garmadon x Reader]

Chapter 22: As Fortuna sits idly by, I spin her wheel with all my might

Crushing my kin for warring wage,
Minted from the ivory of my tooth and eye

Under the table where she dines
I sit hungry with my mouth foamed white
Fighting for crumbs that trickle down
As she finishes her cake and takes a bite out of mine

-----------------------

Rainy season kicked off with a bang. 

Quite literally, as thunder rumbled over the hills that morning. Y/N had elected to stay with her, counting the beats between each drum, soothing her back to sleep in the early hours. Earlier, she'd moved the reblooming geraniums on the porch further in to shelter them from the onslaught of rain (after draining their soil from when they were initially caught in it). Being in the woods meant that the soil in these parts were deep and loamy, so the garden would survive well as it had in all other rainy seasons. It was more towards Aramore, where there was thick rock just a few layers beneath the soil, that things like that became an issue for gardens.

But the area was very hilly, with slopes and inclines throughout the woodland. Even Summerville itself and several other villages in the county, had some hills you had to travel over to get there or even in town. One hill was pretty large- it was the one she would chase Dwyn over and roll down in the summer when they were both much younger. And one of the branching villages surrounding Aramore was called Fence Houses, and it was built on a higher hill so no matter what area you tried to enter the town from, you had to trek all the way up. Even if it wasn't a steep incline, but rather gradual, her legs had hurt. But she had only visited there once with Cedric, thank the Goddess.

She'd left in boots and a large coat from her father. The heat was near unbearable with that packed outer layer, so it was better to wear something lighter beneath her dress so that she wasn't as tempted to take it off. The charming, stainless bangle she'd been given the day before had been neatly wrapped in the handkerchief Dwyn had given her, and stowed away in the draw at her bedside so that she could reach it easily.

There would probably never come a time when she'd be allowed to wear it out and about. Only a formal situation would call for it, like a wedding... but probably not her own wedding. Something about that thought made her stomach turn. Wearing the gift of another man at her wedding with a someone else was just wrong. It felt like someone had stabbed a fork into her guts and birled them around like spaghetti.

Hey. Turns out she did have some integrity left... and here she'd thought it was all lost after the stupid stunt she'd pulled the day before.

-

The rain didn't start until the afternoon. She noticed the way a few customers had looked at her, and whispered on the other side of the window after leaving. When she came to the back on her break, unable to leave comfortably, Gayle and Dareth were having a solemn conversation.

"... from the flu."

"Oh, that's terrible. I'm so sorry..." Dareth had shaken his head, a distraught look on his face.

"Sue was beside herself all day yesterday. She's still dead to the world, but I'll pass along your condolences when she's better."

"I hope she gets well soon. Nobody deserves that. It must be a lot of stress to her body when she's sick on top of it all."

"She blames herself for it."

"It's not her fault!"

"We all know that. It doesn't help that Margot threw a fit at her as soon as she heard the news. It was a complete disaster..." Gayle shook her head, "I mean, the baby died so soon after it was placed under her care."