Bee And Foxglove

Foxglove Forgets To Eat

I've often considered that on Earth, the snowdrop flower is proof positive that God is an aspiring author.

The snowdrop is white, delicate, pristine, a wonder; its petals hang weeping from its slender stem like an arctic hare's desklamp. If I were to describe a certain world, and say that in this world, the very first flowers, poking through the very last snows of the year – those flowers heralding, in whispered tones, the yearned-for arrival of spring – if I said that those flowers were, essentially, a distillation of snow; as delicate, crisp and pure as the vanishing winter itself —

Well, you'd accuse me of paying too much attention to my world building and not enough on fleshing out the characters.

You might then add something about run-on sentences.

And beginning a paragraph with the word "and".

It's lucky, then, that the very first flowers in Kandra did not look like spring's yearning herald. They looked, instead, remarkably like little orange flames, sticking out of the snow like a middle finger to poets everywhere.

"Bee!" cried Foxglove one morning. "I found a snowflame!"

"Already?" asked Bee, looking up from chopping up the fallen cinnamon-plum tree with a magically-enhanced axe.

"Yeah," said Foxglove. She ran up to Bee and showed her the flower she'd picked. Then she gave her a kiss on the cheek. "I'm cold, I'm going to go back in and make some tea," she said.

"Okay, I'll hurry up with this and see you in a moment," said Bee.

"Don't use too much magic, Teddybee! Just leave it half-done if you have to."

"Who, me? Magic?" said Bee with a faux-innocent expression. Rainbow coloured sparks jumped off her axe on cue.

Foxglove winced and laughed. "Just look after yourself, please?"

"Of course," said Bee.

*

Bee came in twenty minutes later.

"Oh, good, the water's still hot," said Foxglove. She handed Bee a half-full teacup with the now-wilted snowflame flower in it and topped it up from the kettle.

"Thanks, honey," said Bee. She took a sip. The orange, fiery flower had a cooling, minty kind of taste. Just because, apparently.*

*Simply in order to be contrary, as far as any scholars could tell.

"There's a letter for you," said Foxglove, pointing to the table.

"Cool," said Bee. Lately mail had been plentiful and largely bolstering to her sense of self-importance. She opened it.

Dear Bee,

I don't know if you remember me. This is Lisa, from school? I used to walk with a cane because of my back problem.

"Do you remember Lisa, from school?" Bee asked Foxglove over the top of her letter.

"The one who used a cane?"

"Yeah."

"Sad that's the first thing I remember about her," said Foxglove. "I think she was rather shy. She kind of faded into the background a bit."

"Hm," said Bee. She read on.

I wanted to talk to you at the pub after your show. But there were so many people who seemed to want your attention, and I didn't want to be invasive. I decided to just write you a letter.