The Realm of the Sun

Flowers and Weeds

          Sir Finnian walked back from the battlefield after a long day of training and sparring with his brothers and the other knights. Dirt covered his hands and face and he had already begun to rip off his armor. Despite the changing season, it was still quite warm and he could not be bothered to be weighed down by steel for another second. He dragged himself across the drawbridge. Once inside, was face to face with Lady Alainne and Lady Saoirse.

          "Ladies," Finnian said with a polite smile, hinging at his waist to bow to them and bending over entirely too far, due to the heavy plate of steel attached to his back. Alainne giggled, blushing as her eyes grew rounder.

          "Are you all right, Sir Finnian?" she asked, rushing over to him to try and offer her assistance.

          "Y-yes," he struggled to stand upright, "I'm afraid I underestimated the weight...of my shield."

          "There you are," she said, holding his arm and helping him to stand up straight again. When he was restored to vertical, the blood rushed out of his head causing him to feel dizzy for a moment. When his blurry eyes focused on the sweet, youthful face of the girl, he found she was smiling at him. It was the kind of smile that tries so hard not to be as big as it really wants to be.

          "Oh, hello, Lady Alainne," he said, unashamed. Lady Saoirse stood by giggling to herself as she watched the comical scene.

          "You've been training all day, haven't you?" she asked him, as he unstrapped his shield from his back and tried to place it gently on the ground without making the dreaded clanging sound of metal against stone.

          "From dawn till dusk. The others are still at it, but I told Cillian I needed to retire early just this once." He wiped his brow with his dirty sleeve.

          "They've been working you very hard," Alainne offered in her light, dulcet voice. She was still smiling, but there was concern in her amorous eyes when she saw the cuts and thin red lashes on his sleeves.

          "Alainne—Lady Alainne, that is—will you dine with us this evening?" he asked, his eyes shining behind his and sweat-covered face, "there will be a knights' dinner in the great hall and I would so appreciate if there were some people there who care to talk about other things besides this war."

          "Yes, yes of course," she replied, trying not to seem too eager, but failing adorably.

          "Wonderful, and Lady Saoirse, you are of course welcome to come as well," said Finn, beaming from ear to ear, "if the ladies' table will be able to get on without two of its loveliest members."

          The ladies laughed once again at his awkward, unabashed charm.

          "Oh, I almost forgot!" Suddenly, he ran outside, his armor clanging around as he did. Alainne watched with a curious smile as he disappeared behind the drawbridge. She glanced back at Saoirse and they waited for nearly a minute, until Finn came charging back through the stone threshold. He ran up to her and stuck his hand out. Thoroughly entertained, but very confused, Alainne glanced down at his hand and it was not until she looked closely that she could see a tiny white flower sticking out from beneath his thumb.

          "For you, Milady," Finn bellowed dramatically, beginning to bow once again, but remembering what had happened earlier and stopped midway. Saoirse, who had been twirling the ends of her sunny golden tresses, got very close to them and squinted to see the little white bud.

          "It's a weed," she said, blinking several times in a row.

          "It's—lovely," Alainne stepped in front of Saoirse and took the pathetic flower he had evidently just plucked from the grass growing out of the slanted banks of the mote.

          "Well, yes it is. It is a weed," Finn said, tilting his head to examine it more closely, "But I happen to think it a very beautiful weed."

          Alainne and Saoirse stifled their laughter.

          "And—AND," he struggled on, still scrutinizing the tiny plant, "weeds are only small plants until they are given to beautiful women—then they are flowers. I will now stop speaking."

          "I'll treasure it," Alainne laughed as Saoirse started for the hallway.

          "I'll see you tonight, then?" he scrunched his forehead, still trying to come up with something clever regarding the weed.

          "I'll see you tonight," she echoed with a smile as she hurried off with Saoirse, the two of them laughing and whispering down the hall.

          "Is that that Alannah girl?" came a voice. Finn turned around to find Diarmiad standing beside him, in an equally disheveled state.

          "Alainne," Finn corrected him, watching Diarmiad's eyes follow the girls as they walked away. Diarmiad nodded, panting from the walk back and the weight of his sword and equipment.

          "Either way, she is a rare specimen," he snickered, making a gesture that caused Finn to roll his eyes. Diarmiad elbowed his brother in the side as if the gesture were not enough to get this attention. Finn gritted his teeth, but breathed patiently.

          "Leave it alone, Diarmiad. She doesn't deserve that," he calmly advised.

          "I'm just saying—" argued Diarmiad with a grin as he sized up the girl from a distance. It seemed that days of endless, tiring fighting brought out each of their true natures—Finn's humour and Diarmiad's lust. It had reduced their minds to nothing other than what was at their very core.

          "No, I know what you're saying," Finn confronted him, looking him dead in the eye, "she's a kind girl and besides, she's not yet fifteen. She's Éile's age, Diarmiad, much too young for you."

          "Will you relax, I was only—" Diarmiad's arms were up in surrender and he continued to laugh at his impassioned, love-struck brother, "how do you expect to fight in a war if you're so sensitive about...about nothing, about the way men are?"

          "You mean the way you are—" Finn felt his fingernails dig into his palms.

          "And Éile's a kid, don't bring her into this like I'm some—"

          "She's fourteen, same as Alainne. Put things into perspective for you?" A smug grin surfaced on Diarmiad's face as he snuck one final glance in the ladies direction before they disappeared altogether.

          "Looks like she's all grown up to me," he said, delightfully biting his bottom lip. Finn shook his head, trying to quell his rising temper and started to walk away, "Hey, Finny, come on—if you like her, I say go get her. Just put in a good word for me after you're finished with her."

          Finn whirled around and pushed his brother back by his chest, pounding the protective armor hard so it would still leave a bruise underneath.

          "She deserves to be treated like a person, Diarmiad, that's all. Not a 'specimen', not a conquest. A person." And with that, Finn left his brother standing as dumbfounded as though he had shot him with a poisonous arrow.