Forget me not

Part 1

The sun shone brightly on the forest trail Grillby was walking along, but the fire elemental had an umbrella in his bag just in case. The weather on the Surface brought many wonders, the sunshine not the least of them, but it was a little unpredictable. But that just meant that Grillby had to take precautions, such as the umbrella. He had thought about getting a small and light travel umbrella to keep with him at all times, or maybe a rain cloak that he could fold into his pocket, but he just hadn't gotten around to it yet.

He'd been busy enough getting his bar running on the Surface. Apparently humans had a lot of bureaucracy to deal with when starting a business, and that being layered on the bureaucracy that came with being a monster, Grillby had been running himself ragged for a month. But now the bar was open. The first week had been more than successful, as the bar had filled with old regulars returning, new monsters who were craving monster food they hadn't made themselves, and some humans with curiosity stronger than their reserve.

But now he could afford himself the time to venture exploring his new surroundings, and that included the trail paths of the forest just at the outskirts of the city of Ebott.

The trail forked, and there was a sign pointing to a rest stop. Grillby decided that he had been walking long enough, and turned in the direction of the sign. He soon arrived to a clearing by a lake. There was a large canopy of dark wood, and some picnic tables and benches to match. Grillby sat by one of the tables, took off his hat and dug up a lunch box from his bag. He had brought a cucumber sandwich with him. As he ate, he enjoyed his surroundings. The forest was filled with bright green birches and slightly darker aspens; there was even the odd spruce in there. By the lake the grass turned into pale sand, and rocks of various sizes framed the waterfront. A bed of reeds was the only thing decorating the lake. It was peaceful. Pleasant.

A gust of wind threw Grillby's hat off the table and tossed it towards the lake. Grillby rushed after his fleeing headwear, but it kept rolling on the ground, pushed by the wind. Thankfully the hat didn't land in the water, if that had happened Grillby might never have been able to retrieve it, yet it was caught by some rushes instead.

As Grillby carefully kneeled by the water, reaching for his hat, he noticed that his hat hadn't been stopped just by the rushes. It was in the middle of a patch of little blue flowers, pushing up between the rocks; stems in the water. Grillby took his hat and put it on firmly, then he picked one of the flowers to examine it closer. The sky-blue flowers grew in bunches, and no single flower was bigger then his fingertip. All had five petals and a tiny yellow centre. The leaves were long and thin, a darker shade of green, but not all that dark. All in all, they were very pretty.

On a whim, Grillby picked a handful. He then took a tissue from his pocket, and dipped it in the water. He brought it all to the picnic table, where his lunch box was waiting. He put the flowers in his lunch box, and wrapped the wet tissue around the cut-off stems as well as he could without actually touching it. That should keep them fresh until he could bring them home and put them in water, he thought to himself as he closed his lunchbox and put it in his bag.

As he turned to leave and head back home, he took one last glance at the clearing. It was absolutely quiet: no rustling of trees nor rushes, and the lake was mirror-still.

...Had the trees been that still when the wind had caught his hat?

Grillby shrugged. It wouldn't have been the first time when he forgot something so obvious.

So he turned back to the trail towards home, an umbrella and a lunchbox with little blue flowers in it hidden in his bag.

"Look, those five that form a W? That's Cassiopeia", said a strange sounding voice as a pale hand pointed towards the heavens.