Chapter Text
I had never felt so suffocated in my own house. I was finally given the freedom I had desperately wanted for the eighteen years I had lived with my parents.
I come from a long line of lions, each with a certain heritage that seemed to stop when it came to me and my legacy. I wouldn’t particularly say I wasted my life, but I haven’t done much with my life; I hadn’t even gotten someone to fall in love with and carry on the generational children running in my family. These non-existent children are supposed to have a chance of creating something that could put fear in other species. I don’t look forward to that; I put my fear into others alone, not with children. I don’t need to be this guy with a dangerous business and a soiled reputation taking out the parents of my kid’s friends for not paying their proper dues.
I’m just a young adult who wants to spend his nights at the tavern joking around and treating things as if there isn’t a problem arising. I’ll make my money in my dangerous method, and so what if that isn’t bringing a flock of females around for me? I function the way I want, without anyone to particularly change me.
Well, that’s supposedly how it was supposed to go, but I had weirdly ended up looking at the outside of an opened-up flower shop, the flowers ranging from roses to poppies. They arranged in color order, which seemed to be a lot of unneeded dedication. I wouldn’t know how to take care of a flower even if my life depended on it, so I was questioning why exactly I even approached this shop in the first place. I stood on the broken cobblestone ground for a bit and eyed the particular lady skittering about in the shop.
She was a short dwarf, more on the wider side. The girl had her hair pushed back with a black crocheted bandana. Her dress is brown wool, clearly made from the lower classes' budget.
The front of the dress has a filthy white apron tied to it. The dress flowed beautifully down to her ankles. Her feet have flat black Mary Janes clamped onto them. When she turns to notice me, her long curly red hair whips around, and her freckles practically shine at me. Brown eyes stare at my black ones, and she greets me.
“Well, hey there! Are you looking for anything in particular?” She questions me with an accent from the lower parts of the marketplace, and I feel myself choke up a bit.
“Ah no, just looking around,” I say gruffly, eyeing my surroundings. I pretend to pick up the once-looked-at poppies and flip them to mess with the petals.
“You hold those flowers like they plan to run away from you.” She heads towards me and rests her hands on my paws. She looks up at my eyes from our height difference and examines me with her eyes.
“I don’t think I recognize you. Can I have a name to put to this face of yours?” She asks of me, and I want to lie, but I push it away and muster out my name.
“Lucifer, how about you?” I ask, attempting to push my nerves away, and I beg in my head that she doesn’t let go of my paws. She eventually does, bringing her hands to a bouquet of another type of flower.
“I’m Josephine; if you are planning to start keeping some flowers around, I recommend starting with some of these goldenrods.” She lifts these one stem spread of yellow-colored flowers.
“Quite invasive things, it’s a good way to begin. Sometimes you need someone or something to meddle into your life.” She quietly tells me, gently nudging it into my hands; before I can object, she is dragging me to the counter of her shop.
“Watch your head on the roof! Never had someone not quite dwarf-like fully step in before.” She laughs, and I force a laugh out of myself. She can tell it’s fake, but her eyes crinkle slightly as she digs for ribbon under the counter.
Once she grabs the ribbon and ties it around the bouquet, she offers up the price. “Five gold pieces are for the usual customer, but I can tell you aren’t a usual customer. Two gold pieces for you.”
“Are you sure? I can pay the full price.” I insist on this towards her, but she shakes her head.
“The fact you haven’t run off from me due to my overwhelming approach is already a good start, so take it like that! I hope I don’t scare you away too much.” She says and I want to tell her, "I couldn’t be scared off from you.”
I realize I had said that out loud, and her cheeks get a vibrant red; it practically matches her hair. She laughs, and I feel my cheeks heat up alongside her. She brushes her hair out of her face and holds her hand out.
“If you want to waste your time here, I wouldn’t particularly say no.” She says, and I place the five pieces of gold into her hand. She attempts to return the three extra pieces, but I refuse her.
“I want you to keep those,” I say, and then I quickly hurry out of the shop with my heart racing and my strong demeanor decreasing. I rush quickly back to my house with my cheeks red as the magical being above Ether could make them. If I’m not mistaken, I am attracted to someone I just met.
This has never happened to me before, and I’m stumbling about what to do here; do I reach out and try to approach her with a date? Am I to offer her a gift? Perhaps I’ll keep buying flowers; she will catch on, and I can reach out. I feel like a buffoon and hope to manage this properly.