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The gentle golden petals make her feel like she’s able to hold the rays of the sun between her fingers, the physical proof of her freedom growing all around her.
“You seem quite interested in those flowers Rissa”
Normally she would have heard the other woman approach before she announced herself, she must have been far more distracted than she thought she was.
“You know, these flowers are called Coreopsis. They say that in the language of flowers, it’s supposed to mean always cheerful or something. If you believe in that sort of thing of course.”
Nerissa’s eyes trail across Shiori’s face, instead of the smirk she has come to expect in the short time she’s had so far to observe the other woman, Shiori’s face has a gentle smile.
Her normally pale yellow eyes seem darkened somewhat, giving the feeling of liquid gold and the sun setting over hills.
She feels her airways constrict at the sight, luckily she remembers to breathe just in time for Shiori’s laugh to drift into her ears.
Freedom
She takes one of the flowers with her during their search for a new home.
Over time, the rest of Advent had noticed her affection for flowers. Potentially realising how desolate it must have been for her to have not seen the outside world for far longer than any of them have, the diamond dogs and Bijou had gone out of their way to bring her flowers whenever they had gone out in the woods or nearby parks. Their enthusiasm was almost as bright as the flowers they brought, their home shining with more and more affection each passing day.
She slightly suspects it’s also because fuwamoco want an excuse to showcase their tracking abilities as demon dogs, and she can’t even pretend she’s not overjoyed that this simple task brings all of them so much happiness.
Shiori had joined in a few times with some more specific plants, Nerissa suspects she had either gathered them during her archiving journeys or had gone out of their way to buy them to join along with the rest of Advent.
One of them was a pink plant with more tubelike petals, when she asked about it Shiori had enthusiastically told her that the plant (Mikvetch, she learned) was thought to have an effect on the production of milk for goats.
This was of course followed by a comment about her own chest and potential milk production, a comment she only answered with a rather loud “Excuse me???”
Typically Shiori, the flowers joined the house all the same.
Her latest trip outside went far worse than expected.
She is aware that Justice is always hot on their tail, such is the state of being a wanted fugitive of the gods, but she had forgotten the smaller energy based creatures the gods can send out as well. She hadn’t expected to come into conflict during a simple outing to her favorite flowerfield of Coreopsis with the twins, but fate had decidedly different plans for them that day.
Leaving them tattered and bruised coming back, leaving Nerissa especially worse for wear. Shiori and Bijou had crowded them immediately in concern, most likely notified of their state by Bijou’s emotion magic. She had made sure that the two were focusing on the twins first, but Shiori had insisted on taking care of her alone. Leaving bijou to check the twins on their own.
Now she found herself on the cold tile floor of her bathroom dressed in little more than boxers and an oversized shirt. Shiori gently holding her hand, taking care to cleanse any open cuts and check for other bad bruising. Really, being so close to her was already bad for Nerissa’s pulse. The gentle touch she was getting however was an entirely different level of torment, one more second of this and she is sure her heart is going to explode at the seams. God bless that between the two of them, she is the demon of sound and not Shiori, otherwise the archiver would be hearing her flustered distress in HD surround sound.
“There, anything else that hurts? anything on your ribcage or your chest?”
Golden eyes study her closely, almost as if she is daring Nerissa to test her and lie. Truthfully, she feels fine, the worst distress really is the woman she is undoubtedly in love with handling her like she’s the most important thing in the world.
“No, i’m fine. Really Shiori. I’m a demon, remember, i heal a lot faster than normal. You could have looked over the twins you know, or were you just so concerned for little old me~”
A quick flirt, a way to save face more than anything. Silently hoping that makes Shiori not notice how quiet she has been the entire process.
Instead, the other woman just furrows their brows at her. “Of course i was concerned, i care for you, you know.” As if that sentence was too much for her heart, she instantly looks away from Nerissa’s face. She still fiddles with Nerissa’s hand however, still clasped gently between her own hands. Oh my god.
“When Beebs said she noticed distress at the door, i was really scared something really bad had happened to you…I know you can handle yourself just fine Reese, i just.” She aims her golden eyes back at her again, Nerissa feels her breathing stutter when she notices gold has darkened to orange.
“I can’t have anything happen to my songbird.”
They sit and stare at each other in silence, Shiori’s answer hanging in the air still. It feels stuffy in the bathroom now, like the tension is making the air condense till it feels like she could choke on it. Shiori coughs and goes to stand, Nerissa shoots up from her daze to cling to her in an embrace.
“I appreciate it Shiori, i promise i’ll be careful. Sorry for making you worry”
In another shocking turn of events, the archiver embraces her back. Nerissa swears she feels hot wetness from tears, but the other woman ensures she can’t look down to check.
Eventually they split, Nerissa offering the other a warm smile that she gets returned. Before Shiori excuses herself to check on ‘the kids’.
her smile is so precious when she’s flustered, this entire interaction is bad for her heart.
Later in her room, a small bundle of plants with multiple small white flowers sits upon her desk. Some of them tinted with purple, as if ink seeped into its petals.
A rather specific flower, something she expects is from Shiori.
How sweet of her to go out of her way to get some for her, she feels a soft smile curve it’s way upon her face.
She should ask Shiori what they’re called sometime, for now they join the others near her window.
It happened again.
Her horn, ever since the critical blow that robbed her of it, has continuously caused her issues. Ranging from her damaged hearing, the constant grating buzzing noise, to hellish outbreaks of searing pain and trouble controlling her magic.
Today was one of those days again, when preparing in her room to go out for groceries the loud crackle of magic was heard. Her only warning before the grotesque pain of her magic misfiring crashed through her like lightning, the normally frustrating buzzing turning into hellish screeching in her skull.
She must have fallen to her knees quite loudly, because when she managed to open her eyes again while trying to fight through the pain, she was eye to eye with a clearly panicked Shiori Novella. Golden eyes were wide open, glittering with her magic. Somewhere in her brain, she managed to work out that Shiori was most likely scanning her for where her own magic was messing up, a small feat for her but still meaningful.
shit, she was talking to her. If only the noise in her ear wasn’t so grating, if it didn't feel like the gods' nails were scratching across the base of her horns. She lets out a pathetic sob, hoping that Shiori catches on that she can’t hear her.
She wishes she could.
Next she knows, she feels the heavy comforting warmth of Shiori’s coat sit upon her shoulders. The other woman looks around her room before softly nudging her, hinting that she wishes to pick her up. Nerissa nods, she wouldn’t say no to any physical contact with Shiori and especially not now. Shiori, for her shorter stature, is surprisingly strong. Nerissa doesn’t know if that’s her own muscles, her magic, or something archiver biology related and honestly she doesn’t care right now. Shiori is tense, but she cradles Nerissa with such tenderness in her arms that she almost feels like a small child again.
The archiver gently places her on her bed, before rapidly scribbling something in her notebook she always carries before showing the resulting text to Nerissa. It takes her a bit to read it, words were always hard for her and the extreme strain on her skull doesn’t help her. When her eyes finally focus, the text reads “I’m getting you some food and water ok? I'll be right back”.
she can only nod softly, tucking herself into the large coat more. her large wings draping over herself as she gets herself into a fetal position, anything to make the pain feel like stopping. It’s juvenile, she knows this, but ever since she was first in the cell making herself smaller felt like a comfort. Now the danger isn’t the prison guards shoving her around, or forcefully handling her just to clip her wings, but the pain is bad enough that that old instinct still rears its head.
Shiori’s eyes flash, concern strikes her but is quickly stashed away again. She gently pets Nerissa's hair for a second, her fingers trembling just at the connection of Nerissa’s horn to her skull. The slight purple glow she sees around her fingers, and the slight glimmer of gold in Shiori’s eyes, are the only indicator that the archiver did anything. But she immediately feels the pressure in her head calm a bit. Shiori moves out of the room shortly after, she holds the jacket around her so strongly her knuckles turn to pale white.
It feels like forever when the archiver returns, a glass of water and some leftovers from leftovers in her hands. She gently sets them on the nightstand, almost as if she is overly conscious of Nerissa’s increased sensitivity to sound right now. The gentle look she gets almost makes her want to sob out loud, only stopped by the feeling that her skull would split in two if she dared cry.
Everything feels like a fever dream, the throbbing in her skull makes everything seem hazy. She is only faintly aware of Shiori moving up on the bed, gently placing her head on her lap before softly massaging the point of her horn’s connection to her head. She wishes she could focus right now, she wants to be able to register every second of this. Shiori is kind, but she is also notoriously closed off. This concern, this instant response to Nerissa's pain, makes her stomach feel very funny.
She slowly feels her eyes drift shut as the horrible burning slowly sinks away, leaving only the gentle contact of Shiori’s hands on her head. Oh, she took her rings off for this too, how sweet of her. The last thought before she slowly sinks away into darkness.
When she wakes, she finds another bouquet near her bed. They’re tall flowers, the petals drooped down in pairs and colored an orange gradient. Twisted between them are smaller yellow flowers, their large leaves giving a bed of greenery for all the flowers to rest upon.
She can’t help but think of the color of Shiori’s pupils while gazing at them, reaching out to softly touch the flowers to ground herself.
Shiori herself is nowhere to be found in her room anymore, but the flowers' presence seems to fill her room with a similar pressure.
It’s only when she exhales a bit more harsh than she expected, that a small paper floats up and lands near her hand.
For you, princess. Call me if you need anything
-Shiori
A warm chuckle leaves her, leave it to the archiver to be too nervous to stay and yet too caring to completely ditch her after a flare up.
She drifts off again staring at the new flora in her room, even when she greatly appreciates them she can’t help but wish the gold and orange that filled her vision were shiori’s eyes instead.
Her first birthday since she escaped the cell had been nothing but pleasant. She hadn’t returned to her family yet, scared to potentially make the gods aim their weapons at them as well. Ravencroft manor was simply too easy a target, and that’s not something she wishes her family to deal with yet. Maybe soon, when safety isn’t a fable for Advent anymore.
As of now though, her birthday had been a gentle surprise. Woken up by Bijou and fuwamoco with breakfast, more flowers, and some small gifts they managed to scrounge up being fugitives. The only thing noticeable missing right now is the presence of monochrome hair, it wasn’t like Shiori to miss any sort of event. If anything, the archiver was way too punctual, to the point of exhausting herself.
It worries Nerissa, and throughout the shared breakfast and gifts she almost gets to a point of asking the other 3 about Shiori’s whereabouts, but she determines that would be rude. She wouldn’t want to give the other the feeling they’re not good enough, and since they don’t seem worried she reasons that Shiori probably had something planned.
An assumption proven correct soon enough, as Shiori stumbles through the backdoor with another collection of flowers, the familiar golden petals of the flowers she came to associate with her freedom immediately visible in her hands. Her hair is a mess, tussled by the outside winds, but the grin she has on her face radiates the entire room when she enters.
“Hey my girl, sorry for being late but collecting these turned out to be a bit more of a task than i thought. Guess they didn’t lie when they say four leaf clovers are rare huh?”
The mention of the clovers make her realise the bright green dots scattered throughout the collection, a peaceful background to the yellow and red flowers.
Familiar yet unfamiliar, the dark red coloration on the inside of the petals is striking but not identical to the flowers she just spent her morning in.
She reckons she must have looked a bit too intensely at the plants, trying to decipher if they were the same flowers or not, because she hears Shiori snort and catching her eyes show a warm look.
“If you're wondering my girl, yes they are also coreopsis. Just a different sort. It’s Coreopsis Arkansa, if you want to know the specifics. I know it’s not the exact ones you keep coming home with stuck in your feathers, but i wanted to be a bit more special about it. I guess”
She trails off the last part of her sentence, as if the embarrassment of admitting she went out of her way for Nerissa kicked in the longer she was speaking.
She’s adorable, really. Nerissa can’t stop her own warm smile from forming when she gently takes the flowers and clovers out from Shiori’s hands, her wings having a mind of their own and flaring out a bit in enthusiasm.
“thank you darling, they’re lovely. Would you like to help me find a spot for these?” She makes eye-contact with Shiori again, she expected the other woman to have already been taken over by her fight-or-flight (mostly flight) instincts after that small confession.
But she stays, she keeps the eye-contact as well even while Nerissa can see it’s a struggle, and the enthusiastic nod she gets makes her heart feel like it is swelling so much it pushes against her ribcage.
Coreopsis Arkansa.
Four-leaf clovers.
For some reason the names of the plants run through her head, even after she and Shiori placed them in her room. Long after the archiver seemed flushed, choking out that she had to go back to archiving and leaving in a hurry.
Normally she wouldn’t have minded, she’s used to Shiori getting emotionally overwhelmed and needing her own space, but something about these last flowers keeps running in her head.
Shiori had seemed so specific in her choices of flowers everytime, nothing like the adrenaline filled quest the rest of Advent went on to gather anything with a pleasant scent and bright colors. Their decisions were made purely on childlike joy of the outside and the desire to make their friend happy, Shiori’s flowers were always specific and seemingly rare.
Never just picked from a field on impulse, always meticulously planned ahead and gathered.
Even from the beginning, with a plant like milkvetch. Then the small white and purple flowers, which she had learned were commonly called Clovenlip toadflax after asking Shiori. Same for the orange gradient petals and yellow flowers that graced her room when her horn was causing her trouble, being imperial lilies and american cowslip.
And then going out of her way to get a different variant of a flower Shiori knows she holds so dear, knows why they mean so much to her.
Something stood out here, something kept her thinking and awake far longer than she should have been that night. So close to an answer, yet not seizing it.
She falls asleep restless that night, the coreopsis flowers that usually bring her such joy just casting shadows of questions on her instead.
She had initially only meant to come into the archives to ask Shiori a question, but being in here always had a way to make her disorientated and lose her way. The large halls, illuminated by candles that were surely supernatural in nature, stretched out in front of her. In the middle a large desk, covered in stacks of paper and books in languages she has never even seen before.
Shiori is nowhere to be found.
A seemingly old book is still on her desk, usually she would make it a point to not touch any of Shiori’s work as the archiver can be rather intense about it, but this book seems to beckon her.
The book has a gorgeous print pressed on it, gold cast upon aged red. The text “the language of flowers” is set upon it, and her interest peaks again.
Surely Shiori wouldn’t mind her looking anything up right? As long as she’s careful with it, it shouldn’t be an issue. Maybe she can finally see what all those flowers she has gotten over time mean, Shiori had mentioned all that time ago in that field that coreopsis meant “always cheerful”.
Her fingers graced the aged paper, going to check for the first flower Shiori gave her. She doesn’t quite know if she wants the meaning to be sweet, or for something silly like the milk production thing the archiver brought up.
She thinks neither of those answers would be good for her heart.
gently brushing through pages, she opens to the letter M. And surely, the plant milkvetch is etched on the paper. However, the explanation printed next to it makes her question everything.
Milkvetch… your presence softens my pain
surely…surely that was a joke right. But even then, her curiosity now has gotten too intense to stop. What other plant did she get again?
Clovenlip toadflax… Please notice my love/feelings for you
Her heart races.
American cowslip, four-leaf clovers, imperial lilies.
She hastily moves to the page for C, and sure enough, there it is.
Printed upon yellowed pages, stands the plant coreopsis. The text “Always cheerful” printed right after.
Her eyes then slip down the slightest bit, her eyes brushing past the text Coreopsis Arkansa. Her heart already palpitating from the former answers, she dares look at the text following it.
"Love at first sight”
She feels her pulse rate drop dead at the spot, her lungs hurt from hyperventilating as she scrambles the texts together in her head.
Your presence softens my pain
Please notice my feelings for you
Divine beauty
Majesty
Be mine
Love at first sight
A confession.
She feels the air leave her lungs entirely.
No way, this entire time, had she just been so blind.
Her mind is racing, rapidly going through every interaction she has had with the other woman. She was so certain that all her affections were a dead end, that her playful flirting was just going to forever stay that way. And now she learns that not only is it most likely false, this entire time Shiori has been flirting with her back in her own way.
Looking back, it makes sense. There was a reason Nerissa felt confused by the other woman's flower decisions, why it felt too intentional to just be done on a whim. Shiori is the archiver, she knows too much to not hide her affections through hidden messaging. The why still confuses her, what’s stopping her from directly stating so. Is it just her own way of loving, is she scared? surely she had been clear enough about her interest in the other woman…
Doesn’t matter now.
She needs to give back, gods know how much time she has already wasted now.
Her hands shoot to the book again. If Shiori is going to show her love this way, Nerissa wants to show her dedication back as well by communicating in a way the archiver would. Brushing past the name of various plant names, she tries to ignore the rapidly growing headache to figure out what to pick out herself.
The other 3 members of Advent had been incredibly enthusiastic when she asked them for their assistance. Maybe a bit too excited, she thinks back to the poor florist when the diamond dog trio rushed into her store with the energy levels of an incoming hurricane. Good thing she slipped in a tip for her patience for the three, even though she seemed to be flattered by the 3’s excitement over her job. She is going to ignore the smug smiles the 3 gave her when she mentioned it was for Shiori at the end.
She gently turns the bouquet of flowers around in her hands, staring at her selection of flowers.
ambrosias, globe amaranth, heliotropes, forget-me-not’s, myrtle and white lilies. Neatly packaged together, a soft pink ribbon binding stems together into one being.
Hopefully Shiori realizes what she’s trying to say with this, though she did take care to copy over the info of the book on a small sheet of paper to make sure.
Even then, she is standing in the archives herself now. The book would have been close by if she really needed to show her intentions to the woman, hopefully she didn’t have to do so however.
As if on cue, the door to the archives opens to the archiver herself. Golden eyes immediately tracking to the raven, pupils dilated. Before she would have brushed it off as her needing to adjust to the lack of light, now she can’t help but see it as open affection.
“Rissa-” “Shiori”
At the mention of her name the monochrome haired woman walks to her as if under a spell, Nerissa has been blind about her devotions hasn’t she. It’s almost adoring how easy the other one is when she asks her anything, like a puppy if you think about it. The expectational glance Shiori sends her makes her feel like she can almost see an imaginary tail wag behind the archiver.
She pushes the bouquet towards her, already feeling her own blush to her ears and her heart strum in her chest at speeds it never should be reaching.
“Here, these are for you”
Shiori blinks before gently grasping them back, she can see the woman blush as she gently touches the leaves of ambrosia plant. Her brows furrow slightly, as if she is slightly confused as to what Nerissa is doing. ok, plan B. Before Shiori asks her, she beats her to the punch.
“I went out to get them for you to answer something i’ve been ignoring to long. The plant you’re holding should mean returned love, at least if your books are correct”
Shiori flinches back, golden eyes glowing almost as bright as the blush on her face is. Clearly that did the trick, seeing the archiver’s eyes dilate even more than they were before in what appears to be shock. If she realises, then clearly she should be able to figure out the rest of the answers the flowers are spelling out.
Shiori opens and closes her mouth a few times, seemingly reprocessing what she wants to answer. Nerissa gives her the time, her wings fluttering in slight anxiety. Before Shiori fixes her gaze at her, blush clear enough to reach her ears.
“I want”
The answer Shiori gives her almost knocks her off balance, that was definitely not what she expected to hear. She stares back, letting the archiver answer further. Shiori is increasingly fidgeting, gaze bouncing around the archives, to Nerissa, to the flowers she is still gently stroking the petals off.
“I want this, you, us i mean. I want this so bad. I just don’t know if i am allowed to do so. So i tried this…..puzzling way, to get my emotions out, to feel like i was getting my way with as much as i can allow myself. Because i thought, i don’t know, i thought i was imaging it. That you, of everyone, wanting me was to good to be true. I’m sorry, i should have been more direct. I just- I expected this to go wrong, i still think it will go wrong, but i want this so badly.”
During her sentence Shiori slowly started crying, holding the plants in her hand like a lifeline. As if losing the petals under her fingers would correspond to letting Nerissa’s love slip through her fingers itself.
“So, even with my weird way of asking if. I- do you. we?”
She stumbles through the sentences in hiccups, tears falling more and more.
Nerissa just gently smiles and steps up, closing her own hands around Shiori’s still holding the bouquet.
“Of course i do, my love. I don’t think it was ever going to be anyone but you”
It’s magnetic, the way she notices she leans in on her own. As if the gold hidden in Shiori’s gaze has its own gravitational pull, maybe that joke Shiori once made about having the same powers as a black hole wasn’t a joke after all. Holding her gaze makes her feel as if the rest of the world falls away, light ceasing to escape till all is just the orange and gold of Shiori’s eyes.
Shiori is actually the one that closes the distance, the connection of their lips makes her feel as if everything will be fine. There are no gods chasing them, they’re not fugitives on the run, there is no risk of their life being unraveled before them with the smallest flaw.
They’re just them, they’re just in love. All is fine.
Always cheerful huh, Shiori definitely made her feel as such.