Flowers

                                               Picture found here

In honor of Elana's prompt:

Petals rained down on the polished stone like a fragrant rain. They looked out of place with their color and cheer. They ought to have been somewhere happier, far from this place. I glared down at the procession from my vantage place high in the limbs of a tree. Mother once told me that the earth laughs in flowers, and I wondered what it's laugh sounded like as it swallowed her whole.

Papa stood tall and stately, watching the flower storm without so much as a twitch on his face. My brothers stood next to him, looking like a fence that follows the slope of a hill. Tamir stood tallest, nearly as tall as my father, with my other six brother lined up on either side of him. Only I was missing.

The fever had come swiftly, suddenly, and affected only my mother with her rosebud mouth and her bright blue eyes. Her laughter had fled, and her color soon withered away until she seemed almost transparent. Aunt Marinare nursed my mother from the time the sun rose, until it sank before rising again. She was nowhere, if not by my mother's side.

And it hadn't saved her.

My father said something, his words muffled by distance and leaves. He held up a hand, letting the last flower fall upon my mother's grave. A red, red rose that trembled as it fell, it's petals splaying out like a drop of freshly spilt blood. Far sight had been a fairy gift I had never appreciated until today. For how could I go and mingle with the others? I could not share my grief with strangers.

Father dropped his arm, and the procession began to leave. They headed back towards light and life, leaving my mother in the shadows of memory. Only my brothers remained. They stared at the place where my mother lay. If the earth laughs in flowers, then it bleeds in dark, rich soil.

I was about to leave my hiding place and join them, when one of the shadows detached itself from a tree. My aunt walked toward them, tall and regal in deep purples with a crimson slash in each sleeve.

She raised her hands out to them as though she was giving them a blessing. The earth shivered and something icy and dull crept up along my spine. Then she dropped her arms and made her way back towards the palace.

I watched with wide eyes as my brothers stretched out their snow white arms and called out to the sky. A moment later they drifted away into the fast falling twilight, disappearing like tiny wisps of snow. 

Or the petals of a rose.

I made my way carefully down to the ground. I looked up at the sky, pausing often, searching for a sign. But all I saw were the stories the sky laid out in the night, stories my mother used to tell me. I did not need her here now to tell me what it was I was to do. I would follow them, should they stray ever so far.

I shivered as a warm breeze wrapped itself around my shoulders. The fragrance of honeysuckle, lilac, and rose filled the air and wove itself into my memory.

I stepped forward, and then forward again. I would find my brothers and bring them home. The wind forgotten, I moved on. A moment. A thought. A memory. Until the night swallowed me from sight.

Be sure to let me know in the comments section if you do the prompt. I'd love to read them. You can also link to your blog in the comments section of Elana's blog.