menolly's writing yeaahhh.

The red chrysanthemums are her favorite.

Even if the irregular incurves take a little more effort than some, she's happy to put in the effort, to water them and feed them, shade when the sun is too hot or shield when there's too much rain; talk to them and tell them her hopes and dreams, because maybe, just maybe they'll bear dreams and aspirations of their own in the tiny bubbles of existence they reside within, that she shares with them.

She picks a delicate red petal, tugging firmly so that it separates cleanly from the base. It's soft, and despite her gentleness, rumpled and torn. It covers the scab over her index finger, looking a little bit like blood.

"Loves me," she mumbles, lets the petal go, fluttering into the fountain, a cardinal's feather.

She put in three red blooms. Now there's only one left, in her hand.

Let go, rinse and repeat, the daily school-yard games she never got to play with the other children; she came and went so quickly, child to a somewhat adult in the blink of an eye and she knows she dealt with loneliness back then, but she can't remember how.

"Loves me not."

She can't quite imagine who she's thinking of.

"Loves me."

She wonders if it's Kein, and suppresses a laugh. 'Lie back and think of Kein,' She can't. "Loves me not."

The fountain is swimming with petals, disturbed by the pitter-patter of rain on water. The colour bleeds into night, and she can't help but miss the stars.

The sky is a black hole over Seattle.

"Loves me."

She misses being able to see the stars. She wants to go back to the days where stars were just a fleeting thought in the world, nameless upon her child-like breath.

She thinks of Dmitri (Only by name, because Dmitri as a person is mean and hateful and yearns for her to die, she can tell from that look in his eye and sometimes Sophia wishes she could do as Dmitri wants and just disappear among the stars), and wonders if what he says about Sophia being unlovable is true.

There is one petal left on the battered, browning stem, bright red in the dim of the distant streetlight and pouring rain. Where is she now? She counts backwards, comes up with an answer.

She throws the stem into the fountain to rot with all the rest.

Maybe she shouldn't be trying. Maybe…Maybe she's meant to be this way.

She looks to her watch and sees that the hands have stopped moving, eternal ticking gone silent.

Everything feels so cold. Even her heart has stopped ticking, winding down, timing out, dead battery, better luck next time. Nothing lasts forever, not even the petals on a red chrysanthemum.

She folds herself up onto the lip of the fountain and hugs her knees to her chest and wishes her mouth didn't taste of copper, like pennies and copper wires and wishing wells

Like blood and love and fire as her eyes burn with the weight of the starless universe over Seattle on her back.