I know as soon as my feet touch the stone path that I made the right decision- the air is sweet with the smell of Abrigan and newly bloomed Beveria, so the entire garden smells like honey. Butterflies land delicately on the Abrigan's bright pink petals, their proboscises unfurling to gently lap at the flower's sweet, fragrant nectar.

The turtleroses are in bloom, attracting buzzing bumblebees. I can't resist reaching forward and plucking one, then tucking the striking green flower behind my ear. Tyro chuckles.

"What?" I ask, taking in more of the gorgeous gardens surrounding me.

"Sometimes I almost forget you're a man," Tyro says.

"What?"

"You're just so- so pretty and delicate, and now you're tucking flowers into your hair like it's the most natural thing in the world."

I frown. "I like turtleroses; what's the harm in wearing one?"

"No harm at all," he says with a grin. "Just a bit of amusement."

"I'm glad I amuse you," I mutter, annoyed. I consider taking the flower out of my hair but leave it, his opinions be damned.

"I meant nothing by it," he adds, noticing he's offended me. "Ignore me, Shira."

"No one ever means anything by it," I say sharply. "At first. But then enough of them say something and the great uncles start looking at you like a pet, and the aunts disapprove of you because you're considered prettier than their daughters, and soon the whole family thinks you're too weak to rule!"

I pause, surprised at my outburst. "I mean- it's not my fault I look the way I do."

"I never meant any offense," Tyro repeats. "I'm sorry to have said-"

"Never mind," I sigh, my sudden flash of anger dying down. "It's not like it matters now anyway. The great aunts and uncles are dead and I'm not likely to rule more than a flower garden any time soon. And I do like flowers and fabric and reading, hardly the harshest or most masculine pastimes. I shouldn't be offended by the truth."

"That's why I brought you out here," Tyro says. "I want you to meet someone who loves flowers as much as you do. She's just got a desert lily to bloom. I don't know much about plants, but apparently that's quite a feat."

"A desert lily?" I ask, wide eyed, all former offense forgotten. "Here in Kama?"

He smiles and leads me past a row of Gentian and behind a wall of tall shrubs. There's a small cottage nestled between the greenery, a charming little thing painted white and blanketed all over with creeping ivy.

A woman is bent over by the front door, potting something. When she hears footsteps she stands up and smiles, waving at us. She's small, even shorter than I am, with skin the warm yellow-brown color of Evebia tree bark. Her hair is free, red-gold strands flying about in the wind.

She's Seramichen, I can tell even from a distance. The hair and the deeply tanned skin give her away. Tyro smiles and waves back, and I see a look I can only describe as adoration steal over his face.

"Avamir, this is the boy I was telling you about," he says when we near the door of the cottage. "Shira Katzuna. The one who likes plants."

"Shira, this is Avamir Sumarik, the Ambassador's head gardener and a botanical genius."

The woman, Avamir, blushes. "Stop it, Tyro," she chirps in a lilting Seramichen accent. Then she turns to me and says, in the sweetest way possible, "welcome. I'm so glad to finally meet you. You don't know how nice it is to meet a fellow botanist here, most of the staff can't tell Jessonweed from Rhodesium!"
I laugh and move to put out my hand so we can greet each other in the Kamai style, but a nervous look flits across Avamir's face and Tyro quickly pushes my hand down. I wonder what I've done wrong, until I look into her face and see contrition.

She bends and plucks a flower out of the pot next to her and holds it out to me instead. I take it and tuck it in next to the turtlerose, smiling at her, but making no move to touch her again. Tyro seems pleased with me.

"I heard you had a blooming desert lily," I say. "But I can't believe it. It's impossible to get them to grow anywhere that's not hot and sandy. It's unheard of."

Her eyes light up and she runs around the side of the cottage, beckoning us to follow her. I come quickly on her heels, and sure enough, sitting there at her feet is a little orange bloom. A desert lily.
I crouch down and finger the petal reverently, awe filling my voice as I ask her "how?"

"Well, it isn't exactly a desert lily," she admits.
"It is!" I insist. "I'd know them anywhere."

"It's crossed with Jima flowers. They're indigenous to Kama and tolerate weather and the soil conditions real desert lilies never would. And in the first generation none of the Jima traits are visible, save for the size of the root ball and the heartiness of the plant."

"Incredible," I breathe. "How did you come up with that? It's- it's amazing."

She blushes. "It took a year, I experimented with many different crosses. Got a lot of strange flowers. But Jima works best."

"Why don't you show Shira the rest of the gardens, Ava?" Tyro suggests. "I have some work to do and I'm sure you'll want to talk over all manner of seeds and roots that would just put me to sleep."

"When will you be back?" Avamir blurts out, anxiety etched on her face.

Tyro smiles at her gently. "In an hour or so, love."

She nods, relaxing, and soon her features are smoothed back into tranquility. "I hold you to your word, Tyro'xantaxi. Remember, you promised to go to the market for me today."

"I haven't forgotten, love," he says, leaning over and kissing her forehead. She blushes, and I understand immediately the intimacy between them. I don't know if they're married or not, but they belong to each other.

So Tyro leaves me alone with the foreign woman. At first she's nervous, almost knocking over the glass of Y'xala she insists on pouring me. She talks little, and averts her gaze from me, like direct eye contact hurts her. But she has such sweetness of manners, such innocence about her that I can't be annoyed. She's like a skittish animal you have to hold still for, lest you send it scampering away.

In time she relaxes, speaking more openly, showing me all the little plants she keeps in pots around her small cottage. When she takes me out back and shows me her favorite flowers she truly comes alive, talking in a thicker accent with exaggerated gestures.

"And those are Cerimea, and this is Valuuwid. It grows as ground cover all over Seramich. It took a while to put down root here, but now that it has it's taking over! Look how far it's trailing!"

"This whole part of the garden is Seramichen, isn't it?" I ask, looking around at a mess of brightly colored foreign flowers. "You found a way to bring Seramich to Kama. It's quite wonderful, really."

She smiles. "You think so?"
"To get tropical flowers to grow here? I can hardly believe my eyes, to be honest. It's a rare talent. Do you go back to Seramich for specimens?"

"No," she says, quieter. I mistake her dampened spirits for nostalgia.

"You must miss it a lot," I muse, "to bring so much of the island here."

"I do not miss it," she says harshly. "Seramich is a terrible country. The only nice thing about it is the flowers."

"I-oh," I murmur. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean-"

"Of course you didn't," she laughs. "How could you have known. I forget you're new, you know nothing about this place, about me."

I don't know what to say, so I turn my attention to a particularly beautiful Kamifera bud.

"I was sold into slavery in Seramich," she says, in a clear, quiet voice. "By my own family."

"I- I'm sorry," I mutter, filling the silence with a condolence that sounds trite and flat.

She shrugs. "You don't have to be anything, say anything. It is all just facts; I am telling you because undoubtedly you would hear it from someone else soon enough. And I like to tell my own story."

I let the pause pass without speaking, realizing it's part of her speech pattern.

"They meant to ship me and twenty other girls to a slave market in Raclen. They pay well for Seramichen women there, you know. Tried to smuggle us through the Kamai ports stuffed in the cargo hold of a trading ship, but the port master found us. They find girls like us often, sadly."

I shiver, feeling both fear and rage. Humans shoved into a cargo hold like chattel. It's the fault of the east, of those nations that don't take their ban on slavery seriously and let the human trafficking markets flourish because they're lucrative.

"I declined going home to Seramich, so I was in a home for displaced women for a while. They found out I liked plants, and was good with them, and then found me work as the Ambassador's gardener. Now I live here."

"I am- I am so genuinely sorry that happened to you," I say when she's finished. "I know it sounds commonplace, but I can't imagine what you've been through, what you've survived."

"I think you can imagine," she says after a time, bending over an Elesifora to untangle a weed from its stem. "I don't know who you are, but Tyro told me you come from tragedy, and your eyes tell me you've been crying."

"I-um- well," I stutter, at a loss. "Maybe you're right."

"Tyro wanted me to tell you my story," she admits. "He said you needed to- to hear that people can survive bad things, and be alright. I think he wanted me to give you hope, but I am not sure how much hope a woman who quivers at the thought of a handshake's touch might give. I'm too easily frightened to be strong, you see."

"I disagree," I tell her earnestly. "It's not your fault, what happened to you. Of course you'd be afraid after something like that. After- after what happened, I'm different. I think of it all the time, and I cry at strange times, and sometimes I talk to myself."

I realize a moment later how much I've admitted and blush. She stands up and rests her hand on mine, lightly, and only for a moment, but I can tell what it means for her to do so.

"We are all crazy," she says. "The world makes all of us crazy, just in different ways. We just have to be crazy enough to keep living, yes?"

"Yes," I nod. "But sometimes- well, I shouldn't be saying this. I hardly know you."

She smiles warmly. "I forget we just met. Tyro told me about you, told me about a stranger from a foreign land who had lost everything, and I couldn't help but feel like I knew you already. I was the same way, you see."

"I understand," I tell her. "But- but I'd rather not talk about it now. I don't want to cry any more today. I'd like to just pretend nothing beyond these flowers exists, and be happy for a few minutes."

"That is how I live my life," Avamir says to me, then she points out a small grey plant and tells me about the trouble she had to get its seeds imported from Kalko, and it's like we never talked about anything serious at all.

Tyro comes back an hour later, looking a little tired, but one smile from Avamir perks him up. He looks at her the way she looks at the flowers in the garden, like something indefinably beautiful and valuable and worth cultivating with tender care. It warms me, to see the looks that pass between them.

"Well, did you like the lilies?" He asks me.

"Goddess, yes," I admit readily. "Ava- she's a miracle worker, the things she's gotten to grow here. I've never seen such a variety of plants in one place!"

He smiles. "I'm glad you can appreciate it properly. I know she's the most talented gardener in all of Kama, but shattered one knows I can't tell one plant from another."

"That is certainly true," Avamir adds under her breath. "But you don't need to tell one plant from another to pick up the seeds I want, the woman in the shop has them set aside already. All you have to do is pay and bring them back, easy enough, yes?"

He laughs. "I promised I would get them, didn't I? In fact, I'm off to the market now. I have some letters to post anyways." He turns to me. "Would you like to come, Shira? I know you're still a bit weakened, but walking might do you some good."

"Is it far?"

"Not at all."

"Yes, I think I'd like that," I say, unwilling to return to the library and my own dark thoughts. "I need to get some new clothing anyways. Your housekeeper made clear enough my silks are wholly unsuitable."

Tyro nods. "I'll take you by the fabric vendors, then the tailor. Ava, I swear I'll bring you back the right seeds. I vow it."

"Alright, I trust you," she says, kissing him quickly. "Come and see me later, will you, Tyro'xantaxi? I've missed you these last few days."

He smiles wider and kisses her again, this time for a moment longer. She laughs and pushes him away, coloring with embarrassment.
"And you," she says, turning to me. "It was nice to meet you, Shira Katzuna. Tyro was right. I do like you."

"I like you, too," I admit. "Thank you for showing me your garden. It's incredible."

"You will come back tomorrow, then," she says decidedly. "To help me sow it."

"I-"

"No arguing," she tells me. "You are much too pale, you need the sun on you, and I need the help."

"I help you," Tyro interjects.

"You pulled up my Valethistle thinking it was a weed!" She says, suddenly animated with a flash of anger. "That plant took me a year to grow, Tyro'xantaxi! All gone with your "help"!"

"Oh, not that again," he protests. "I thought we put that to bed, love."

"My poor little Valethistle," she mutters. "Shira, you know it? That plant was my baby and he just pulled it out with those giant hands of his because "it looked like a weed"!"

"Truly a sin," I agree with a smile.

"I bought you new seeds, Ava," he reminds her. "And I believe the week of sullen silence I endured was just punishment."

"It was not a week," she murmurs, embarrassed.

"It was close to it. You could barely talk to me, if I remember correctly. I bought you a necklace from the market and you wouldn't take it because you were so mad!"

"It was my favorite," she says contritely. "My little valethistle"

"You are my favorite," he replies, kissing her nose. "Come with us to the market, Valethistle girl."

She stiffens, and a sad resignation flits across Tyro's face, before being replaced with his usual easy smile. "Or stay here with the plants for company, ixi. I'll bring you back something sweet."

"That honeynut cake you found last week was delicious," she offers.

"I'll get two," he promises, kissing her again before leaving.

"Goodbye, Shira," she calls after me. "Remember to come and help me sow!"

____

SO I want to know how everyone is liking this chapter so far. It's been a bit slow but I'm working on character building, so I hope it's not been too boring! 

- Swpoet