Chapter 5 - Venwood

Stella loves flowers. She’s readily distracted by them when traveling, eager to wander off to investigate a particularly eye-catching one. Mel might have been frustrated by the detours, if she didn’t frequently stumble across chests with more practical items along the way, or if her face didn’t light up so beautifully when she found one. Sometimes, when she reacted to a new flower she’d never seen before, Mel could nearly swear he could see the starlight sparkling in her eyes.

So he encourages it. He doesn’t have anything against flowers, at least the ones that don’t send him into sniffles, but he’s never thought to pay attention to them the way Stella does, at least until they’d been traveling together for some time. Now he knows to keep his own eyes peeled, and taps her arm to point her towards ones he thinks she might like. Stella loves all flowers, but seems particularly partial to the really vivid ones, and to ones that Mel can only describe as complicated, with sprawling, spindly petals and leaves that curl into thin, fine points.

She even finds common ground with Te’ijal, enamored by the ample variety of flora the Overworld has to offer. It’s nice seeing them get along.

Whenever the group returns to Thais for longer than a day, Stella refills her vase, traveling just deep enough into the woods to collect flowers. Mel likes to go with her, and they talk about whatever’s on their minds in the rare peace away from four other sets of ears. One night, Edward brings them both to the royal gardens, and eggs Mel on as he slices blooms from the queen’s prized roses.

So when the opportunity in Venwood arises, Mel splurges on the ten gold and buys his girlfriend flowers.

He doesn’t really understand why he does it – romantic gestures are still a little unnatural to him, and it’s rare he opts to buy something he could manage for free – but when the elven woman asks if anyone would like to buy a bouquet, he gets caught up on the way Stella had smiled when he gave her one in Stormbend, and decides he may as well be the one to buy it, once.

She spends the whole afternoon clutching it to her chest and beaming. In the evening, as Lydia stomps around town trying to find out why everyone there has a vendetta against her, Stella sits on the front stoop of the inn, methodically slicing excess stems from the flowers and popping the blooms into an empty auquifolium bottle. Mel sits beside her to watch her work, thoroughly enraptured.

“I’m sorry I bought you flowers the other week,” Stella says.

“Huh? We’ve been over this. You’re totally fine.”

“No, it’s not about that. Edward took me aside and very gently let me know you were allergic.” She quirks an eyebrow up, the corner of her mouth rising. “Unless you were lying about that to let him down gently?”  

Mel laughs. “Fair assumption, but not quite. It depends on the variety. You lucked out. These are fine, too.” He points at the remainder of the bouquet between them. “Any reason you’re decapitating them?”

“I’m glad to hear it,” Stella says, and Mel swears he hears genuine relief in her voice for a moment before it fumbles. “I… I’d like to be able to save them.” She laughs, a little. “Surprisingly enough, Galahad had some pretty good tips for flower preservation.”

“No kidding.”

“Honestly! He saw me trying to salvage some in Thais. Apparently he managed to keep his boutonniere from his wedding for over a century. Edward’s great-great-great-great-great-great-great…grandmother, or something, gave it to him.”

“Huh, what do you know?” Mel leans back and snorts. “Man, it’s so weird remembering they knew her. Like, imagine him telling Edward that. Imagine being able to go that far back in your family tree. I don’t even know who my parents are.” He frowns. “Well, I guess I can, with Darkthrop. Ugh.”

Stella sets her knife down, and rests her hand on top of Mel’s for a second, like a reassurance. But it’s gone in a few seconds, and she leans inward on herself, hands clenched in her lap. “I’ve been wondering about my family, too. I…”

Mel figures it’s his turn to reach out, so he leans his weight forward again and puts a hand on her back. “You want to know who they are?”

“I… Yes, but it’s more than that.” Her voice sounds weak and shaky, fumbling under the weight of what’s on her mind. “The reason I’m trying to figure out how to keep these flowers is so I can take them home with me.”

Mel’s hand drops on reflex. “Oh.”

“I imagine,” Stella says, “that once I know who they are, I’ll miss them. I’ll want to go back.”

“Right,” Mel says, and he feels unable to say much more. For all the times he reflected on it, for all the times they’d talked about getting her home, it was stupidly, selfishly easy to forget sometimes that Stella must have a whole life waiting for her back wherever she’s from. Being with her felt so natural sometimes he felt as though he’d known her his entire life, even with seventeen years of memories telling him otherwise.

Mel doesn’t have a home, really. He has places he’s lived before, that he could return to and be okay in, definitely, maybe even happy, but his strongest roots are Boden’s office and a tower he’d rather see crumble to dust and a group of people he’s known for less than a year. People who all have a good idea of where they’re going when this is over.

But it feels a little callous to not support Stella right now, so he finally forces himself to say, “they’ll be glad to have you back. And they’ll be pretty high on the luckiest people in the world for it.”

Stella’s laughter comes soft and understated as she shakes her head. “You’re just saying that.”

“Look, the intent is honest, even if my rankings are a little exaggerated.”

She closes her eyes and scoots a little closer towards him, leaning her head against his. “Thank you, Mel.”

Her hair brushes against the side of his face and he can’t begin to bring himself to feel annoyed. He closes his eyes, too, and breathes until it’s not nearly as shaky to, and then he keeps breathing without thinking about it.

“You know,” Stella says, softly, “wherever I’m from – I could bring you with me, if you wanted.”

It should really make him more comfortable, not less, but instead his stomach lurches. At what? Commitment? Uncertainty? Some attachment to Harburg or Thais deeper than he’s given it credit for? He considers extracting himself from her, but he decides to lean into their touching sides instead. Her arm is warm and soft and the curve where it meets her shoulder is oddly grounding. “I don’t know,” he says, and his voice cracks a little under the weight.

“That’s okay.” She moves her hand to on top of his, threads their fingers together and squeezes once. “You don’t need to right now.”

He thinks about a hundred different things he could tell her – thank you, I’m sorry, I love you – but none of them feel right right now. Finally, he decides on opening his eyes and doing his best to angle his face towards her. “I’ll want to have that conversation. When we know what that looks like. When this is over.”

Stella murmurs under her breath, soft and half humming. She caps the bottle of flowers and holds it in her lap, running her thumb along the glass. “Whatever that conversation looks like, it’s something to look forward to.”

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