 Posted: Wed Sep 03, 2014 6:15 pm
Margaery leaned the water-tight basket against her chest and slowly poured, sending a stream of water into the roots of the rose bushes. Their golden color almost seemed to glow in the dappled sunlight, the rows all abloom for the summer. Come autumn, the blossoms would wilt and the plants would go dormant for the winter, but until then, they were unparalleled in their beauty, and each of them needed taking care of. It was a job that she and her family had been charged with by their ancestors, who had made a tradition of it since before they had left the Kawani Lands for the Cerynei Lands, and now they were home again. Once, the flowers had been given as gifts to the Cerynei royals, but now they were gifts to travelers.
And, recently, the travelers had been frequent, so the roses were starting to dwindle - not terribly, but enough that it was they were noticeably thinning. It wouldn't be obvious to anyone but Margaery's family, but even so, it saddened her and gladdened her in equal measure. The roses made the travelers happy, but they also made her happy, and she hated cutting them away from the bushes. Her grandmother always knew when they needed to stop cutting certain plants, but Margaery was always wary of damaging them: what if they killed them? Then the tradition would be mangled and they would have nothing.
Eyeing the ground around the bases of the bushes, she surveyed her work. This row, one of the shorter ones near the center of the garden, had had enough water; the soil was dark and puddling. Her brothers were working on the outskirts, her parents in the middle rows. However, there was much still to be done; the other half of the garden still needed watering. Her grandmother, ornery as she was, had decided to go berry picking instead of helping with the watering - though Grandmother would never admit it, Margaery knew that her neck was slowly growing to weak to lift a water-filled basket; it was just too heavy for someone as old as she was to bear.
With a sigh, she picked up her basket, the handle between her teeth, and made for the river that ran beside the family's glade. It was, in Margaery's opinion, the most idyllic river in existence - but she was biased, for she'd never seen another one, either. Its waters were a calm, slow blue-green, clean and pure. Dipping her basket in the river, she stood there for a while, soaking in the sun. Here, out from under the eves of the trees that kept a perfect balance of shade and sun in the garden, Margaery could feel the full strength of the sun. Her wings flicked down flat to soak it up, and she closed her eyes, taking a moment's reprieve from the day's chore to revel in the sunlight.
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