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Shee watched with alarm as Einar's expression soured. They weren't going back to being serious, were they? As she recalled, that hadn't gone so well. As his mood lightened again, she sighed with relief. Oops. She hadn't meant to actually sigh.

"But singing flowers are so gaudy, don't you think? If I got a bouquet of singing flowers, I'd send them right back. Flowers express thoughts and provoke feelings through more subtle avenues."

They had walked to the far side of the complex; away from the library, the residences, and most everything else. A white, lattice-screen jali faced them, and Shee walked slowly towards it, laying a hand on the smooth, marble relief. "Well, I suppose I could do that, if I was so inclined," she paused, smiling cryptically, "but isn't this just so much more fun?"

Shee slid the cyclindrical metal bolt of the mechanical lock on the jali to the right, and pushed gently on the screen, which slowly swung away from her. It's absence revealed a row of elegant, sloping arches, lined with cusps, stretching over a marble walkway which ended on the lips of a case of shallow stairs. Shee silently stepped down them to a small balcony rimmed with balustrades of intricate arabesque, small blue poppies weaved into the gaps. The balcony looked out over the south grounds, over which an impossibly lush assortment of vegetation grew, twisting into the shape of a magnificent Persian garden, surrounding a narrow pool which ran the length of the grounds. The pool's water was shallow, clear and still; within it floated perfect, snow white lotuses.

Walking to the edge, Shee cupped a poppy in her hand and closed her eyes, letting it's scent surround her. She lifted it from it's place and tucked it behind her ear, where it nestled into her dark hair. Leaning on the balustrade, Shee's lids were lowered as she looked out onto the South gardens, only dimly aware that Einar was still present.

Shee was shaken out of her stupor by Einar's words. She turned to Einar, smiling shyly, her inner pride in her gardens swelling with Einar's compliment and spilling onto her face in a radiant glow.

She didn't know what to say. The only other person she'd taken extensively into the gardens was her brother, and he had to say nice things to her. She didn't want to say anything; didn't want to ruin that moment of perfect stillness.

So instead, she took another brilliant blue poppy from it's place and, closing the distance between herself and the taller man, reached up, intending to fasten the flower to Einar's lapel.

Grateful for Einar's movement, Shee laughed softly at the thought of how odd the two of them must look together. Satisfied, she gently patted the flower to make sure it was secure and began to move away from the man. She looked up at his face, following his gaze over the railing and out over the garden. There was something there in his eyes (eye, she corrected mentally) that stirred her. She knew the gardens at LOTUS were impressive, but when she had started the game, she hadn't known that anything she did would affect him like this.

"Einar?" Shee's voice was barely above a whisper, not wanting to crack the illusion spun around them. "Do you want to go down and see?"

There was another flight of stairs to the right of them, where the balustrade broke off and weaved downwards, forming a railing for a set that was deeper and longer. Shee smiled at Einar and set off down the stairs, lightly touching each step for a moment before bouncing to the next, strands of her dark hair escaping their braids and rippling behind her in the slight wind. Her foot finally touched down onto the deep, rich earth as she descended the last set of stairs onto the ground.

They were at one end of the narrow pool. It stretched out in front of them, disappearing into the dense foliage of the Champa trees that lined it and ending with another arch, miniscule in the distance, protecting what appeared to be more lush foliage behind its marble arms.

It was quiet; only the rustling of their clothes could be heard as the sun sunk deeper, the sky tinged with shades of orange and pink. "I don't think I've ever brought anyone else here." Except Wraith, she thought. But Wraith was always uncomfortable here; he was always agitated, and Shee could never get him to calm down. Shee, for one wild moment, hoped that it wasn't her garden that affected people like that; made them agitated. But-- if she thought about it, if she admitted it to herself, she knew what it was that made her brother upset. And because of it, she hoped she wouldn't look like a fool to Einar. "If I could spend all my time here, outside, I would."

((Here are some really, really quick sketches I did so it would be a little easier for you to reply. This one is more accurate; this one is for the colour scheme.))

Shee looked sideways at Einar, pursing her lips and trying not to smile. "Well, you could say that 'yes, Shee, you are a wonderful gardener!' Or 'I had a wonderful day today, Shee!'"

In the very back of her mind, she registered Einar's mouth forming the word killing, before he hastily reverted and chose a more docile scenario. But she was happy, and didn't want to think about things of such gravity, and the word receded into the place of forgotten things as she heard Einar speak again.

She couldn't contain her smile any longer, and laughed with joy and without restraint; the sound was reminiscent of clusters of golden bells. "I won! That means that you," Shee stretched out the vowels on the last word, and pointed at Einar, "owe me a certain story about a certain eyepatch. And almost certainly something else as well, since you admitted defeat yourself."

Shee grinned and could not help the teasing tone that crept into her voice. "I'm sure I'll be able to think of something."

Listening as Einar began his story, Shee slowly walked to the edge of the marble walkway they were standing on and sat down gently on the first of the few steps that led down into the organized tangle of plumeria trees lining the pool. Looking up at him, eyes wide, she silently implored him to sit beside her. So he had been young when it had happened. She felt a twinge of sadness at this, remembering only flashes of vivid colour from her own youth, beginning to realize, for the first time, what really losing an eye meant physically.

As Einar continued, a look of confusion inched, little by little, onto her face as she wondered how an apparent concussion had led to the eye patch. At the word corpse, she drew in a small breath, almost undetectable, almost worried before her eyes were drawn to the patch by Einar's tapping, and she remembered that he was alive, sitting in front of her, and so nothing had happened at the hospital.

Or maybe it had; Shee couldn't keep the slight unease she felt out of her eyes as she looked from Einar's covered eye to his intact one.

His question to her forcefully forged in her mind that missing link between what he had told her so far and the visible outcome set upon his features. She knew what was coming.

Still, as he continued, Shee was struck by all the details that he remembered, so austere and stark and precise. His face belied no negative emotions, no pain; instead, she could swear she thought he was holding back a smile. His voice painted her a picture of a 2104 that was cold and devoid of colour, the hospital awash in dull tones of blue and clad in steel. Shee had always-- not quite liked, but close-- hospitals, as to her, they represented healing and recovery. If time hadn't broken, she thought she might have worked in a hospital, tried to help people the only way she knew how. She had even dreamed of someday owning a hospital of her own, if the world ever allowed it. But--

Einar had tapped on the surface of that illusion, creating in it cracks that spidered outwards, and the dream threatened to shatter. Like everything else. Could she ever do that? Could she make a mistake, ruin... or end someone's life? Shee sat impossibly still. She already had, once. But she had fixed it. And she remembered the resolve that had come to her with the realization of the power that she held. The resolve that had led them to this place.

Shee hadn't taken her eyes off of Einar for the duration of his story. Her gaze held firm as Einar let the eye patch fall into his hand and he grinned at her.

"I-- I'm sorry I made you tell me. I didn't know that..."

She didn't know what? She didn't know, but she should have. What else would a story about an eye patch be? Tales of pirates and adventure were relegated to storybooks. Shee didn't know what to do. Einar seemed not put off in the slightest, but she couldn't help the feeling of warmth that was flowing down her arms to her hands, unbidden.

Her eyes had not lost the look of worry, but it was due now to a rather different reason.

"I know what I want from you."

"What? They-- they told you something like that? Is that how things are-- uh, were, in the future?"

She'd noticed that when she'd spoken, he had stopped laughing, and she could see from his expression that he was upset. She didn't really know why, but she guessed she'd said the wrong thing.

"Oh. Well, I always thought the proper thing to do, when someone tells you something sad, is to tell them you're sorry. But you don't seem that sad. I guess that's good."

As he turned, with his eye patch still not on his face, and questioned her, Shee's hand gave an involuntary twitch, as though to reach up and touch that empty space where an eye had been long ago. She quickly buried the hand in her hair, laying it on the back of her neck, embarrassed. Why couldn't she control it?

Her thoughts turned back to the thing she was going to ask Einar for. He was going to say no. She knew he was. So she told him that plainly.

"You're going to say no."