467 Something about a Flower shop
After introducing the two people to Beatrice, the nurse looked at Peter. They seemed to have a silent conversation with their eyes before the nurse sighed, “I’ll go start working on your release documents. You can talk with them and figure out what kind of arrangement you’ll have.
I’ll also be giving you prescription drugs and instructions on how you are to handle yourself for the first few weeks after being discharged. Make sure to take it easy. You’re only human after all,” the nurse replied.
Beatrice scrunched her eyebrows, “What makes you think I’m human?”
There was a periodic silence in the room before realisation settled on the wolf’s mind, “Oh! My eye colour is peculiar. I’d forgotten about that. I guess that’s what happens when you live for years in the Golden Moon pack.”
“When you said you were from the Golden Moon pack, I was under the impression you lived there as a human. Now that I think of it, there are no humans there… but…” the nurse was still having trouble coming to terms with this new adjustment.
“I’m a werewolf. Forget the colour of my eyes,” Beatrice’s tone of finality ended the conversation.
The nurse asked the boy to accompany her and the two swept out of the emergency room to fill out the paperwork.
Beatrice had so many questions and paranoia and impatience denied her the opportunity to ignore them, “How exactly is he allowed to get me out of here?” she asked.
“Oh? We’ve been taking care of that during our visits. Peter offered his assistance for the day you woke up. It took a while for them to let him make that claim though. It’s usually family that’s allowed to do that. But as time kept ticking by, no one reported you missing. There was no sign of a family to speak of. We’d saved you from the river and he was better than nothing,” the girl explained cheerfully, “I’m just glad you’re okay. I didn’t think you would make it.”
.....
“You don’t know me,” Beatrice replied bluntly.
“No, I don’t. It’s just the way we found you that worried me the most. It’s a miracle you’re alive. At first, I thought it would be better if we let you be… But I couldn’t bring myself to forget about you, so we visited.
Several times, I dragged Peter here with me and we would watch you for hours before leaving. Your condition didn’t change for so long that we thought you were never going to wake up,” the girl tried.
This only brought more confusion to the woman’s sluggish waking mind.
After so long unconscious, she wasn’t catching up to what any of this girl was trying to explain. The long string of words seemed to take its time getting interpreted in her mind.
Perhaps if the girl had used simpler vocabulary like ‘drowning, rushing river, death, rogues et cetera et Cetera maybe then, she could have understood the girl faster.
Beatrice covered her face with her palms for a bit, “Start from the beginning, you’re not making any sense…” she groaned.
Constantly berating the girl with questions of her choosing was also not yielding any results.
Lyla smiled at the woman and let go of a breath she didn’t know she was holding. With the mood lighter, the girl began explaining everything that happened since they’d found Beatrice’s body floating by the river bank in a pool of her own blood.
..........
The two of them had finally managed to pay a hefty sum for a date they never got to finish. Supervised and protected by a security detail of trained humans and a few hunters, they were taken to a spot along the Great Sirius river of their own choosing.
Lyla had prepared the food they took with them that day.
While the dating service they were using provided them with such options, Lyla had wanted this to be special. She also wanted Peter to give his opinion on her cooking. They never did make it to this part of their date because of a female that was washed onto the shore not long after they had started.
That’s how they found Beatrice and brought her to the hospital. It was a miracle she was still alive and the doctors were able to stabilise her. However, her body had suffered serious trauma.
She’d lost a lot of blood and the doctors deduced that she was going to be unconscious for a while.
During the time that the woman had spent asleep, the two teenagers graduated and moved in together, owning an apartment that was a town away from the capital. Lyla was working on going to College soon while Peter was working in his father’s dairy company, soon to take over as the CEO.
In Sirius, this was a highly profitable business simply because of how hard it was to maintain animals in a world where rogues were bound to attack at any time. Dairy farms were goldmines of nutrition to the savages and managing one as well as Peter’s father had brought them good fortune.
It was these connections that had managed to get him the documents needed to gain the rights and permission to offer Beatrice a place to stay and help find her family. The Seeker listened quietly to the tale the girl told. She noticed how the girl’s eyes lit up each time she mentioned Peter’s name. She also noticed how much the girl drifted off topic in narration.
Beatrice had never expected to know about their daily lives or anything concerning their graduation and her going to College… And ‘A diary company, wow, that was a lot of money for someone his age. Animals are difficult to own alone in a world where every single acre that was protected by hunters was considered precious land. Not to mention the risk of losing everything to a single rogue attack.’
Nevertheless, it was this same easygoing cheery nature of the girl that forced Beatrice from getting any more questions to ask her. She found the girl answering more underlying questions before she ever got to ask them. Like how someone that young could afford the dating service they were using.
Hiring hunters was costly enough as it was. Hiring them for something as meaningless… I mean, trivial as a date was simply outrageous…
“And when you showed signs of waking up a few hours ago, we received a phone call from the hospital and now here we are.”
Beatrice blinked a few times…
No no no, that’s not what she’d wanted to know. How had some random couple suddenly started playing guardian to her? She was well beyond their years. If anything, she should have been the one returning them to whatever home they’d come from, slapping them by the wrist.
But then again, there was the case of her being in the royal capital. She didn’t really know anyone in the capital… except…
Beatrice’s eyes widened in delight as she finally remembered something useful. Lyla noticed this and gave all her attention…
Beatrice’s eyebrows suddenly scrunched in confusion and the index finger she’d raised up lost its oomph, ‘Oh dear… what was her name?’ the woman started thinking. Wracking her brain for a name. ‘This girl I once had the delight of meeting so many years ago… She might be able to help.’
“Hey, do you know where I can find Selene?” the woman asked… ‘No, that’s not the name.’
“Huh… I don’t know anyone who goes by that name. And trust me, I would know. No one would simply parade one of the names of the goddess of the moon like that,” Lyla scrunched her brows.
This woman was getting even more confusing. Wasn’t she supposed to make more sense the longer she stayed awake?
“No… Of course, that’s not the name she would use in public. And if I’m being honest, that name goes for the current holder of the goddess’s spirit, so she might not even go by that title anymore. This is so complicated… Ah, yes… a flower shop. Do you know a florist in the capital?” Beatrice’s eyes sparked with hope once more.
“A… florist? That’s the first person you would like to call after waking up. Were you on…”
'
“Don’t overthink it. I know someone in the city but I haven’t seen them in a long time. Honestly, their name is lost to me… but if there is one thing I remember about that divine vessel, it’s that she can never let go of her obsession with flowers.
Do you know of a flower shop in the capital…? It would help if the flowers of that shop were unusually beautiful and always healthy and well-looked after,” Beatrice’s voice had now gone up and the vigour with which she spoke almost made her appear recovered.
The beads of sweat on her brow told a different story. Lyla could tell she was trying so hard. ‘Divine vessel!’ her mind resounded. Beatrice was making even less and less sense the more she rambled but the coherency of her speech made it impossible to imagine she was still confused.
Lyla was about to deny having heard of a shop that good when she went silent. A slight hint of memory surfaced in her mind. There was a girl that was always called upon when it was someone who needed to make an order from the best-known flower shop in the city.
It was the same girl that liked helping in the kitchens during their school days and the same girl that had tended to her wounds when she was injured at the reserve. When she tried to put the thought of her away, a heavy fear gripped her.
A fear that she was letting go of something very important indeed. It was a fear so primal that she forgot everything else she had in mind.
“You two are getting close quite fast,” a male voice came from the door cutting through the tense atmosphere of the emergency room. Peter walked into the emergency room pushing a wheelchair. “You might be able to walk, but we can’t risk you collapsing when you’ve only just got out of a comma. Your muscles haven’t worked for more than a year, so…”
“Peter, do you remember Honour?” Lyla snapped.
This name, unknown to Beatrice, sparked some interest. She didn’t know why but her wolf reacted to the name. Maybe it was because of the aspect of her being a Seeker that she could detect the goddess or some other reason. Maybe she had heard it somewhere once before…
The feeling that gripped her was very similar to the one she got when she had tried searching for Prince Drake’s mate. But that could also be a coincidence. Back then, the woman hadn’t been blessed enough to receive a name she could offer the prince of Sirius in his time of loneliness.
‘I hope she’s found her. This is about the time he was meant to find her,’ she sighed.
“Yeah, I remember Honour. She’s the girl you told me tended to my injuries over a year ago,” the young man tapped his chin thoughtfully, “Let’s see.
She works at a flower shop not far from the palace. I’ve gone there a few times myself to buy only the best bouquets. It’s a beautiful little shop they’ve got going. Every single flower seems to always be in full bloom and the colours are…”
“That’s where I want to go. Take me to the flower shop that belongs to this… Honour. She might be able to… No, she will be able to help me with what I need,” the woman announced, cutting Peter off.
To be honest, Beatrice wanted to go straight to the king and tell him everything but that felt like a request too heavy for these two humans. They had no real access to the palace… but perhaps this… ‘Honour’ could help her out.