Nova Peak None of this is real enough, to take me from you.

i had a nice post and lost it, so enjoy this trash heap

Of course he'd made it all for her. If Stag had his way, he'd have done anything to see her smile, to see happiness flit in and out of the galaxy of lilac and yellow in her gaze. He'd move mountains, build gardens, maybe even kill if it came to it -- though he never gave that much thought.

He wished Thade was here too. He wished, in fact, they had never moved at all. That their lives had never been broken, that they had never moved and that Phaedra had never known the early sting of life's indifference so soon. But that was not life.

Not their life, anyway.

Stag's ears airplaned as he caught, in Phaedra's soft murmur, a word he had not expected. Papa? He surveyed her quietly, realizing she was mortified -- moreso than he was. Rather than draw an audience to the innocuous word slip, Stag elected for a careful smile, returning his gaze back to the garden while Phaedra regathered her confidence.

Even beddar was better than nothing at all. Stag kept the smile while Phaedra chewed her lips, his gaze trailing from the geode to the empty rows just waiting for Phaedra's care. "What's a gardenia?" And then, realizing he had not answered her question, Stag looked up to the sky and then back to Phaedra with consideration. "Hmm. I like blue. The color the sky is on a cold winter day. That blue. I don't see many blue flowers, though. What's your favorite color?"