A small gesture

The flowers were almost all of different lengths and many different varieties. They were tied with a small blue ribbon that Aria recognized to be Helen's, reinforcing the fact that Helen had sent them.

Aria took them from Joseph's outstretched hands and continued to stare at them, still lost for words. But Joseph seemed to be making up for her speechlessness as he chattered on, "I happened upon some rather pretty blue daisies during my training today. They reminded me too much of Helen to not pick out some for her. The one thing led to another, and I had too many flowers, even for her to manage. She suggested I take some to you, even tied her ribbon to make sure it looked like a bouquet. I had forgotten all about that, I was only taking them to Helen after all."

Joseph paused to take a deep breath and continued, "I really didn't want to. I told her you would not like it very much, but Helen insisted, pointing out that you were in the recovery ward after all, and none of us had really given you flowers. Also . . . . she said the yellow roses really reminded her of your hair."

Joseph finally stopped to take a breath as Aria looked up in surprise. "They do have the same color." she muttered, looking back at the flowers in her hand.

"You don't really have to take them if you don't want to, but Helen . . . . " "Didn't you have an important session?" Aria cut in before he could have rambled on any further. "Oh shit!!" Joseph exclaimed before turning on his heels and running towards the door.

"I'll come after lunch. We'll study water precision!!" Joseph's voice was heard as he disappeared from view. Aria chuckled before turning back to stare at the flowers in her hand. Her heart did a weird flip as she looked at them and Aria shook her head. "It'snot like you don't get flowers. Stephen practically drowns you in them, for God's sake!!" she muttered to herself as she stretched out her hand to keep the bouquet on the bedside table. But there was no space there. It was practically brimming with all the bouquets Stephen had decided to dump on her in the morning. What little space was left was taken up by her novels, books and writing material.

Aria sighed as she placed them beside her pillow on the bed and picked up a novel and opened it. "It's a good thing I do not have to pour over boring books the first thing in the morning. I can pour over interesting books." she muttered.

But Aria's eyes couldn't help but wander to the little bouquet beside her pillow and she couldn't help but remember the last time she had received hand-picked flowers. It would probably have been during her seventh birthday when she received a flower crown from Beth and Julia.

People didn't really think about giving flowers at the academy, be it the water kingdom or the fire kingdom. And back when she was at the village, well, the people back there rarely had enough leisure to randomly go pick flowers for random girls.

Aria finished her lunch and burped satisfactorily. It had been her favorite today, vegetable sandwiches and mashed potatoes.