Yaaay! ^^
Word Count → 521
Her lily was withering away.
Shiloh noticed this as she passed by the dirty old mirror she’d rescued from the depths of her home. She paused, frowning, and tilted her head to better see the little flower tucked perfectly behind her ear. It had lost its luster, shriveling slightly and turning from its lovely pink and white hue to something off-yellow and dull.
The young woman sighed, freeing it from her blonde hair and holding it gently in her hands, as if it were an injured bird rather than a dead flower. Her fingertips passed carefully over the dry, wrinkled petals, and she wondered if she might wear it a little longer, to salvage the situation. A young Lykoi woman with eyes like lapis lazuli had worn a flower as beautiful as death as in life—but the melancholy memory crossed over her face like a sad little shadow, and she set the flower on her nightstand. Maybe it was still beautiful, in a depressing way, but she knew she couldn’t pull off a dead lily.
Autumn was coming, bringing winter on its heels, and Shiloh knew it’d be hard to find a replacement for her beloved accessory. She’d wizened up when she was traveling through old human settlements, finding an artificial flower that, while not quite as gorgeous as the real thing, at least wasn’t so easily knocked loose from her hair and would never die. She wasn’t yet ready to admit defeat, though; maybe she could find another flower, perhaps one of a different color this time—maybe a cerulean blue to match her eyes, or a delicate lace white that would be nearly invisible unless one chanced to look.
She smiled at these more optimistic thoughts, and tried to remember where she’d seen flowers in Vinátta. There had been a garden of some sort…yes; she thought she knew where it was. Her tail flickering under the deep pink fabric of her summer dress, she stepped outside into the pleasantly cool day and took a little trip down to the communal gardens she’d spotted but never happened to look closely at.
Her appearance at the garden was heralded by noises of exertion, and her ears flicked forward quickly as she came around the corner to see another she-wolf hard at work, kneeling by the garden and plucking weeds free of the soil. Other than a coffee-and-cream coat, her most distinguishing feature was a swollen stomach, and Shiloh recognized this as pregnancy (and late-term pregnancy) quickly enough. She wasn’t sure whether she was disturbed or gladdened by the sight of that belly, but how she felt about puppies kicking around in tummies was irrelevant to the moment: a pack-mate was in need of assistance.
“Oh, hello,” Shiloh greeted in a sweet coo, striding quickly over to the bobtailed wolf and kneeling beside her; careful to keep as much of her dress off the dirt as possible. “Do you want some help?” she asked, and reached out to pluck a dandelion as she did so—which made it clear enough that the woman’s answer didn’t matter, and she’d be helping anyway.
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