#ayasig

     He made a sound argument, but she was reluctant to be outside where the sun would be beating down on her for hours at a time. Reading about plants and how to care for them was one thing, but actually *caring* for plants was something else entirely. She couldn't think of a good counterargument though, so she started by volunteering for the gardening duties at school just to get them off her back. It was a simple job and all she had to do was work in the school garden, and everyone was more than happy to help the "new" student with caring for the luneflowers and other flowers planted in the garden. Contrary to everyone's expectations, she ended up being the one to teach them about the flowers rather than the other way around.

     Luneflowers really were lovely flowers, perhaps her favorite after her beloved hydrangeas, and they invoked such fond memories in her heart... Well, maybe "memories" is too strong of a word. More accurately, they filled her with a sense of longing and nostalgia--a bittersweet sadness. She could never assign a face to those feelings, so her mind just conjured a blurry mess of colors and faint voices that had faded over time. She tried not to dwell on those feelings, at least not anymore. Thinking about it for too long would just give her another splitting headache and force her back into the cramped pages of that dusty book...

     She returned from her brief daydream and looked down at the old metal watering can she was gripping. She wondered how long she'd been standing there holding that. Embarrassed, she looked around like a nervous animal to see if anyone saw her do something so embarrassing. Her shoulders relaxed once she determined that there was no one in the immediate vicinity... She always came a bit earlier than the others after school since she tended to space out like this *and* she wanted the chance to do something without others watching...

     With a delicate hand, she plucked a petal from one of the luneflowers and a small blooming anemone. She sat on a wooden bench fashioned from a log, fished a small book out of her pocket, and tucked the blossom and the petal lovingly between the pages. Other dried specimens crunched as she turned the pages to the newest blank ones. She penned the date and type of flower on the pages and then closed the book, inserting it back into her pocket with a swift motion.

     "Are you allowed to do that?"

     Aya stood at the sudden voice and turned around. It was just Sig... oh, right, Sig was her duty partner today, weren't they? He stood behind the bench with a net in his hands, meaning that he was probably catching bugs before the assigned duty time after school as usual...

     "It's fine as long as I'm not caught, isn't it?" She retorted while averting her gaze from him back to the flowers.

     "Just asking. Never thought about doing that, is all," he stepped over the bench as he spoke, then laid the bug net on the flat surface. "Are you saving them for something?"

     Aya looked back at him, then to the flowers, then back to him. ...She didn't expect him to understand, but she withdrew the book again and flipped to the first few pages. Dried flowers and petals were were pressed to the pages, their colors bleeding onto the off-white paper of the notebook.      "Nothing in particular," she muttered. "I lack most of our--my memories-- so I thought keeping physical reminders would be...good... for me," she shut the book again and thrust it back into her pocket, eager to get this awkward interaction out of the way so they could both go home. "Even if they're bound to rot eventually, I want something to show that I was here." She gazed at the flowers again, that same bittersweet feeling creeping its way into her heart once more.

     "...Kinda like the luneflowers, huh," Sig replied, though she couldn't tell if it was a question or a statement. He picked up a trowel and began to work in the garden, plucking weeds and removing other foreign objects in the soil.

     "What do you mean?" Aya asked, quickly following suit with a pair of gardening scissors as she pruned and cut dying blossoms form the flowers.

     "You mentioned it yesterday," he continued, "That luneflowers have been in Primp as long as you can remember. Even before Primp existed, you said." They looked inquisitively into the large discs of the flower and continued their work, "They're sort of like a reminder from the people before Primp that they were here before, even if no one's around to tell us anymore."

Aya stopped her work and looked at the flowers. 

     "I suppose it's similar," She snipped a bud that had been burnt by the sun. "...I suppose that is what they mean to us now, but I wonder what they meant before..." she gently lifted a drooping flower head and thought of her lost memories once more.

     "Maybe they don't really need to *mean* anything," Sig stood and dusted the dirt off his hands. "Maybe it's okay for them to just be a reminder."

Aya looked up at him, then once more to the flowers, and smiled bitterly.