IN THE BLUR OF SERENITY, WHEN DID EVERYTHING GET LOST?
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Little explored the section of the garden that had become Weiss's personal Eden may have been, but Setebos was familiar with every inch of the garden, even its lesser-known corners barely touched by the sunlight. Setebos did not often venture there, as the specimens of flora that bloomed behind the protective labyrinth of virulent thorns were not pertinent to his work, but when he did wander into that treacherous division, it was merely to observe. Botany was one of his passions, and it was why he spent so much of his time in the garden, obsessing over the growth and maintenance of these plants. When the cold swept through Inaria, bringing snow to lay devastation to his carefully-cultivated greenery, he retired to the caverns they used to store medicine, and salvaged what he could.
Winter had eroded the vines which had once made the hidden grove nearly impassable. Setebos was consumed with ensuring that their dried stockpiles of medicine remained uncontaminated, but once he realized that the entrance had been revealed to him, it was as an afterthought. He had no idea that he had been sharing the garden with a ghost; two caregivers nurturing their separate sides of the forest. Weiss's imprint was so ephemeral he could barely perceive it through the frost.
For the first time, Setebos noticed the pawprints in the melted snow surrounding the withered vines, and knew they were not his own. Setebos decided to investigate. He was curious, but his interest had not taken that sickening downturn into suspicion and then panic. Maybe this constituted some degree of progress; the fact he could acknowledge another person's presence without assuming that they were there to kill him. Maybe he was just having a good night. (He still threw a dark look through the dark trees, as if to deter waiting Jettes and Nereids.) Ordinarily winter was not kind to him, and there was so little to distract him from his darkening thoughts.
He couldn't sleep, as always. That was why he was in the Garden during this insensible hour. Caring for the few flowers that survived gave him something to focus on beyond the ghosts of memories. A few plants persisted through winter's end; a lily here to soothe the nightmares, a tulip for his guilt. Too many things haunted him.
With spring approaching, the pristine dunes of snow were beginning to recede into puddles of slush, revealing patches of fledgling stalks of grass. Setebos's footsteps over the changing terrain at first sounded as crunches, then squelching, then the slight crackling of frost-sprinkled grass bending to his weight as he carefully picked through the withered vegetation. While the Healer's Garden was recovering, the poisonous flowers struggled behind a glass case. Setebos gave a nearby foxglove a pitying glance.
Weiss was bent over, the arch of her back a wilted stem, head low to the ground. He almost took her for a prey animal, at first, from how slight she appeared. Setebos's breath turned to ice in his lungs and he blinked, expecting her to dissipate when he opened his eyes, but she lingered. She lingered, in spite of wobbly legs and an empty stomach. He had not witnessed such obvious malnourishment in an Inarian since Cappella, and that was because she was recuperating from her detention in Saboro.
Setebos bolted - not for Weiss, but away, for the forest. Finding food during a winter night was difficult, but his nose and eyes were still good, and he was able to locate a rat's nest and make short work of its sleeping occupants. Paltry nourishment, but it would do in an emergency, or at least until he could find better. Setebos snatched up the two rats and returned to where he found Weiss, expecting to see her there, and when he did, he dropped them at her paws. In case she was wondering what, exactly, she was supposed to do with them, he pushed the slaughtered rodents closer to her.
"Eat it," Setebos commanded sternly, eyes narrowing.
"You're starving." If Weiss refused his charity, he was prepared to knock her skinny ass to the ground and shove the food down her throat.
( It's for your own good! )
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THE FLOWERS OF NAIVETE BURIED IN A LAYER OF FROST.