Of Flowers, Insects, and Us (LizQuen One-shot)

Of Flowers, Insects, and Us

Disclaimer: This is a piece of fiction. While events, names, and places may depict reality, none of them must be construed true unless grounded upon factual evidence.

Trigger warnings: insects(?), dung talk

A message from nerd!ro:
This story is set in any-town-Philippines, so don't kill me if there are flowers that seem a little too foreign to be in the tropics. I did my best to research their habitats and distribution, and some species can grow in certain areas in the Philippines, not to mention that the country is one of the largest biodiversity hotspots in the world. Also, this piece is really, truly, amazingly nerdy. And sappy. I wanted a break from all angst so this came to fruition. You've been warned.

This is dedicated to @anoganap (Twitter), the first lovely person to ever encourage me in writing all these AUs. Happy birthday, dearie! <3

Also! Flower meanings should be found in the A/N at the end. I didn't want to disrupt the flow, so I thought of putting them there. Enjoy!

I

Upon moving out of a communal apartment complex that was without question a huge curb on the freedom every functional adult deserved, Hope chose to make the transfer into a little town south of her former address. The grounds leading to this resolution—by no means imprudent, all things considered—were pondered the way a responsible societal unit must, leaving no room for oversights that could otherwise trivialize the undisputed scientific process. With a suitable margin of error, of course.

And so when the morning after moving in she found a trimmed primrose stalk sticking out like a sore thumb amidst its brethren, Hope balked, fumed for an indiscernible period, berated herself, and gritted her teeth. Consignment to the town's citizenry of the outstanding property that she had acquired—the impressive gardens in particular—had apparently been willy-nilly, to say the least. She had done away with the idea of erecting a signage to implore neighbors from collecting flowers without permission, as the broker had reassured her that privacy, in this town, was upheld, and given her initial observations of the community, she had been under the misguided impression that it was wise to worry little about the possibility of intruders.

Hope inspected the severed flower stalk. Judging by the angle of incision and the frayed green epidermis at the cutting, whoever plucked the flower had done so barehanded, although not quite without a struggle, as the base of the stalk sported twin dents that could only result from pinching. The exposed tissue was just bruising, henceforth the transgression had been consummated not an hour ago.

Appraising the state of the entire line of primrose plants, she spotted a few more trimmings, most stalks browned and withered, and there were some fallen blossoms, decaying upon the patch of earth beneath the herbaceous stems, varying degrees of inconclusive as to whether caused by bipeds at all.

Hope straightened up, knuckle connecting with her chin. Not only was this a travesty of the peace she had pictured, but a disturbance to the natural ecological interactions of the organisms inhabiting the garden that was now under her care. While small-scale in appearance, if such a disturbance were to recur, the plans she had drafted to develop the garden to its fullest potential might as well be in vain.

In hindsight, she should have listened to the voice inside her head and taken into account human interventions, but she did not, and now she would be in dampened spirits, unable to focus on the proposal that she had been kneading into perfection the past few months. Her application for doctorate studies was in jeopardy.

She would get to the bottom of this and whoever the felon was, they would be apprehended.

***