4th Floor Common Room, Wednesday

[refused2berescued]

Uma had been sent flowers. Yeah, she'd gotten them hours ago, but she still didn't know why she'd gotten them. Or what to do with them. This was the first time she'd seen real flowers, never mind had any of her own.

Flowers needed...water, right? Yeah, that sounded good. She was just going to bang around the common room, looking for a cup or something big enough to hold her...stripey, purple flowers (what kind of flowers were they? Not-roses was the only guess she had) and hope that they didn't die while she looked for something appropriate to put them in.

How fast did flowers die, exactly? Why didn't school teach this kind of stuff?!

[Open! I have no work today!]

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[intotheout]

Tip had gotten a bunch of flowers of her own today, and felt bad about not remembering to send any, herself, so she'd spent the morning in town buying a bunch of big boxes of chocolate, enough to leave one in each common room. Not the most personal of valentine's, sure, but it wasn't like she had a boyfriend or anything to spend the day with, anyway.

"Hey Uma," she greeted, setting a big heart-shaped box on the coffee table with a post-it reading "Happy V-day! ♥ ♥ ♥" in a messy scrawl. "Those are pretty! Who are they from?"

[refused2berescued]

"Tip, hey," Uma said, momentarily forgetting to be gruff and feisty. She just didn't want the flowers to die, okay? They were pretty! "They're from Nathan, but I don't know why." Did people just do that around here? Give out flowers? In winter? "I'm looking for something to put them in. Like a big cup or whatever."

[reicicled]

Bobby, meanwhile, had meant to find a vase or something for his earlier, but in typical Bobby Drake fashion, gotten distracted by something or other. And then there'd been class, which had ended up being cancelled, but still.

"Did you find any vases or anything in here?" he asked. "And if so, can I have one too?"

[intotheout]

"Or a vase?" Tip suggested. She went over to help look through the cupboards. Surely a place that did flower deliveries every year would have random vases lying around. "He probably sent them because he wanted you to have something to make you feel special for Valentine's Day. That's today. It's a whole holiday about showing people you love them."

She'd had to explain Valentine's Day more than once before. She rather felt she was getting good at it.

[in_sidon_we_trust]

Uma wasn't the only one out lookinh to water their flowers. Sure, Sidon''s room was FULL of water, but he wasn't about to feed the flowers where he slept! That just wouldn't do!

And so there he was, stepping into the common room with a small bouquet clutched in his hand, and a big grin on his face. "You've received flowers, too, I see! How wonderful! They're positively stunning!"

[refused2berescued]

"A vase," Uma repeated. "...You all have a special thing just for flowers to live in?"

She get around to having a special day just for love--ha!--in a moment. But first she was still boggling over the idea of having a special flower-cup.

[always_someone]

Okay, so... technically Norman lived one floor down from here. But on his quest to find a vase for his own flowers, it turned out there really wasn't anything in the third floor common room that he could use.

So he was staging a hostile takeover of the fourth floor common room. Sort of. Trying to be sneaky about it, anyway, since he always felt a little bit like he was trespassing when he made his way into the common rooms of other floors.

"... I'm last in line for trying to find a vase, aren't I?"

Sorry, Norman.

[intotheout]

"You'll find we have a special thing just for most stuff," Tip said. "Mostly so stores can sell them to people. Vases tend to hold more water than just a glass, and if they're tall and skinny, they hold the flowers up nice and tall." She shrugged. "But, I mean, so do bottles, if you don't want to be fancy."

[refused2berescued]

"Tip found some," Uma said, pointing to the cupboard where they'd discovered a cache of vases. Uma was still boggling over the idea of possibly needing that many flower cups. Or, really, a special kind of flower cup in the first place.

...How many flowers did these people have anyway?

"Your flowers look different than mine do," she added, showing him her purple-striped carnations. "But I think they're the same type."

[refused2berescued]

"I...did," Uma said, looking at Sidon's flowers. She pointed at the purple-striped ones. "Are those from Norman?"

She also had three purple-striped carnations.

[refused2berescued]

"There are still plenty of them," Uma said, which might or might not have been accurate. She'd thought having one flower cup was plenty and more than three positively extravagant. Seriously, how many flowers did people have at one time here? "Uh. Thanks." The word did not come easily to Uma. "For the...stripey flowers."

Whatever they were called again.

[always_someone]

Well, Norman had one and a half dozen back in his room, but that was one and a half dozen more than he'd expected to have, which was why he was standing here in the first place, looking dubiously toward the cupboards.

"You're welcome," he replied, giving her a little smile. "I know they're probably not as fun as oranges, but student council wasn't selling fruit baskets, really."

[refused2berescued]

"It's just weird," Uma said, giving a super-casual shrug. "We don't really have anything like that back home. The only flowers I've ever seen were on TV."

[reicicled]

Bobby nodded. "I dunno what they're called," he admitted. "But I like 'em. They'll brighten up our room, anyway, that's for sure."

[intotheout]

"You don't even get, like, flowering weeds?" Tip asked with a frown. "Or did the Autobahn stick you all on a totally barren rock?"

[in_sidon_we_trust]

"They most certainly are!" Sidon said, beaming as he noticed that they matched with those particular blossoms. "He must have sent you some as well! Fantastic! And while I very much love the ones sent to me from Peridot, Zack, and Pumpkin, I'll admit, I believe Norman's are the most beautiful ones. He has quite the eye, doesn't he? I shall have to thank him when I get the chance. So you are friends with my Little Brother as well?"

[refused2berescued]

"I didn't know it was a thing," she said. Even if she had, she still might not have sent any, but at least then it would have been a conscious decision. Now she just felt a little awkward. "Today's a flower holiday?"

[always_someone]

"Today's the flower holiday," Norman agreed. "Not everybody participates in it. Heck, not everybody even likes it. But if you're living in a certain era, in a certain place, it's generally pretty difficult to avoid."

[refused2berescued]

"He told me what oranges are," Uma said. "At the picnic. And sometimes we talk in class."

Norman didn't seem to mind explaining basic stuff to her, or even really let on that it was basic. Which made Uma feel better about sometimes asking him.

"We arrived at the same time, though he came by shuttle and the ocean brought me."

[refused2berescued]

"And they'll stay longer than our food did," Uma said, still more than a little sore that the food they'd been smuggling hadn't lasted beyond class. Who did that?! "Who are yours from?"

[refused2berescued]

"The goblins can sorta raise some things, but for the most part, it's barren," Uma said with a shrug. "There's not a whole lot of space left for stuff to grow anyway. Maybe on some of the other islands? There are some stunted trees on those and that kind of skinny, stabby grass."

She'd always kind of figured that was normal and the only reason there was so many plants and flowers on the TV was because the antennas picked up royal propaganda channels.

[refused2berescued]

"Some people don't like flowers?" Uma asked.

That seemed weird. They were pretty and harmless for the most part. She wanted hers to live.

[intotheout]

". . . Stabby grass?" Not so much, no. Tip shook her head. "Well, flowers are pretty common around here. There's even a whole shop in town to sell them." Capitalism never stopped. "Giving them to someone is generally a sign that you like and appreciate them. Though I guess there's a whole field of passive aggressive flower giving, too. That's really probably not what yours are for, though."

[always_someone]

Norman gave his shoulders a shrug.

"I think it's less about not liking flowers, and more about not liking the holiday itself," he offered. "And what it reminds them of. Some people hate when the holiday rolls around if they don't have somebody special to share it with. I'm not really sure why, though."

It wasn't like he'd ever had anybody special to share it with.

Grandma Babcock didn't count.

[in_sidon_we_trust]

Those all seemed like pretty Norman things to Sidon. Of course, they were pretty normal things for...most people, but he could definitely picture Norman doing them, so his head bobbed along in agreement until he was thoroughly distracted by the rest of what she said. "Oh," he sighed longingly, his hand stretched across his chest, "to have been brought by the ocean! I myself came by the shuttle, which was quite an...interesting experience, I must admit. We have nothing like that back home in Hyrule; why, the closest thing I can think of is perhaps the Divine Beasts, but, and I do mean this in the kindest way possible, the shuttle is not even remotely as remarkable. I hope that doesn't sound rude! I am glad for the experience, but I think I would have enjoyed swimming in or riding the tides into the shore much better. Of course, my heart grows weary of being on dry land so much, thus making the prospect immediately appealing to me, but I have to say, I simply cannot wait for the weather to warm again. The oceans here are incredibly wonderful; I could swim for hours out there! Marvelous!"