My life is his in every lifetime.
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"I don't think you two are meant to be together."
After zoning out for a while, my eyes darts back to the older woman in front of me. I can't help to clench my jaw so hard my head starting to ache.
She rolls her eyes at me and mutters something to herself. I'm probably pissing her off, but who cares?
"Why?" she lazily asks me with a cigarette in her mouth.
When I was alive, I always imagined her as a sweet and gentle old woman. But I guess this is what serving millions of soul does to you.
"I'm pretty sure you also asked me the same question the last time we met."
She gives me an innocent look. "So? I'm curious, that's all," she says and takes a deep puff of her cigarette.
I scrub my face with my hands and sighs. "I just want to protect him. To keep him safe from things that will hurt him. You know that."
"And look at you now. You're here. For the fifth time."
"I'm still going to end up here sooner or later."
"Well yeah, you don't get to choose when you die, that's not up for debate. But you actually have the choice to choose how you die. Why choose a painful death when you can die normally? There are many ways to die without going through a painful process. Or you didn't know that?" asks her. She's sliding down in her chair and crossing her arms.
Of course I know. But what can I do when he's always born with almost zero luck, and trouble always seems to follow him in every life? Just sit and watch him suffer? Hell no. Not on my watch.
"Looks like you have a lot of free time. Those souls queuing out there aren't enough to keep you busy huh?"
"Oh shut up. Fine. I'll let you go." She throws a glare at me as she gets up from her seat and grabs a laddle to scoop her iconic soup.
I hastily stop her before she pours the soup into the ceramic bowl. "Wait, you didn't even ask me if I wanted to drink the soup or not."
She looks at me with a 'seriously?' look on her face and I just mouth her a 'what?'
"Goodness, why do you love hurting yourself so much? Is this a kink of yours?"
I try my best to resist the urge to curse. I don't know what would happen to me if I cursed a deity, and I don't think I want to know either.
"Ma'am, just sign the paper please."
She let out a soft snort of amusement with lips quirks up. "You are a stubborn one aren't you?"
Seeing the impatient look on my face, she finally puts down her laddle and bowl. I close my eyes as she begins to sign a bunch of documents. The truth is, I really really want to forget everything. To start fresh, without countless memories dragging me down is something I've always dreamed of. But I need my memories to protect him. I don't care if what she said earlier was true, that me and him aren't meant to be together, I just really can't take the risk of losing him.
"There will be someone else in your place to protect him. It doesn't have to be you," she says, as if she could hear my thoughts. "You deserve to live a peaceful life. Just because you failed to save him in your first life, and that wasn't your job by the way, you lived a few years after that in guilt and then another 4 lifetimes of sacrificing yourself. Is that not enough?"
I don't know how to answer her so I just keep my mouth shut. The pain, the hell I've been through is nothing compared to seeing him died in agony. Everyone knows I've never been good at letting things go. If my life is the cost for him to live happily, then so be it. From the first day I met him, my life was already his.
"Maybe this time try to figure out a way to save him without having to exchange your life, alright? I don't want to see your pathetic face for at least another 80 years," she says and gives me my papers.
I let a laugh slip from my mouth as I take the paper from her hands. "Alright. Tell the old guys trio to bless me with lots of luck okay? They were so stingy last time geez."
Her grin changes into a fond smile and she noddes at me. "Yeah yeah. Now shoo, get out."
So I get up from my seat, and excuse myself out. Outside, I can see there are many souls still waiting to see the old lady inside. Many of them look nervous. Some of them look calm. Whatever, their feelings are none of my business.
My step feels light as I approach the bridge. The river down there honestly looks scary. They really should add cute ducks.
While waiting for my turn, my mind wander around. I don't know where they put him, so there is a chance I have to spend half of my life to find him. It doesn't matter, I'll always find a way. I don't mind if I have to do this a few more times.
All those years of running across the country in search of his traces was embarrassing. But I didn't regret it, a life without him isn't something I want. Although somewhere during my third life, I realized it was enough to watch him from afar.
Maybe one day the universe will take a pity on me and let him be mine. Until then, in every lifetime I'd still choose him, I'd find him again and again.
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It started with teenage trivia.
Danny, Sam, and Tucker were all hanging out and playing games with each other. At first, it was just pvp games with the trio taking turns beating each other and gain more points in their score board. As time went on, Danny was the only one play a level based game with both Sam and Tucker mindlessly watching him go through the ‘Underworld’ level. It was when Danny faced his first pop of color in contrast to all the black and gray did he raised an eyebrow in slight surprise.
“Why are there red flowers in this level?”
“Their Spider Lilies, they mean death, Danny.”
“Huh.”
And that was that,
He really didn’t think much of it afterwards, the small fact tucked away in his mind, never to resurface again.
Until it did.
He took notices of some red spider lilies that were left behind after defeating Undergrowth. A lightbulb went off in his mind and made the connection that maybe that's why the plant-based ghost grew such flowers in his attack.
Then he started to wonder if the other types of plants Undergrowth used in their fights also have similar meanings.
Chrysanthemums, he later searched on the internet, also symbolizes death. Crimson roses symbolize mourning and Hyacinths symbolizes deep longing. Danny also felt amusement when he found that some lilies symbolize rebirth and new life or how Carnations and Gladiolis mean remembrance.
But it really hit home when he found out that some flowers can mean resurrection.
He closed his phone after that.
Yet, just like any other teenager who faced the rabbit hole called the internet, Danny found himself going back to search other types of flower meanings and symbolizes over and over again. When it wasn’t enough, he later had a stack of books about the meaning behind many other flowers scattered around his room. It was soon after did Danny started to detail the more interesting stories and meaning behind some flowers into an empty journal.
Slowly, Danny started to learn the study of florigraphy day by day.
Then one day the trio of friends were walking down the street from another ghost alert (turns out to be Cujo) with Sam explaining once again why the two boys should think of becoming vegan with Tucker explaining why meat was to amazing to give up. Danny only listened to the two bickers for majority of the walk, humming once in a while.
Then he randomly inserted himself in between the two with a question.
“Hey Sam, what's the easiest flower to grow?”
It ended with Danny going home with three types of flower seed packets and small indoor pots, curtesy of a quick trip to the store.
Surprisingly, with some help from Sam and Jazz, he did manage to grow some blossoms in his rooms. Even with an ecto-contaminated home and ghost running around the flowers manage to survive which left Danny with a sense of pride every time he wakes up to look at the arrangement of sweet alyssums, blue morning glories, and marigolds.
(Sweet alyssums mean ‘Sweetness of the soul’)
(Blue morning glories, while short lasting, means infinitive love, trust, respect, and honesty.)
(Marigolds have so many meanings to them, yet he likes to think of them as ‘beauty and warmth of the rising sun’.)
His pride grew into affection, and soon he was growing more pots of flowers in his room - some by his window side, some handing from hooks on the upper walls, and some growing in a small dark spot with uv lights giving them light. It didn’t take long for his room to smell of flora which Danny loved.
His small window side garden became a room/green house. Unfortunately, with his growing obsession with growing even more flowers he had to either move his hobby somewhere else or be satisfied with the small garden he has now.
And so, Danny picked up his packets of newly bought seeds and started to plant even more flowers in a clearing near their hid out.
So now Danny would always tend to his garden, always find time out his day to care, trim, weed, and water his flowers with gentle hands. He would pick the ones that were always done blooming and gift them to his friends or Jazz, not wanting the flowers to go to waste. Sometimes he would press some of the flowers dry, and once he found out how, he started to take his time picking and drying the flowers that were able to become teas.
Truly his curiosity had blossomed into a sort of obsession for the boy.
What he didn’t expect was for ghost to like said obsession.
Maybe like is too much of a strong word but it seems to fit more or less.
First it started with Cujo who Danny was chasing once again for digging up holes all over some poor guy's yard. Danny didn’t even realize that the chase was leading Cujo to his outdoor garden until they were right there. Danny was already panicking thinking that Cujo was going run right through his poor flowers when Cujo did the unexpected.
He ran around his garden.
Danny almost lost Cujo with how much he was gawking at the scene.
Then it was Ember who refused to fight him since Phantom had some roses at hand (he didn’t think ok! he didn’t have time to shove his flowers somewhere safe from getting burn to ash thanks) because she didn’t want to burn them.
Danny thought it was a Cujo think, after having even more weird encounters with other ghost and their avoidance to harm his flowers, he left to ask Clockwork about it. Turns out that ghost respect flowers because they are a common gift to those that had died, and when a flower is placed on their graves, they considered it a token of respect and acknowledgment.
That really turned his perspective a full 180.
(Maybe that's why he felt at peace when tending to his garden.)
Since then, Danny always grabbed a basket of flowers to take and place on empty graves routinely. On Halloween he would leave bundles of marigolds, on death days he would leave forget-me-nots, and on New Year's he would place daffodils.
His actions didn’t go unnoticed by the ghost or the rest of the town. Soon, elderly would wave him over and ask him if he could place certain flowers on their loved one's graves, small elementary kids would give him common daisies to take with him and some adults thank him when he makes him rounds.
Heck, even some ghost started to attack less and would sometimes watch him place some flowers on the graves, and every time he placed one on their graves they would puff up with pride at the token.
Danny never felt so at peace before. With a single blossom he can hold the peace he wanted in his town. With just a little bit of respect, slowly the tricky and pranks started to slow down.
Little by little, Amity was able to breath.
Slowly, the death was coming to rest.
Now 18 years of age and Danny wanted to leave Amity. Already he established himself as a peace maker of sorts, with most of the ghost staying at the Ghost Zone with a few floating around. His rounds to the graveyard because a business of sorts with people asking to buy certain flowers for special occasions which he happily gave. By now, Danny was finically stable and thought it was time to move somewhere.
But after a bit of thinking he choose a surprisingly reasonable place to set shop.
Danny set his sights at Gotham and her ever growing graveyard.
(While he may be a human boy with a love for flowers, he was also a King who wish to help his people bring a Balance.)
Add more in another post: Flower Shop Au Pt2
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