Work Text:
When you first meet Elizabeth, it is a warm early spring day and she is taking care of her rose garden. She offers your horse an apple, then sits you down in the garden between the rosebuds and explains the magic inside you.
When you meet Elizabeth again in late spring, the roses are starting to bloom. She offers you a cup of tea and welcomes you in as if you’ve known eachother your whole life. She tells you of her worries about one of her students.
The next time, early summer, you return with her student. The roses are blooming and so is she.
Midsummer you come in to find her lost in thought and feeling, a sad look in her eyes. She doesn’t respond when you ask her if she’s alright. You make her rose tea. It makes the whole house smell like roses.
It is early fall. Tensions are rising and some of the roses fall apart. Elizabeth doesn’t seem to notice.
It is late fall. Elizabeth has started to prune the roses to prepare for dormant season, and as you ride away with the others, you can’t help but feel a sense of finality.
Early winter. You walk into the now abandoned garden. The roses have all gone dormant, except for one. You carefully cut it off.
You put it on her grave.