Blooming Rains 2022

The Hidden Garden was thought to border the Wind Valley in the spring. While it wasn’t necessarily easy to keep track of the locale, it was well known that the Hidden Garden was a fanciful place of oddly colored willowing trees and blue-green grass. It was also notorious for the amount of unusual predicaments the visitors found themselves in.

For all intents and purposes, the Hidden Garden was a general utility part of the Scarfox Realm, though this was not meant to always be the case. One day. The All Mother would open the Realm even further for all the Scarfoxes that lived there, and would live there eventually.

It was raining. The soft patter of the water on the window was enough to put Jonathan to sleep, but he was stalwart in his convictions, which led to him pacing the interior of the teahouse he and Clover were visiting.

He wasn’t there to be with Clover specifically, though. No. He was there because Pepper had made it a point to come to this place to “remember the rain” and had refused to answer any inquiries to elaborate. She had been particularly prickly about the whole affair and Jonathan had uncharacteristically dropped the subject.

Clover, however, was there because he had discovered a part of his brother’s backstory and it was making him feel some type of way. Or that was how Jonathan had seen it. Backstory revelations weren’t always so clean, but this was a complicated one.

“You really should stop pacing before you get us kicked out,” Clover said after taking a few sips of a fine jasmine tea. “This is a house of worship as much as it is a place to drink tea.”

Jonathan huffed in response but continued his pacing, though he did fold in his broad feathered wings tighter in a vain attempt to not look so harrowed and fraught with peril. Clover took a deep breath of his own, steeling his nerves. Jonathan was a pain in the ass to deal with, though he had to maintain his composure or he would definitely get them kicked out.

“She’s been gone for a while,” Jonathan said after a long silence. He didn’t touch his tea, which annoyed Clover greatly. “Normally between arcs, we’re supposed to be having fun and learning all about the little things that make us who we are.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Clover said. “She will be back when she feels like it. I don’t see how this is a problem.”

“And if she doesn’t?”

Clover shrugged. “Then she doesn’t. Pepper doesn’t owe you an explanation, Jonathan.”

Jonathan stopped his pacing, a film of fire gracing over the fine fibers of his brow and tail. It had disappeared almost immediately and he balked in response.

“The girl is not supposed to leave and not come back. That’s not how this works. She might be tsundere, but I know how this is supposed to work, Clover. I just don’t understand what you have to do with any of this. Go back to drinking tea.”

Clover tensed. The silence that permeated the teahouse was disturbed only by the gentle give of the floorboards under Jonathan’s feet and the occasional gust of wind.

“Overbearing twit,” Clover breathed.

“I heard that!”

Jonathan once again stopped pacing. He turned to Clover, flashy wings fanned out, fire biting at his threads again. He was beautiful when he wanted to be, but he was also, quite literally, hot-headed. Clover didn’t usually fight - he just wasn’t that kind of fox - but he also had shown that he was not a pushover and this would be no different.

He, too, rose to his feet, taking great care not to knock anything over. This was a house of worship after all. The rain picked up, the soft platters turning into marked drops bashing against the windows. In a single long stride, Clover was face to face with Jonathan and his hands were grabbing him.

A part of him wanted to just rip and tear. Jonathan was no different than his own brother. Selfish and narcissistic and filled to the brim with ridiculous ideas about the world actually worked. The only thing that stopped him was the sight of Jonathan’s eyes, which were filled with the kind of foolhardy determination that got people hurt.

The kind of determination that ruined everything around it.

“Why are you looking at me like that?” Jonathan asked, fully ready to fight. “You were the one who insulted me.”

“And I am right about you,” Clover growled. “You only care about yourself. You treat Pepper like she is some toy that is meant to be played with. Other foxes were not made for your amusement.”

“I’m not treating her like a toy,” Jonathan spat. “You’re projecting.”

“You said it yourself, stupid,” Clover replied, the bark in his voice just barely under the surface. “She’s not supposed to be like that. You’re supposed to be learning about each other. You make all the choices. Like some kind of baby with a doll.”

“It’s not like that.” Jonathan pushed Clover away harder than he meant to. “What would you even know, anyway? You would rather let it be until you personally can’t take it anymore.”

Clover was stunned.

“Yeah. She talks about you sometimes. You live in a castle out in the middle of nowhere with a bunch of foxes who don’t respect you. You do nothing to stop anything from happening and only clean up the mess afterwards because I guess you can’t be bothered.”

“You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Jonathan, feeling emboldened, stood taller, though that didn’t do michh for how small the teahouse was comparatively. “Yes, I pursue Pepper relentlessly. Yes, I know I’m annoying and everybody can’t stand me. And I don’t care because I am a knight that does a thankless job. But at least I try to change the things I don’t like about the world.

“And what do you do? Clean up messes.”

All of Clover’s vitriol dissipated immediately.

“I’m not stupid,” Jonathan added, though his voice was noticably meeker. “But I know someone who hates themself when I see them. And I figured the least I could do was go out of my way to engage. Because maybe something will change. It’s the only thing I’m actually good at, as it turns out. For better or worse.”

Clover, still stunned, merely sat back at the table and picked up his teacup. He sipped it quietly, sad that the tea had cooled by then. Jonathan, feeling the embarassment of a silly little speech, sat across from Clover and took his own tea. It was mild and not really his style, but he sipped it nevertheless.

The rain continued to fall.