Passive Petals

A Beauregard/Yasha AU Fanfic

Yasha sighed heavily as she continued to read her new book. The lack of customers in her flower shop may have been good for her books, but it certainly wasn't good for her boredom or paycheck. She'd been open for almost a month, and not a single person had shown even a passing interest in her shop. People just didn't bother when in came to flowers anymore; they just bought the first thing they saw at Walmart. They didn't bother to find out what each plant meant in the language of flowers or invest in custom arrangements. Hers was truly a dying artform.

It had only been six months since she moved away from her home in Xorhas. The dark, rundown nature of the city was depressing, even for her. As such, it was by no means a place where a flower shop could thrive. As much as people just weren't interested in her shop in Zedash, the Xorhasians flat out couldn't afford luxuries like flowers in their economic situation. Opening a shop there that peddled anything other than necessities would've been economic suicide.

Out of the corner of her eyes, Yasha saw her phone light up with a text message from her roommate.

How's work?

Non-existent as usually. You?

Slow, but Monday's usually r. People are so *pissed emoji* to be coming off the weekend that they forget basic decency. LOL.

Sorry to hear that. Hope it gets better.

Back at u. *thumbs up emoji* C u at home.

Right when Yasha was about to reply, she heard the door hit the welcoming bell almost violently. When she looked up, she saw a young woman with olive skin and a dark undercut tied into a top knot. Yasha had to wonder how she wasn't cold in that wrapped crop top and sleeveless wrap. She didn't have much time to linger on that thought, however; the snarl on the woman's face was accentuated by her nose ring and eyebrow stud.

The woman stomped up to the counter and slammed down a twenty-dollar bill. "How do I passive-aggressively say 'Fuck You' in flower?"

There was a long moment of silence where Yasha stared at the woman in wonder, both for coming into the shop, and for her unusual request. Once she processed everything, she ripped off some white parchment. Then, she walked around the counter, beckoning the woman to follow her. "Come with me." Without questioning anything, the woman started following Yasha through the aisles of flowers.

"First, you're going to want some geraniums for 'stupidity'." Yasha plucked two bushels of magenta geranium blossoms and handed them to the woman behind her. "Then, some fox glove for insincerity. Next, we need to make this person feel useless with meadowsweet. We might want to throw in some yellow carnations to say 'you have disappointed me'. Oh, and we need some orange lilies for hatred." Once Yasha was done plucking all the flowers, she turned to the young woman, who tried to handle the dripping stems with care. "Who is this specifically for?"

"My asshole father."

"Never around?"

"No, just preferred money to me and sold me away to monks to beat the shit out of me."

"Ah. Then, yeah, that should be everything."

"Awesome."

Yasha lead the young woman back to the front counter and took the flowers from her. She began arranging them on the parchment in the most aesthetically pleasing way she could. As she was arranging, the young woman sat on the counter. "I can really get all of this for only twenty bucks?"

"Well, I discounted the price a bit."

"Why?"

"It seemed like you were having a bad day. Plus, you're my very first customer, so I'll take what I can get."

"Seriously? Why doesn't anyone else come here?"

"People have gotten lazy with flowers. They don't care what they mean. They just grab the first cheapest bouquets they see." Out of the corner of her eye, Yasha saw the woman nod. "How did you even find my shop?"

The woman shrugged. "I just plugged in a search for flower shops and yours was on the list."

"Why not go to the other places?"

"Well, like you said, no one actually gives a damn about what the flowers mean anymore. None of the other shops had what I was looking for. All they had were a bunch of lovey dovey romantic crap." Yasha nodded. "By the way, thanks for not kicking me out for my language."

"Has that happened?"

"At every. Single. Shop. People are so uptight these days. You didn't even flinch at my order."

"Honestly, not the weirdest thing that's been said with flowers."

"Really?"

"Yeah."

"Can you tell me?"

"I don't know."

"Oh, come on. I won't tell anyone."

"Well… I once gave this asshole a bouquet for his bitch girlfriend that said pretty much the same thing your bouquet says… but it was COVERED in essence of poison oak." The woman started laughing so hard she fell off the counter. Yasha leaned over the counter and asked, "Are you okay?" When the woman kept laughing, Yasha assumed she was fine. "Alright. That oughta do it."

As the young woman stood up, she smiled. "Hey, great. Thanks…. Hey, not to be a bother, but is there any way you could have this shipped somewhere outside of the city?"

"Where to?"

"Kamordah."

"Hmm. Hang on." Picking up her phone, Yasha brought up a schedule. "I've got some friends who are headed there starting tomorrow. I could probably ask them to take it. What's the address?"

"Lathander's Winery. 504 North Broadway Avenue. 59715."

Yasha scratched out the address in her planner. "Do you want a card to go with this?"

After thinking for a moment, the woman said, "Nah. That seems like overkill."

"Alright. That will be on the road tomorrow and it should arrive in three days."

"Thanks… what's your name?"

"Yasha."

"Yasha…" Sticking her hand out, the young woman smirked. "I'm Beau."

"Nice to meet you." As Yasha took Beau's hand, she felt crisp paper pass between them. When they released hands, Yasha found another twenty in her had. Before she could say anything, she heard her shop bell jingle and Beau was nowhere to be found.