Covent Garden Flowers, Saturday

[crimson_sister]

The bonsai had turned into bonsai-sized flowering trees. There were magnolias and cherry trees, and trees Lucille wasn't sure generally grew in this universe. Between them fluttered tiny pink birds, chirping.

That was pleasant, she supposed, and she put up a sign in the window.

Bonzai-sized flowering trees 25% off
Birds included if you can catch them.

Covent Garden Flowers was open.

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[chef_chocobro]

For having spent as much time as he did in the apartment above this shop, Ignis had never really bothered to visit it. Granted, he didn't exactly have a need for many plants or flowers (though he did wonder, briefly, if he should pick up some gladioluses and irises, because of course he was the type to find such a thought amusing), but it was a quiet day, especially with his roommate still out, and he had little else to do but contemplate heading back to Insomnia a bit early this week.

He gave a nod of greeting to the woman he assumed to be working there, and contemplated if there were any plants in particular that could survive being under the doubtlessly questionable care of one Noctis Lucis Caelum.

[crimson_sister]

"Can I help you?"

Lucille approached the customer, who looked vaguely familiar, but so did a lot of people in the town.

[chef_chocobro]

"Good afternoon," Ignis offered with a small, polite smile. "I think I'm fine, but thank you. My name is Ignis Scientia; I'm staying in the apartment upstairs, so I figured I was well overdue for a visit to the shop.

"Are the birds a special thing?" he asked as one Twitter aboiy before making a loop in the air from one small tree to the next. "Or do you usually have them?"

If so, he was surprised they hadn't wound up driving the cat absolutely mad.

[crimson_sister]

"I believe the birds might be gone by tomorrow," Lucille said, returning the smile. "So you are staying with Tisarwat's friend?"

Lucille was obviously aware that 'friend' wasn't the right word.

"She left the shop to me when she returned home."

[chef_chocobro]

"I certainly hope she doesn't plan on leaving me the apartment with this latest trip home," Ignis noted wryly.

Although it wouldn't really be the worst thing, he supposed, especially not after all of the cryptic comments from the king...

"Did you have much experience with the floral arts before taking over the shop, Miss...ah, apologies. I don't believe I've caught your name?"

[crimson_sister]

"Sharpe. Lucille Sharpe."

She smiled. "I had no experience with flowers at all."

[chef_chocobro]

"Then I suppose it is a very good thing that my visit here today is more social than it is professional," Ignis noted with a hint of amusement, "isn't it. Miss Sharpe? How do you like it, then, for someone without any prior experience?"

[crimson_sister]

"I have learned what I needed to know," Lucille replied. "It is better work than I could ever expect where I am from."

She added: "A social visit?"

[chef_chocobro]

"According to some," said Ignis, with the tone of someone who might not exactly agree with these supposed somes, "I could stand to get out a little more and get to know my fellow residents of this island a bit more, and I figured, what better way to start than essentially my downstairs neighbor's? Though, now that I think about it, I might know someone who could potentially enjoy a nice cactus...

"Where is it you're from? If you don't mind me asking."

[crimson_sister]

"England in the 1890s, if that means anything to you," Lucille replied. "A cactus? Either you quite dislike this person or he or she is very bad at looking after plants. I suppose it could be both."

[chef_chocobro]

"It's considerably more the latter than the former," Ignis assured her, "though I was thinking of it as more of a statement on his prickly personality. And England would mean this world, if I'm not mistaken? Thoigh quite a bit on the past from where we are now."

[crimson_sister]

"It is in this world," Lucille said. "More than a century ago. So who is your prickly friend?"

[chef_chocobro]

"His name is Noctis," Ignis offered, his usual drawl gone a little bit fond, "and I would never dream of dooming a more demanding plant than that to his care, though I think he'd appreciate it all the same, even of only because it's something green that I'm not expecting him to eat."

[crimson_sister]

"You can buy him flowers," Lucille suggested. "Some people keep them even when they are dry."

She gestured towards a plant. "This is apparently very hard to kill, but it is called mother-in-law's tongue, which might or might not be a suitable name."