A/N: Hiiii, I promise a fluttery story that you'll all love. This chapter is a brief introduction of sorts so as to give you an idea of the setting and some characters. The story officially starts in the next chapter.
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THE sun stood at the clear base of the ndscape, birds chiming the morning melodies. Past the whispering pine and palm trees, Jule’s bicycle raced through the street.
”Morning Uncle Felix, please remind your two brats to be on time for the evening css!“ Jule yelled atop her lungs as she bypassed Felix, a bearded fellow who looked roughly ten years older than he was. He gave an acknowledging grin to Jule. Virtually the head of the town, Felix was the woodcutter everyone trusted with their matters.
Taking a st minute turn, Jule crossed by the Oolong garden first, followed by a series of architecturally designed houses before the Barley garden finally came through. It cradled a pond in it’s heart, over which a bridge ran, connecting either sides of the orchard. It’s railing was long woods of white eucalyptus tree entangled with vines and shrubs. Across the garden, Jule had purchased a tiny hut on the roadside and had developed it into a flower shop. She’d named it ‘Subtle Miracles’.
Jule sighed with a smile, seeing no customer on the door of her shop. For heaven’s sake, it was past ten. Of course people had come and left unattended all thanks to her oversleeping.
Lockwood was a tiny vilge bound with nature and a scarce popution of hardly hundred. Settling here as a florist after a higher education degree in botany, apart from her family wasn’t her original pn. However, she wanted to start from naught in becoming a florist, eager to gain step-by-step wisdom and knowledge of practical life. Her mum's suggestion had led her here, to this town swelled with peace and a community feeling which was hard to find in the city life.
And Jule couldn’t deny life in Lockwood—Jade vilge, as the kids liked to call it—was too cottage core to resist. Rivers, kes, bridges, vast sky clear of any excessively tall buildings, stars lining it by night, greenery, farms, hills, and the happy chime of life amidst the warm, cordial people here, all contributed to the peaceful lifestyle. And though it had only been months to her residence here, she knew more than half the people of the town.
Having unboarded the bridge, Jule halted next to the freshly bloomed flowers in Barley garden. She pulled her pastel skirt up, struggling to reach a fallen white hibiscus amidst all the thorns in her path.
”Of thorns and long skirts,“ Jule heard a familiar tsk, a whooshing of swift air beside her. “When will Miss Florio learn her lesson?"
She needn’t gnce to know who he was as he reached for the hibiscus in her stead. The loose, lethargic tucking of the shirt in his pants, the auburn curls and the silvery voice gave away that Julian had come to her rescue. Again.
From the sarcasm in his voice, he must've been referring to the time when Jule had gotten her skirt torn from the thorns in the forest while following a will-o'-the-wisp—which, as uncovered by Julian ter on turned out to be a blue firefly.
"In my defense, blue fireflies are one of the rarest creatures in the world!"
"In Lockwood, that much is normal." He flexed, completely ignoring the shock that resided on his own face upon spotting the heavenly blue light. "What are you even doing here? You're supposed to be in the shop. I went to check twice and it was locked both times. Do you understand the desperation, the gnawing exasperation-" His melodramatic acting dissolved into thin air when he noticed Jule boringly picking her nails. "Anyways, I wanted to buy you flowers."
"From my own shop?" Jule questioned with much curiosity.
"Yes apparently that's the only pce they sell flowers around here!"
Jule cheekily grinned, one part proud and one part genuinely happy. "Well, what's the occasion? Did you get fired again?" She made a sarcastic guess but upon seeing Julian grin sheepishly, Jule could only sp her face. She snatched the hibiscus from his hold and straightened her cycle.
“I’m too much for them anyways.“ He shrugged, sitting on the backseat of Jule’s cycle just before she took off, his back facing her. Her futile attempts to push him away eventually led to her giving him a ride all the way to her shop.
She leaned on the handle, panting by the time he dropped off. ”Great. I’m dehydrated the first thing in the morning.“
Julian cackled innocently, trudging away.
"Hey, what happened to my flowers?" Jule asked from the distance.
"You ruined the surprise so," he answered and vanished across the street.
Parking her bike beside the threshold, Jule pulled open the hefty doors of her shop.
Subtle Miracles, Jule's dear flower shop was see through, made of sheen gss instead of walls. The roof was an alternation between finely chiselled, chafed wooden logs and lengthy vines of floral pnts. The interior of the shop formed narrow streets separated by high rise racks lined with floras and shrubs of multiple kinds, shapes and colours. Sunlight seeped in from the gssy walls, enhancing the features of the fresh, long-living flowers.
Jule pced her cash diary down on the table, letting the white hibiscus rest in a vase. She gently sprayed it with distilled water and a perfume derived from the scent of hibiscuses.
Jule pulled in a long inhale, allowing the mixture of the familiar fragrances to fill up her nose before she heard the first clink of the doorbell.
Another day had begun.
