"Uncle Jim did what?"

That had been Eri's reaction when she finally understood why her teacher had attacked him at the meeting. But she had gotten the truth out of Mom after asking her many times.

Eri thought it was extremely unfair. Her teacher was a very good and kind woman, even though she scolded her a lot or always spoke so seriously. What bothered her the most was that Uncle Jim was upset because she was a dragon. Yes, there were bad dragons, very bad ones even, but the same could be said of all other people. It was like being upset with Mom for being half-elf. Dad had told her the story of the half-elf prince who had been a very bad lord and had hurt his family and his kingdom.

That day she gathered all her friends with whom she took classes, which in reality were only Koro and Mikorin, the others didn't like school or already had other teachers. They were in the square of the upper district of Artemia, they needed a plan.

"No, Koro, it has to be done before we leave, the trip is going to be long and we don't want to see her sad all the time." For Eri, it was important that everything was ready as soon as possible.

"B... but..." said little Mikorin, a finger tangled in one of her blonde curls, trying to make herself heard despite her soft voice, "we don't know what could make her happy, she never talks about herself."

The goal was to find something that would make her teacher smile before the afternoon class. They only had a few days left before leaving for Pellegrin, and then Mikorin wouldn't be with them to see her face. Koro would also go as usual, this time even his mom would go.

"I know, the teacher loves flowers, she always stops at the planters to smell them, and her house is full of them," Eri said proudly.

"But that won't be enough," Koro added. "She always has flowers around and she never seems to smile."

"She told me once that her favorite flowers are called blood buds. She says that once she flew across three continents to find them."

Koro and Mikorin looked at each other, they had just found out about Lady Mera's secret now that everyone knew. Koro had said that it was no wonder the teacher had something strange about her.

"That's great, Eri," Koro said, scratching the back of his head. "But do you know what those flowers look like? I've never heard of them. Maybe there aren't any in the city."

"Dad always buys flowers for Mom near here. The lady who sells them knows a lot, I'm sure she has them."

"So you don't know what they look like?" Mikorin asked, somewhat worried.

"No, Mrs. Mera never told me." Eri put her fingertips together. "But I'm sure we can find them before this afternoon. We have to try, Uncle Jim locked her up for several days after she saved me from the dragon, that made her very sad, I know, being locked up is very ugly."

The three of them agreed, they pooled their allowances for the occasion, Eri's of course was much larger even though Mikorin's parents were minor nobles. But everyone wanted to participate. They put their coins in a small bag and ran to the flower shop. A woman with shoulder-length violet hair, about the age of silly Bestenar, welcomed them with a smile. Eri visited her sometimes, since she met her, she brought flowers to Mrs. Mera every week at her office. She was very kind and pretty, she loved flowers with all her heart.

Eri was fascinated with all the varieties of flowers in the place, there was so much color that both she and Mikorin were spinning around admiring them with their mouths and eyes wide open. Too bad Koro didn't know how to appreciate flowers. The girl smiled as she prepared a particularly complex arrangement.

"Miss," Koro said to the florist, bored of waiting, "do you have any blood buds?"

"Blood buds? My family has been in the flower business for decades, but I'm not familiar with those. Do you know if they have another name or what they look like?"

"No," said Eri, turning to the florist, "it's a flower that dragons are supposed to like a lot, but..." Eri realized that she loved all the flowers in the shop, she had counted on that detail to find them.

"I'm so sorry, if you remember any other details please come back, we will surely have them or be able to find them."

The children hurried out of the shop. Their brows furrowed.

"What are we going to do?" Mikorin said. "If the lady at the flower shop doesn't know, who can help us?"

"We can't give up," said Eri. "Someone has to know what they look like."

"My dad has traveled to many places, maybe he knows something," said Koro.

"My cousin's teacher is a very smart man," said Mikorin, "he might know what they are."

"There are many bearded men in the castle, they almost always know things. We don't have time to go everywhere, let's split up to search. We'll meet back here when we're done."

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With a determined nod, the three little ones hurried to their homes. Eri ran as fast as she could, she wanted to fly in some stretches, but she had promised Mom to wear her emerald pendant when she went out. She arrived at the castle and started looking for the place with many books. She still couldn't read very well, but the people there always had their noses stuck in stories and difficult words, someone had to know. She ran around the place asking one person after another.

"I'm sorry, Your Highness," said a gentleman with a strange pointed hat. Why did so many people call her "Your Highness" when she was almost always the smallest one in the room? "Flowers are not my field of study."

"Hmm, maybe it's a very red flower," a man who wore glasses like the ones the teacher had.

"What a terrible name for a flower!" said a lady who was writing on many parchments and looked very tired.

"That sounds like a term that was used for clots in the time of King Alim, according to the wise Zareth..." Eri didn't understand anything he said, she left him talking to himself.

Almost an hour passed like this, and she was running out of smart people. She ran to the back of the library looking for someone to help her. There, sitting at a secluded table, reading alone, was him.

It was the bottom of the barrel, the last person she wanted to ask for help. Life kept putting her in this situation, but the fool knew how to read.

"Bestenar!" Everyone turned to look at her, accusingly. In that place, she had to speak in a low voice. She blushed and apologized, lowering her head twice, before looking back at Dad's ward. "Bestenar, you know how to read, I need your help."

The boy barely looked up from his reading, he looked more taciturn than usual.

"What do you want now? I'm doing my homework, I need to have it done before class this afternoon."

"It's just that..." Eri's words got stuck, she should have gotten used to it by now, but she had always had to endure him treating her badly when she asked him for something, it was a kind of price she had to pay. "It's just that the teacher is sad, and I wanted to give her..."

"Don't bother me, I'm not going to give anything to that dragon, she always treats me like a fool."

"That's because you are a fool, and you don't have to give her anything, we're going to give her her favorite flowers even if you don't help us." Eri turned around to leave, it was clear that the fool wouldn't be of any help.

"Well, good luck finding peonies at this time of year, silly girl."

Eri turned on her heels.

"What did you say?"

"It's almost mid-autumn, peonies don't grow at this time of year."

"How do you know...?" Eri spoke to him as if she were angry, she couldn't believe that of all people...

"Well, she's always saying she wants to plant blood buds, the fool calls them what they were called three hundred years ago, she doesn't know anything about flowers, although few surpass me in that, of course." He put two fingers to his forehead. "But in those old books she makes me read, there are like a hundred descriptions, it can't be anything else."

Eri clenched her fists, but her nature overcame even the nasty tone that this sort of brother used with her. She jumped up and gave him a kiss on the cheek, she was even smiling.

"Thank you!" she said, and ran off to find Koro and Mikorin. The confused Bestenar was left sitting there wiping his cheek. Ungrateful, she had left him with an empowering spark so he would feel stronger for a while. Since she had been delayed asking so many people, maybe they were already waiting for her.

She couldn't move, he was holding her by the neck of the dress. The spark had made him faster and stronger, apparently.

"Ah, wait, I'm going with you." What? Why did he want to go with her now after all the nasty things he said? "Come on, I'll ask for them for you, if you do it you'll probably mess it up."

Eri didn't understand but accepted his help. Of course, she had to hurry him all the way, what an unpleasant boy, when he wasn't walking too fast, he was walking too slow. But they finally arrived, the others were already waiting for them.

"Oh, you brought Prince Bestenar, Eri," Mikorin said, blushing, looking at them from behind Koro's shoulder, her voice barely a whisper.

"Great, he knows a lot of things, I'm sure he knows what flowers they are, right?" Koro always looked at Bestenar strangely, but he never said bad things about him.

"Yes, surely..." Bestenar said, barely looking at the children. "Come on, give me your coins." He took the bag with everyone's allowances from Eri and entered the flower shop, now he was moving fast.

The violet-haired woman came out to meet Bestenar.

"Ah, hello, Your Highness, it's good to see you." The smile with which she spoke to him was a little wider, Eri knew it.

"This... hello, Miss Revina." Bestenar didn't ever stand up as straight, not even in meetings with the king. "My... this, I, I wanted to ask you if you still had peonies, even though the season is over..."

"Oh! Are those the flowers Eri wanted?" She put her hand to her mouth. "Yes, I think I have a batch my father planted in the greenhouse. How did you know what flowers they were?"

"Because no one knows more about flowers than my brother, he's great!" Eri got ahead of Bestenar's stammering, who looked at her in astonishment but didn't waste the compliment.

"Oh, well, yes, I know some things and I had these old books. It was nothing."

"No, it's impressive, I asked my father and even he had no idea." The girl didn't take her eyes off the thin boy, who, to be fair, after months of training with Dad, wasn't so skinny anymore. "I'm sure he'd love to chat with you."

"You flatter me too much, Miss, you and your father are to be commended for being able to plant such a delicate flower at this time..."

It was embarrassing, the two teenagers talked for several minutes about flowers, even Eri understood when they exchanged compliments that they thought were subtle. But she decided she owed it to him, she didn't interrupt them even when Koro and Mikorin started to nod off. She only pulled on his jacket when it was time to go to class and fulfill the mission.

"Oh, that's right, it's getting late." He said it in a tone that wasn't natural for him, he sounded kind. "We have to go, here, for the peonies." Although he didn't want her to see it, Eri could see the glint of a gold coin in his hand along with the bag with the eight copper and three silver coins they had collected. In the end, he had also contributed.

Revina brought the flowers, it was a simple arrangement but it didn't matter, the flowers were beautiful, the tips of their petals were white, but they were gaining color from a pale pink like Eri's hair to a vivid red near the stem, as if they were fading. Abundant petals surrounded the aromatic pistil of the flower. Eri understood her teacher's fascination.

They said goodbye to the florist and took the flowers to Mrs. Meracina. The children smiled when they saw for the first time a furtive tear of joy on their teacher's face. Who, true to her custom after a heartfelt but brief thanks, decided to continue the lessons normally.

While they repeated the letters of the word "flower" several times, Koro spoke to Eri.

"Eri, when I went to ask Dad, he told me he wants you to go to the stable tomorrow, that your foal is a girl and is ready for you to ride her. What are you going to name her?"

Eri thought for a moment, looking at the flower arrangement they had brought, and had no doubt.