🥀

Some Flowers have thorns,

01:15 PM.

Every Easter, Bassie and her friends would return for a short while, filling the air with pastel colors, laughter, and bright holiday cheer. Children adored them. The other toons played their parts well—handing out painted eggs, telling stories, stirring excitement wherever they went.

But you barely noticed any of them.

It was always Bassie.

She stood out without trying to. Her smile was soft but radiant, and her leafy green hair swayed gently in the warm breeze that drifted through her flower gardens. Wherever she walked, petals seemed to lean toward her, as if drawn to her warmth. Her laugh carried lightly through the air—sweet, musical, impossible not to follow.

And yet… when you watched from a distance, when she thought no one was looking, that brightness dimmed.

Her shoulders would curl inward. Her smile would falter. She seemed smaller somehow—quieter, guarded, almost timid. A strange sadness would settle over her, subtle but unmistakable.

So one afternoon, you decided to see her alone.

You found her in her flower gardens, seated quietly in the middle of a wide, blooming field. Sunlight spilled over the petals in soft gold waves. She traced the tops of the flowers with gentle fingertips, careful and affectionate, while her other hand rested around the small necklace at her throat.

She looked peaceful.

But beneath that calm expression lingered something else—something wistful. A quiet envy that didn’t quite belong in a place so full of life.