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rhaella-rhavelli · 4 months

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For both sentimental and symbolic reasons, Rhaella’s favorite flower is the dandelion.

While most of the world views them as a weed, an unsightly nuisance in a garden of other flowers, Rhaella thinks they’re especially neat. They’re beautiful, full of nutrition, and make wonderful additions is various salves and tinctures for their anti-inflammatory properties.

Most of all, she admires their resilience, how they seem to grow no matter the terrain, climate, or conditions. How they will shoot up from cracks in the cobblestones with barely any space to make it a home, yet still thriving, golden-yellow among the gray.

When she had memories she could actually remember, young Rhaella would braid dandelion crowns, necklaces, and bracelets when she would run off to hide in the woods near her childhood home. Decorating herself with golden-yellow to escape the gray grief consuming her family. An act of thriving resilience taught to her by Rhavenna.

Rhaella’s older sister passed while Rhaella was still quite young. Her earliest memories of her sister were her bed-ridden and miserable, mourning for a life she didn’t get to live. Rhaella was angry at her sister for leaving her, and for refusing any attempts made by their parents to prolong her life.

It was late spring when she passed, and seemingly overnight the yellow dandelions turned into fuzzy white puffs. That afternoon, Rhavenna had taken Rhaella to the now-white dandelion fields and soothed Rhaella’s anger over her sister’s abandonment, and now, anger over the sudden transition of her favorite flowers to puffs that were too easily made bare by the slightest gust of wind. Rhaella thought they were leaving her, too.

“They haven’t left you, dear,” Rhavenna explained as she picked a puff and held it out to Rhaella. “They’ve just changed, so they can make a new journey.”

A gentle breeze blew as Rhavenna handed the dandelion to Rhaella. The fluffy white seeds appeared to float before being carried by the wind. Rhaella tried to grasp them in the air before they disappeared, but Rhavenna gently grabbed her hand, pulling her down onto her lap.

“Let them go, little Rhae. All things must change, but it doesn’t mean they have come to an end.”

Rhavenna picked up another puff and held it up to her face. Blowing gently, her breath guided the little white seeds to freedom, towards their new life. Rhaella watched them dance through the air, then gently float down into the tall grass nearby, disappearing from view.

“We can’t see it, but these seeds will make new dandelions next year,” Rhavenna said while gently finger-combing and braiding Rhaella’s hair. “What we love never really leaves us, even if we can’t see it or feel it anymore.”

Rhaella looked up at Rhavenna with questioning big blue eyes, brow drawn in thought. “….Sissy?”

“Yes,” Rhavenna kissed her temple. “Sissy, too.”

Rhaella thought quietly for a moment. “Sissy will be a dan-dee-lion?”

“No, no.” Rhavenna chuckled warmly. “She’s on a new journey. Death is not an ending, but a new beginning. Sissy is free.”

“Like the dan-dee-lions,” Rhaella said, finally understanding.

Together, they watched as a breeze picked up more fluffy seeds and carried them across the field, towards the setting sun. Rhaella imagined her sister’s soul floating along with them, towards her new beginning, wherever that may be.

The next spring, there were twice as many golden-yellow dandelions than before.

During the plague, Rhaella often thought of the dandelions and how, no matter what they went through, they would always come back. Resilient and a never-ending cycle of change and rebirth.

For each plague-victim she cared for and helped pass, she placed a dandelion in their hand before their bodies were carted away. A symbolic token for their new journey and a comforting promise of rebirth.

#rhaella Rhavelli #Rhavenna Rhavelli #rhaella ref #still haven’t given the sister a name #or the place where they’re from #or written a bio #but this I know

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