[BLESS] Changes [Ask The Leaves/Peep]

[Ruriska]

It was expected and unexpected at the same time. The leaves had been very clear for the week leading up to the meeting, relentlessly forming shapes that screamed ‘LIFE CHANGING EXPERIENCE’ to the point where she’d stopped drinking tea and was busy anxiously trying to predict when the no doubt terrible awful thing that was going to happen.

In the end it hadn’t been terrible or awful. Just a little bit awkward (she’d never not been awkward). But he’d been kind and nice and he smelled like tree bark and leaf mulch. She’d stumbled and stuttered and he hadn’t seemed to mind. Her second ever customer at her little tea stall and she’d explained how she steeped the dried leaves and gushed a little bit too much about all the different flavours she could prepare.

And then he’d stayed, a bit longer than a normal customer would have. Showing her something in return that she’d never expected, something lovely, something that had made her blush furiously for at least a month afterwards.

And now her tea leaves were once again yelling ‘LIFE CHANGING EXPERIENCE’. Except this time she had some idea as to what it might be; after all, she had been sipping an awful lot of peppermint tea lately and her belly was swelling a lot more than expected. With this idea eating away at her, Ask The Leaves was slowly becoming an anxious puddle.

Would she be a good mother? Would the birth be hard? What if the kids hated her? There was too much to think about. It was all so very overwhelming.

Ask The Leaves was about to slip into another round of hyperventilating when the little Acha arrived. One moment there was nobody there in front of the shop and then there was. Little but big. Somehow warm. Her breathing steadied.

“H-hello. W-would you like some tea? I-I have a rose and mint blend on right now.” She shuffled her hooves, looking around at her little set up. The turtle shells. The fires. The various tea leaves laid out in piles. But the Acha wasn’t looking at any of that. Oh no. Her gaze was fixed so strongly on Ask The Leaves the Kiokote was getting nervous again.

As if sensing it, the Acha finally looked away.

“Oh.” she said, her voice soft and comforting. “I think that would be lovely. Would you join me?”

And that was how Ask The Leaves ended up having tea with the mare, Peep. A lovely companion, she put the Kiokote at ease. Their conversation flowed, drifted from the weather, to the tea, to ultimately, the unexpected pregnancy. An offer was made, a place to go and stay, somewhere surrounded by other mothers.

But Ask The Leaves looked around her and thought clearly for the first time in weeks, and then gently turned her down, surprising the both of them.

“Then I will come and visit you,” Peep told her. “And I will bless you and your children, for health and happiness. To know the many flavours of life and experience a perfect blend of all things.” Then she giggled, clearly pleased with herself.

Ask The Leaves simply sighed with relief as an invisible weight left her shoulders.

Her leaves, when she got down to the bottom of her shell, were softer now. They gently, in lovely shapes, promised that everything would be okay. And when she looked up, Peep’s smile did too.