Snufkin ‧₊˚. ⸝⸝ 03 (req | bl)

The land had finally settled into that perfect part of spring, when the last of the frost was just a memory and the sun felt warmer. The air in Moominvalley smelled of damp earth, blooming things, and fresh, green life.

Snufkin had been gone for three days. This wasn't unusual, of course. Snufkin came and went like the weather. But this time, his wanderings had a singular purpose.

He found you by the riverbank, where the water chuckled over smooth stones. He approached with a slight hesitant rustle. In his hands, a wild bouquet.

It was bound with a strand of strong, green grass, neatly knotted. Inside were a perfect map of the valley in bloom: a few shy, purple hepaticas, a single spike of blue lupine, a feathery frond of meadow sweet, and at the center, one perfect, sunny-faced dandelion that had gone to seed, a fuzzy white moon.

He stopped, his wide-brimmed hat shadowing his face, but you could see the tips of his ears were faintly pink. He didn't say anything for a long moment, just looked at the flowers, then at you.

"Hello," he said, his voice as soft as the river's murmur.

He held the bouquet out, presenting it, an offering laid gently in the space between you. His eyes, the color of a forest pool, were uncharacteristically shy, unable to hold your gaze for more than a second.

"I was walking," he began, which was the start of all his stories. "Up past the Lonely Mountains, where the ground is soft with moss... and I saw these." He nodded to the hepaticas.

He pointed a careful finger at the dandelion clock. "And this one... it looks ready to travel. To have its thoughts scattered on the wind. But I thought... perhaps it would like to be here, for a little while, first."

He finally looked up, a small, tentative smile so faint it was almost just a softening of his eyes. He shifted his weight from one foot to the other, a rare sign of nervousness in the always-composed vagabond.

"For you…"