Everyone in the village knew that Ember was the worst dragon in the world. She was also the best florist.
She was very small, even for a dragon — about the size of a large cat, or a small suitcase, depending on how she was standing. Her scales were the dark red of dried roses, which she considered appropriate for her profession and did not think about too hard.
Her shop was called In Bloom, which was not a very dragonly name. The sign had been painted by a hedgehog named Perch who did signage on weekends. He had offered to paint a flame on it, as a little joke. Ember had paid him and asked him to leave.
No "it's just a little match."
Thank you for your understanding.
Most customers respected the sign. The ones who didn't were asked to put it out immediately and then were given a very stern arrangement of snapdragons, which Ember felt made her point without further conversation.
She was, as mentioned, the best florist. She could make a bouquet that said I am sorry and I mean it this time. She could make one that said congratulations but also I am a little jealous. She once made one for a funeral that made everyone laugh, which was exactly what had been needed, and which she never told anyone had taken her four days to get right.
She was also, it must be said, the worst dragon in the world. She had never breathed fire. Not once. Not ever. Not even a flicker.
The other dragons did not know what to do with this information, so they mostly pretended she didn't exist, which suited Ember perfectly, as they kept trying to invite her to bonfires.
The trouble arrived on a Tuesday, which was typical. Nothing good had ever arrived on a Tuesday. Ember had looked into this and found no exceptions.
The bell above the door rang at half past nine, and in came a dragon. Not a small dragon like Ember. A large one. The proper kind, with a wingspan that knocked over a display of dahlias and a tail that swept three pots of baby's breath onto the floor. He was orange and gold and he smelled of woodsmoke and self-importance, and he had to fold himself in half just to fit under the ceiling.
His name, he announced, was Crispin.
Ember looked at the baby's breath on the floor. Then she looked at Crispin.
"Those were twelve silver each," she said.
Crispin looked down at the pots. Then he looked back up. He had the expression of someone who had never been charged for anything in his life and found the concept faintly offensive.
"I'll take the lot," he said, waving a claw. "All of it. Whatever you have. I need flowers."
"Most people who come here do," said Ember.
"For a wedding," he said. "My wedding. This Saturday."
Ember set down her shears. "Saturday," she said. "As in four days from now Saturday."
"I've been busy," said Crispin, in the tone of someone who had not been busy but would not be admitting that.
"What does she like?" said Ember. Crispin opened his mouth. Then he closed it. "Blue," he said finally. "She likes blue." "What kind of blue." "The colour blue."
Ember did not sigh. She had trained herself out of sighing at customers. It was bad for business. "Does she like the sea? The sky? Twilight? Early morning? Ink? Hydrangeas specifically or just the idea of them?"
Crispin stared at her. "You're a dragon," he said. "Why are you like this?"
"I'm a florist," said Ember. "Why are you like this?"
There was a silence. A pot dripped somewhere in the back. Outside, a sparrow landed on the window ledge and looked in, decided there was nothing for it, and left.
"I don't know," Crispin said, and he said it in a completely different voice than he'd been using before. Smaller. Less orange, somehow. He had sat down on the floor, which he did not entirely fit on either. His wings were folded awkwardly. He looked very large and very unsure.
"I don't know what she likes. That's the honest truth. I know she likes blue because she said so once and I wrote it down. I have a list."
He produced a small crumpled piece of paper and held it out.
"You have four things," said Ember.
"I have four things," Crispin agreed.
Ember set down her shears for the second time. "Come back tomorrow morning," she said. "Early. Before I open. I'll have questions."
He came back. This surprised her somewhat.
He came back every morning for three days. He sat on the floor each time because the chairs were not built for him, and he answered her questions, and by the third day he had stopped using his large orange voice and was using the smaller one exclusively.
She learned that the dragon he was marrying was named Sable, and that Sable had grown up near the coast and loved the particular grey-blue of the sea before a storm. That she made maps — very detailed ones, of places she had never been. That she interrupted people constantly but did not like being interrupted, which Crispin reported without irony. That she had a laugh that startled people because it was too big for the situation, and she never apologized for it.
"She sounds terrible," said Ember.
"She's wonderful," said Crispin.
"Yes," said Ember. "That's what I meant."
By the third morning Ember had an arrangement in her mind so precisely she could see it.
"It will be ready Friday evening," she said.
Crispin nodded. Then he said, "There's one more thing."
Ember waited.
"The ceremony is outdoors. At the old stone circle on the hill. At the end, both families light the ceremonial flame together. But Sable — she doesn't have family. Not anymore. It would just be her side, empty." He paused. "I told her I would find someone to stand with her. Someone to light the flame from her side."
Ember was quiet for a very long time.
"I don't breathe fire," she said.
"I know," said Crispin.
"I have never breathed fire."
"I know."
"I'm not — I don't —" She stopped. Started again. "I'm a florist."
"I know," said Crispin, and he smiled, and it was a real one. "She's going to love the flowers. I already know that. But she's going to need someone standing next to her more."
Friday evening the arrangement was ready.
It was, even by Ember's standards, extraordinary. It was the colour of the sea before a storm. It smelled of something coastal, somehow, though she couldn't have said how she'd managed that. It was the kind of bouquet that said I see you precisely — which was the hardest thing for a bouquet to say and the most important.
She wrapped it in brown paper and tied it with dark ribbon and set it by the door. Then she stood in her shop for a long time. The shop smelled of soil and cold water and green things growing. She looked at all the flowers — the ones waiting to become something, the ones already arranged and going out into the world to be handed to someone who needed them.
She turned off the light. She locked the door. She walked up the hill.
The stone circle was lit by torches, which Ember stayed upwind of. There were a great many dragons, all large, all orange and gold and breathing small satisfied puffs of smoke as they talked. Several of them looked at Ember when she arrived. She looked back. They looked away first.
Sable was standing apart from everyone, at the edge of the circle. She was dark-scaled and tall and she was holding Ember's bouquet and she was looking at it the way people look at things that have said something true about them.
She looked up when Ember approached.
"You're the florist," she said.
"Yes," said Ember.
"These are extraordinary."
"I know."
Sable looked at her for a moment. Then she laughed — the big laugh, the one too large for the situation — and it startled three nearby dragons and scattered a group of sparrows from a standing stone. She did not apologize for it.
Ember decided immediately that she liked her.
When the moment came, they stood together on Sable's side of the circle. The torches burned at the center. The other dragons breathed flame in great bright arcs. Crispin looked across the circle at Sable with the expression of someone who had, against considerable odds, made the right choice about something.
Ember stood very still. She looked at the flame at the center. It was tall and it was gold and it was hot, and every part of her wanted to step back, to go home, to go back to the cold water smell of the shop and the green things growing and the careful work of her shears.
Sable stood next to her. Not pushing. Not waiting. Just — next to her.
Ember breathed.
What came out was not a great arc of fire. It was not impressive or gold or large. It was small. It was barely a flicker. It was the size of a candle flame and it lasted only a moment.
But it reached the ceremonial fire, and the ceremonial fire rose, and it counted.
On the way home she stopped in the meadow and picked three of the small wildly blue flowers that bloomed only in early spring. She brought them back to the shop and put them in a small glass on the windowsill.
She didn't make them into anything. Sometimes flowers didn't need to be arranged. Sometimes they were just themselves, which was enough.
She turned off the light.
She went to bed.
Tuesday, for once, had been all right.