Flowers bloomed all around.

Daisies, black-eyed Susans, clovers, milkweed, and dandelions bobbed in a light breeze that smelled of fresh growth and damp soil. Sunlight fell over low rolling hills and pooled in the dips between, and clouds were scattered in fluffy handfuls in a rich blue sky.

Two boys sat together on one of those low hills, one behind and the other in front, very patient as his hair was braided.

Amandis worked slowly, and plucked flowers from the hillside to weave them in Diadne's hair. He'd had a lot of practice, and his fingers were skilled as a result. He probably could have finished the braid in a matter of minutes. But Diadne's hair was like threads of gold, soft as down, and smooth as the fine silks that passed in caravans through their village, and so it was always the same--Amandis took his time just to savor the feeling.

The wind blew again. Birds glided overhead. Children played in the distant town, and the ghost of laughter reached their ears over the meadow. At last Amandis was satisfied and finished the braid, tying it off with a bow.

"Done," he said.

Diadne swept it over his shoulder for a look, then cast an amused glance back at him. "You put half the meadow in it. You know it's a pain picking all these out at night, right?"

"Stay at my place, I'll take them out for you."

Diadne shook his head, still with a smile. There was a moment of quiet before he spoke again and said, "When I die, plant flowers on my grave. Then my spirit will live on forever."

The words came out of nowhere, but Amandis wasn't surprised. Whimsical things like this came out of Diadne's mouth all the time, and that was just one of many things Amandis liked about him.

"What are you talking about? You can't die before me."

He wrapped Diadne in his arms and planted a kiss at the corner of his jaw.

The words were spoken lightly, but deep in his heart, Amandis prayed that they would be true.

Diadne smiled and leaned against him, and for a while, on that ordinary spring day, Heaven embraced them both.

~<>~

Two years later, side by side, two boys departed from a quiet village in the plains and joined their kingdom's military. When they reached their destination, Amandis gave Diadne a necklace with an enchanted seed burrowed in its center.

Neither of them said as much, but their idle, comfortable lives were gone, and when they locked eyes, each could tell the other knew.

~<>~

Diadne was a simple man. He thought that's what people would say if someone asked what he was like. Nothing about him was exceptional, save maybe for his hair, but that had all been cut at his shoulders.

He liked flowers, springtime, and was very fond of honey. The only other thing he was very animated about--and he thought people would also say this if asked--was not a thing but actually a person, the man he'd grown up alongside. Amandis.

Right now, Amandis's blood soaked his clothes.

It was slick, sticky, and cooled all too quickly in the snowfall. His hand, clutched around Amandis's right side, was already stained red and numb. Though in truth, he wasn't sure whose blood had painted it, nor whether the numbness was due to the cold night air or blood loss. His other hand was only in slightly better condition, and the only sensation left there was pain in his joints from keeping an iron grip on Amandis's wrist.

Side by side, with his arm around his friend's waist and Amandis's over his shoulders, Diadne carried them both through the thickening snow. He'd shed his mortal agony somewhere behind them. He was hardly better off than Amandis, but all he felt was a deep chill, and a fatigue he knew would bring his last rest.

He couldn't say why he was going to the trouble of dragging Amandis through the snow, away from the battlefield. They'd both known that someday they would die in battle and be left to rot on the fields of war. It was their fate, their duty as soldiers.

Maybe it was just that he thought that that fate was far too cruel for someone he'd loved for so long.

If possible, he would've wanted Amandis to live a long life, one full of luxury and free of hardship, and with many people to mourn his death when it came, gently and quietly, to whisk him away in the night. Or to at least die painlessly, in a meadow under the spring sun, as if he were only nodding off for a nap. He'd always loved to do that.

But now that he could feel his friend's life draining out on his side, Diadne found that there was no storm in his heart. No monsoon to pour from him in strangled sobs and searing tears. There was a lake, perhaps. A vast, unending grief, too deep to perceive the bottom.

But it was peaceful. He thought maybe that's because he was dying too. That, at least, gave him a wisp of joy.

They passed into a little antre, where there was shelter from the snow. Diadne helped Amandis to sit against the rough stone.

A rattling sigh escaped Amandis's lips. How familiar that sigh was, how horrid it was now. When Amandis spoke, his voice was wet and congealed.

"What a shame." He coughed faintly, and red tinted his pale lips. "If I'd made it home from this. . ."

His gaze seemed distant, but he blinked then and shook his head. "Hey, Diadne, let's meet again next time, yeah? Maybe. . .if I'm lucky, you can be mine then."

Diadne smiled. "Next time."

It was a vow, even though he knew there was no way either of them could keep it.

Amandis smiled back for a brief second before he was overcome with harsh coughs. Blood welled in his mouth and dripped from his chin. These were his last moments.

Gently, Diadne took Amandis's face in his hands, and for the last time, he kissed lips that were already cold.

Amandis breathed his last with the ghost of joy on his face.

Diadne went back into the snowfall and stumbled on.

For minutes, or for hours. After however long, he reached the edge of a wood, and the last of his strength faded. He fell into the snow, closed his eyes, and discovered that peace wasn't the right word for how he felt. Acceptance would be a better word.

But there was still a bitter regret within him that in the end, he was dying alone, an unbelievable distance from his family and friends.

That was the last thought he had time for. In the cold, still night, his breath scattered and disappeared.

Next to him, lying on the snow, his pendant lit with a soft glow and unfurled a sprout.

The boys met at the old wooden bridge every afternoon, when the tide was low enough to reveal the barnacled posts and the smell of salt and mud hung in the air.

There was Mateo, the quiet one, who carried a notebook in his back pocket but never let anyone read it. Jun, who could skip stones farther than anyone else in the barangay, and who swore he’d one day sail away on a boat he built himself. And Nico, the smallest but loudest, who always had a dare ready on his tongue.

They weren’t bound by blood, but by the kind of friendship that grows in the spaces between boredom and curiosity. The bridge was their kingdom—its creaking planks their throne room, its shadowed underside their secret cave.

One afternoon, the air was heavy with the promise of rain. The boys sat with their legs dangling over the edge, watching the water swirl below.

“I heard there’s treasure under here,” Nico said, eyes glinting. “Old coins from the war.”

Mateo smirked. “Or maybe just rusted nails and dead crabs.”

But Jun was already climbing down, his bare feet gripping the slippery posts. “Only one way to find out.”

They followed, the wood slick beneath their hands, the tide whispering against their ankles. Under the bridge, the world felt different—darker, quieter, as if they had stepped into a place that didn’t belong to anyone else.

Jun’s hand brushed something half-buried in the mud. He pulled it free: a small tin box, dented and streaked with rust. The boys crowded around as he pried it open. Inside was a folded piece of paper, brittle with age, and a single silver coin.

The paper held a drawing—three stick figures standing on a bridge, the sun above them, and the words “For when you forget.”

They stared at it, unsure what it meant.

“Maybe it’s from other boys,” Mateo said quietly, “ones who used to come here before us.”

The rain began to fall, soft at first, then harder, drumming on the planks above. They climbed back up, the box tucked under Jun’s arm. None of them spoke, but each felt the same strange weight in their chest—a mix of wonder and the sudden awareness that their days here wouldn’t last forever.

Years later, when the bridge was gone and they had scattered to different lives, Mateo would find the tin box in a drawer. He’d run his fingers over the coin, unfold the drawing, and remember the smell of salt and rain, the sound of laughter under the bridge, and the boys they had been.

And he would understand that the real treasure had never been buried in the mud.

It had been the afternoons themselves.