Queen Of Flowers

With lazy clouds drifting across flawless blue skies, the spring warmth draped over the Isles like a blanket. Flora, previously wilted and frozen, awoke from their slumber with overgrown stalks, new green leaves and an abundance of fragile petals. The season had turned, and the islands transformed with erupting colours in a sea of blooms wherever they could reach and grow. The cold season is no more, as announced by the onslaught of vibrant visuals and the sweet breeze of floral smells that cling to every leaf and feather like perfume. The forest floor, once hard and frozen over by blizzards and snowdrifts, now bursts with young foliage. Insects skipped and buzzed between tall grasses and occupied every leaf, every branch and the air itself on their search for sweet nectar. Some dinosaurs groaned and snapped at the buzzing chaos, all while others rolled in it. But on a gentle incline where the sun cut clean through the trees, a space had cleared, and she had claimed it to rest just this once.

Mute lies there like a prideful queen. Sprawled half in the fresh new grass and half across a large patch of squashed wildflowers that tried to fill every space the sun touched. She basked, eyes narrow and lazy under her crest. The comfortable rays of the sun baked against her feather coat, lulling the ferocious predator to an uncharacteristic calm. Her sharp claws lay folded beneath her chin, legs outstretched, one crossed over the other, and the breath moving through her ribs was deep and even.

She could hear them even with the trees alive and bugs aplenty. Other creatures were creeping nearby, bending fern, crushing stalks and disturbing pollen with every cautious step. Even when most are distracted by the springtime blooms, her influence persists, and she could feel their indecision, their wondering. “Is she asleep? Is she watching?” Mute smirked, sharp teeth peeking between her lips. Let them squirm. Let them second-guess. Her reputation did the heavy lifting, and today she’d let it.

The flowers were a nuisance. A tickling, fragrant riot that tried to climb into her nostrils and cling to her skin, but lying among them like this, soaking up the heat after a week of wet winds and growling skies, was too good to waste. This alcove had once been a mere unimportant smudge on her patrol route, a place she ran by without a second thought. Now it was a lounge, decorated in her honour with wild dandelions and daisies. Any other day, she would’ve hissed at the sickly-sweet stench in the air, turned her head away from the eye-straining colours of every open field and snapped at every foolish insect that buzzed and dared to scuttle near her. But nature had a way of bribing her patience, just this once.

This time of year, life was throwing itself forward in wild abandon. Every tree drooping with growth, every animal and critter louder, more lively, more annoying. Mute made a game out of this season. Spring made her prey reckless, and their loud appetites gave her more targets than she could chase in a week. For now, she had nothing to prove. Not today. Hunts were easy, food plentiful, her belly filled. Her claws were clean and pristine as ever. The land was hers, and she didn’t need to lift a single limb to keep it right now. The forest, even under the shade of the tall trees, bloomed with a thousand foolish, open blossoms. With the sun hanging in its place in the sky like the life force of the season pressing warm hands into her spine, for once, she enjoyed lying in the soft petals forming a comfortable bed fit for a queen. She had earned this.

The songbirds never cared for her reputation, but with Mute still, calm, and dropping every warning sign that told every critter to back off, they dared to land closer. Hopping near her toes to steal seed and loose fluff, they watched her with tilted heads. Braver birds hopped closer, and eventually, more joined to land on her back and limbs as they found her blissfully immobile. As they started to preen her feathers, ridding her fleece from adventurous insects and pests, she decided to linger just a little longer. Some more time.

Mute closed her eyes again and let her grin deepen. She had burned like fire through this forest, leaving shredded bark and frightened herds in her wake. For now, the flowers could stay. The sun could press down a while longer. The buzzing and pollen could try their worst, and she would remain there, the matriarch sunbathing amidst her bed of flowers. Today, the land was green and red and gold, everything blooming, everything bowing just a little beneath her shadow.

She yawned. The birds scattered. The spot, once again, was quiet. And she stayed there, queen of flowers, for just this moment, resting in the crown of her making.

(830 words according to google docs)