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Babylon 5 fic AGAIN
So you know how I said I can be extremely prolific when I'm inspired ...
This one probably can't really claim to be inspired by the "floriography" prompt at the recent promptfest, but it is very loosely inspired by a fic in a different fandom for that prompt, which immediately made me think, "You know who would absolutely LOVE finding out that it's possible to insult someone using flowers ..."
Wish You Were(n't) Here (Babylon 5, Londo & G'Kar with Vir & Sinclair, 2700 words)
"This conversation is beginning to concern me," Sinclair remarked. "And if it doesn't stop immediately, I am going to ask for an explanation, which I suspect no one is going to want to provide, so let's pretend we've already done that and move on to the day's agenda."
(Londo and G'Kar discover that it is possible to insult someone with flowers. Goes from early season one to late season five.)
When Londo opened the door of his quarters, headed to yet another lethally dull council meeting at which the only distraction from boredom was likely to be either the Drazi ambassador saying something oafish or the Narn ambassador insulting him, he nearly stepped on a black flower lying on the floor just outside his doorway.
"Did you drop this, Vir?"
"I'm sorry, Londo, I have no idea where that came from. Do you want me to ask around?"
"No." Londo picked up and pondered the flower, twirled it between his fingers. He had never seen anything like it; it was definitely not a Centauri flower, nor an Earth one, and it was wilting slightly, as if it had been cut some time ago. "It may be some courtier trying to curry favor. Or a dancer, smitten with me." He tossed off the comment by habit, but in truth he did not care so much for dancers these days. Adira was still too fresh a memory.
But the flower was appealing, in its strange, alien way. He was late for the meeting, so he tucked it into a pocket, and then forgot about it until he was pulling out the scroll case containing his government's reply to the Gaim query about their colony in Sector 50. The flower flopped onto the table, and there was an audible gasp from G'Kar's aide Na'Toth, who was sitting in the wings along with Vir and the other ambassadorial assistants.
"Ah yes," Londo said, picking it up carefully and holding it up. "That. Does anyone know what this is?"
There was a brief silence before the Minbari ambassador said carefully, "I believe it is called a death blossom. It is a Narn tradition. I have heard that their assassins leave one before a member of their assassin's guild comes calling."
There was another brief, rather weighted silence, and Londo swiveled to glare at G'Kar, at the other end of the council table.
"Was this a death threat, G'Kar? Is that what this is?"
The bastard was smirking. "I do not know where you got that. But it is no danger to you. The Thenta Makur do not accept commissions for non-Narns."
Londo turned to level a glower at Na'Toth, and caught her in the act of looking curiously from the wilting flower to G'Kar. As soon as she realized Londo was looking at her, she immediately assumed a poker face.
"So where did this come from?" Londo demanded, throwing it on the table.
No one answered. Na'Toth made a slight sound, as if she was on the verge of saying something, then shut up.
"Oh, you know what that might be," G'Kar said, as if he had just now thought of it. "A member of the Thenta Makur recently tried to kill me, unsuccessfully, I might add. Perhaps that is the same flower he left in my quarters. It has no intrinsic meaning for outsiders, of course."
"And you have no idea how it got to my quarters from yours."
"Should I?" G'Kar inquired, in that way he had of making perfectly ordinary statements sound like a threat.
Sinclair cleared his throat. "If the ambassadors are finished with their personal business, can we get back to the matter raised by the Gaim delegation?"
Londo shoved the flower in Vir's general direction and mouthed, "Recycle that."
He kept looking over his shoulder for a while after that, his paranoia well honed in the cutthroat world of the Centauri court, but there was no sign of any assassins, Narn or otherwise. G'Kar, that son of a spoo, had regifted him a death flower, he was sure of it. But it seemed that G'Kar was telling the truth when he said it hadn't been an actual threat.
***
So that was that, except in fact, that was not that. A month or so later, after Londo had completely forgotten about the death flower, he opened his door to find a few small sprigs of thorny, unlovely foliage, tied together with a brown ribbon.
Londo sighed deeply and thought about stomping on it, but he was curious enough to pick it up.
"What is that?" Vir asked, coming up behind him.
"Another delightful little poison-pen gift from G'Kar would be my guess." Londo handed the flowers to him. "Here, take this down to the Zocalo and ask around if anyone can tell you what they are and if there is any chance of an assassin being attached to them."
"What? Me? Londo --"
"Don't worry, no one is going to kill you. If this is a threat, it's me they want, which is why I'm not going in person." Londo gestured. "Although you might want to wash your hands, just in case those actually are poisonous." In fact, he had better go do that right now.
"Thank you so much for this, Londo," Vir said grimly, holding the flowers by the tips of his fingers.
He reappeared later that day and dropped the sad little bouquet on the end table beside the cup of jala that Londo was sipping while going over the details of the latest trade negotiations with the Drazi.
"Well, I see you are un-assassinated and un-poisoned," Londo said. "Did you find out anything?"
"Yes, sort of. You were right, they're from Narn. Apparently," Vir said, plunking himself down on the couch beside Londo and looking excited, "the Narns have an entire sort of -- of language involving flowers, did you know that? Humans do too! Their flowers all mean something. Well, and plants generally, since Narn doesn't have a whole lot of actual flower-flowers."
"Mean something? In what way?"
"Well, the florist that I talked to told me that this --" Vir learned over to touch a particularly spiky part of the arrangement, "-- means disdain, and this one next to it is for stupidity .... and this one means that you find the recipient of the flowers beneath contempt."
"So I have just been insulted in the language of flowers, basically."
"Er ...." Vir appeared to have realized this for the first time. "Yes. Kind of."
"No 'kind of' about it. That smirking bastard G'Kar. He is probably laughing in his quarters about this." Londo picked up the bouquet and snorted. "So the Narns have an insulting meaning for every plant on their world? And the humans do too? What a strange race they are."
"No, it's not always insults, in fact for humans it's usually not. Apparently. The Narns are, well ..."
"Yes, I know how the Narns are." He got up and shoved the bouquet into the recycler. "I am not going to give that bastard the satisfaction of knowing I found it. Let him assume the cleaning people picked it up."
***
But it was not the last time. The flowers -- or plants, foliage, what have you -- became a thing that happened now and then. Londo sent Vir down to the market twice more to talk to his florist friend and come back with the bouquet's meaning ("ignorance, dislike, pompous arrogance" in one case, and "ego, shallowness, scorn, lack of prowess in battle" in the other).
"How many of these flower meanings are there, anyway?"
"Hundreds," Vir said. "Maybe thousands."
"See if there's a -- a dictionary or something. I have a feeling we may need it."
Vir came back after a while with several sheets of paper covered with notation that he had paid the florist to write up for him. Londo skimmed it with growing dismay. It was true, the Narns had literally hundreds of different insulting connotations for flowers. As Vir had said, some were actually complimentary (honor, liking, respect, affection) but not most of them.
Abruptly it occurred to Londo that two could play this game. He didn't send Vir this time; he went himself, asked around the Zocalo until he found a florist who sold Narnish flowers, and spent some time with the list, asking the names of things, until he had very satisfyingly put together an arrangement: idiocy, ridicule, lack of prowess in bed. (It was actually rather aesthetically pleasing. He liked the little orange impotence flowers in particular.)
"Er, if you're sending this to a Narn, you may be about to start a blood feud," the florist said warily, wrapping the flowers up.
"He started it. I am merely returning the favor."
"Yes, well, if you could please fail to mention where they came from, I'll give you a discount."
At the council meeting later that afternoon, Londo smiled beatifically down the table at G'Kar, who gave him an inscrutable stare.
"Good afternoon, G'Kar. A fine day today, isn't it?"
"Every day in space is the same," G'Kar said laconically.
"Is it? Not all days are the same, you know. Some days, a person might find something surprising in or around his quarters, for example."
"This conversation is beginning to concern me," Sinclair remarked. "And if it doesn't stop immediately, I am going to ask for an explanation, which I suspect no one is going to want to provide, so let's pretend we've already done that and move on to the day's agenda."
Londo promptly returned his attention to the papers in front of him, but he eyed G'Kar sideways, and after a little while, he noticed G'Kar reach into a pocket of his armor, take out one of the little orange flowers, and eat it ... gazing in Londo's general direction all the while.
Giant fucking weirdo.
But it was astonishing that the Narn had developed this when the Centauri had not, Londo thought, returning his attention to his paperwork. Flowers, among the Centauri, were just flowers, attractive and suitable for giving to a pretty paramour. Being able to insult someone subtly, with the true level of insult known only to those who were well versed in the flower language ... he could see this taking off like wildfire at the court if anyone found out about it.
Well, they weren't going to find out from him, primarily because if anyone did know about it, then he'd have even more explaining to do regarding the occasional bunches of dusty, thorny plants that continued to show up now and then at his quarters.
***
After the second Narn-Centauri war began, the annoying plant deliveries stopped entirely, as if a flower-dispensing tap had been turned off.
Londo told himself he was relieved. If G'Kar no longer felt like half-playfully insulting him, it was not appropriate to his new position of responsibility anyway. He did not miss it at all.
***
It had been literally years, and he had long since stopped thinking about it, when he opened his door the day before they were set to embark for Earth on the White Star and discovered a small bundle of plants on his doorstep.
Londo laughed aloud. There was no one around to hear him. He bent down to pick it up. It was just one kind of plant this time, a spray of small yellow flowers on a thorny shrub, tied together with a small strip of leather. He ducked back into his quarters and quickly looked it up on the Babcom internal network, which -- he had learned -- contained a large database of plant and animal life from a number of inhabited worlds. Once he found the name of the flower, he hunted around his bedroom (he couldn't have thrown it away, surely?) and finally located Vir's plant list, folded and refolded, buried under a stack of Homeworld books and other errata.
This one meant, "An auspicious start to a new venture."
***
He received flowers in the medbay. This was an Earther custom he was familiar with, although it was very pleasing -- in fact, it warmed his newly mended hearts -- to be on the receiving end of it from his Earth friends. There was a tidy, rather formal arrangement from Lochley, and a sprawling bouquet (with a balloon, how delightful!) as well as a get-well card from Sheridan and Delenn.
And there was a floral arrangement of rather prickly vegetation with small, Narnish-style flowers. These ones looked like drops of blood.
Vir grinned when he saw it. "Is that from --"
"I don't know, there's no card. Go find out for me what it is?"
Vir was back shortly to report that yes, the flowers were Narnish, and for once, the meaning was exactly what one would expect. They just meant "I'm glad you're well."
"The florist said that they are usually sent to friends," Vir said. "That is, personal friends, not -- so apparently Narns have a number of different levels of acquaintanceship; there are shield-friends, that you fight beside, and there are people who have saved your life that you owe a debt of honor to, and ... anyway, this one is for personal friends. People you like."
"Oh." Londo looked at the flowers again, the little drops of red, like the blood from a beating heart. That was ... a little too much floral honesty, perhaps. But what was flower language for, but to say the things you didn't necessarily have the words to say in person? "Vir, could you ... no, never mind."
He didn't want to dispatch this by way of Vir. He did it himself, a couple of weeks later when he felt recovered enough for a walk down to the Zocalo. In fact he dithered over it for ages. There were flowers for "I'm sorry," for sincerity, for gratitude, for hope. And none of that really felt right.
Nothing felt right.
In the end, he politely thanked the florist and left the kiosk. Instead of flowers, he bought a bottle of taree.
Maybe the time for flowers to do their talking for them was over. Vir was out tonight with some friends from Homeworld, so there was nothing to do at home except bounce around his empty quarters, and he wondered if G'Kar would mind a little company.
***
It was about a year after Londo assumed the throne, and all that went with it, when one of his attendants arrived with a basket in both hands, bowed, and waited to be admitted.
"Put it there," Londo said impatiently. He was at breakfast, which as always he took alone at a long table meant for a group; he was the only person ever there. "What is it?"
"I don't know, Majesty. It was brought to the palace for delivery by a florist from the main business district. The order was placed anonymously, she said, and it was meant for the Emperor, with no message. It has been checked thoroughly for poisons or listening devices, and none were found. However ..." The attendant wrinkled his nose a little. "I am told they are Narnish flowers. So an insult is likely meant."
"Very likely," Londo said, barely reacting at all. "Well, if they are not poisonous, then put them in water so we can look at them later." He waved a hand.
The attendant obeyed. Londo finished his breakfast before he went to have a look, still very casual. He had not seen these particular varieties of flower before. Like most of the flowers he had seen so far from Narn, they were appealing in a subdued kind of way, with delicate little rosettes of blue and white blossoms; very different from the ostentatious and showy flowers preferred on Centauri Prime.
He summoned one of his attendants back. "Find out what this is," he said dismissively. "The type of flower, I mean."
He had no idea why he remembered it with this much clarity, but he had spent so much time perusing that ridiculous flower list back on Babylon 5 that when the attendant returned with the names of the flowers, he actually recognized them. Still, he couldn't remember what they were for; it was not anything G'Kar had inflicted on him before. So it was a couple of days later, when he had bored the Keeper into near insensibility with several hours of perusing tax records, that he casually looked them up on the galactic net.
The meaning was "esteem," "congratulations," and "missing an absent loved one."
If the Centauri did not know this language of flowers, then very likely it was a language the Drakh did not speak, either.
For what felt like the first time in months, he smiled. And he thought it might be possible -- after a while, after the Drakh forgot about this and there was no reason to attach any special meaning to his actions -- to send a bouquet back.
This one probably can't really claim to be inspired by the "floriography" prompt at the recent promptfest, but it is very loosely inspired by a fic in a different fandom for that prompt, which immediately made me think, "You know who would absolutely LOVE finding out that it's possible to insult someone using flowers ..."
Wish You Were(n't) Here (Babylon 5, Londo & G'Kar with Vir & Sinclair, 2700 words)
"This conversation is beginning to concern me," Sinclair remarked. "And if it doesn't stop immediately, I am going to ask for an explanation, which I suspect no one is going to want to provide, so let's pretend we've already done that and move on to the day's agenda."
(Londo and G'Kar discover that it is possible to insult someone with flowers. Goes from early season one to late season five.)
When Londo opened the door of his quarters, headed to yet another lethally dull council meeting at which the only distraction from boredom was likely to be either the Drazi ambassador saying something oafish or the Narn ambassador insulting him, he nearly stepped on a black flower lying on the floor just outside his doorway.
"Did you drop this, Vir?"
"I'm sorry, Londo, I have no idea where that came from. Do you want me to ask around?"
"No." Londo picked up and pondered the flower, twirled it between his fingers. He had never seen anything like it; it was definitely not a Centauri flower, nor an Earth one, and it was wilting slightly, as if it had been cut some time ago. "It may be some courtier trying to curry favor. Or a dancer, smitten with me." He tossed off the comment by habit, but in truth he did not care so much for dancers these days. Adira was still too fresh a memory.
But the flower was appealing, in its strange, alien way. He was late for the meeting, so he tucked it into a pocket, and then forgot about it until he was pulling out the scroll case containing his government's reply to the Gaim query about their colony in Sector 50. The flower flopped onto the table, and there was an audible gasp from G'Kar's aide Na'Toth, who was sitting in the wings along with Vir and the other ambassadorial assistants.
"Ah yes," Londo said, picking it up carefully and holding it up. "That. Does anyone know what this is?"
There was a brief silence before the Minbari ambassador said carefully, "I believe it is called a death blossom. It is a Narn tradition. I have heard that their assassins leave one before a member of their assassin's guild comes calling."
There was another brief, rather weighted silence, and Londo swiveled to glare at G'Kar, at the other end of the council table.
"Was this a death threat, G'Kar? Is that what this is?"
The bastard was smirking. "I do not know where you got that. But it is no danger to you. The Thenta Makur do not accept commissions for non-Narns."
Londo turned to level a glower at Na'Toth, and caught her in the act of looking curiously from the wilting flower to G'Kar. As soon as she realized Londo was looking at her, she immediately assumed a poker face.
"So where did this come from?" Londo demanded, throwing it on the table.
No one answered. Na'Toth made a slight sound, as if she was on the verge of saying something, then shut up.
"Oh, you know what that might be," G'Kar said, as if he had just now thought of it. "A member of the Thenta Makur recently tried to kill me, unsuccessfully, I might add. Perhaps that is the same flower he left in my quarters. It has no intrinsic meaning for outsiders, of course."
"And you have no idea how it got to my quarters from yours."
"Should I?" G'Kar inquired, in that way he had of making perfectly ordinary statements sound like a threat.
Sinclair cleared his throat. "If the ambassadors are finished with their personal business, can we get back to the matter raised by the Gaim delegation?"
Londo shoved the flower in Vir's general direction and mouthed, "Recycle that."
He kept looking over his shoulder for a while after that, his paranoia well honed in the cutthroat world of the Centauri court, but there was no sign of any assassins, Narn or otherwise. G'Kar, that son of a spoo, had regifted him a death flower, he was sure of it. But it seemed that G'Kar was telling the truth when he said it hadn't been an actual threat.
***
So that was that, except in fact, that was not that. A month or so later, after Londo had completely forgotten about the death flower, he opened his door to find a few small sprigs of thorny, unlovely foliage, tied together with a brown ribbon.
Londo sighed deeply and thought about stomping on it, but he was curious enough to pick it up.
"What is that?" Vir asked, coming up behind him.
"Another delightful little poison-pen gift from G'Kar would be my guess." Londo handed the flowers to him. "Here, take this down to the Zocalo and ask around if anyone can tell you what they are and if there is any chance of an assassin being attached to them."
"What? Me? Londo --"
"Don't worry, no one is going to kill you. If this is a threat, it's me they want, which is why I'm not going in person." Londo gestured. "Although you might want to wash your hands, just in case those actually are poisonous." In fact, he had better go do that right now.
"Thank you so much for this, Londo," Vir said grimly, holding the flowers by the tips of his fingers.
He reappeared later that day and dropped the sad little bouquet on the end table beside the cup of jala that Londo was sipping while going over the details of the latest trade negotiations with the Drazi.
"Well, I see you are un-assassinated and un-poisoned," Londo said. "Did you find out anything?"
"Yes, sort of. You were right, they're from Narn. Apparently," Vir said, plunking himself down on the couch beside Londo and looking excited, "the Narns have an entire sort of -- of language involving flowers, did you know that? Humans do too! Their flowers all mean something. Well, and plants generally, since Narn doesn't have a whole lot of actual flower-flowers."
"Mean something? In what way?"
"Well, the florist that I talked to told me that this --" Vir learned over to touch a particularly spiky part of the arrangement, "-- means disdain, and this one next to it is for stupidity .... and this one means that you find the recipient of the flowers beneath contempt."
"So I have just been insulted in the language of flowers, basically."
"Er ...." Vir appeared to have realized this for the first time. "Yes. Kind of."
"No 'kind of' about it. That smirking bastard G'Kar. He is probably laughing in his quarters about this." Londo picked up the bouquet and snorted. "So the Narns have an insulting meaning for every plant on their world? And the humans do too? What a strange race they are."
"No, it's not always insults, in fact for humans it's usually not. Apparently. The Narns are, well ..."
"Yes, I know how the Narns are." He got up and shoved the bouquet into the recycler. "I am not going to give that bastard the satisfaction of knowing I found it. Let him assume the cleaning people picked it up."
***
But it was not the last time. The flowers -- or plants, foliage, what have you -- became a thing that happened now and then. Londo sent Vir down to the market twice more to talk to his florist friend and come back with the bouquet's meaning ("ignorance, dislike, pompous arrogance" in one case, and "ego, shallowness, scorn, lack of prowess in battle" in the other).
"How many of these flower meanings are there, anyway?"
"Hundreds," Vir said. "Maybe thousands."
"See if there's a -- a dictionary or something. I have a feeling we may need it."
Vir came back after a while with several sheets of paper covered with notation that he had paid the florist to write up for him. Londo skimmed it with growing dismay. It was true, the Narns had literally hundreds of different insulting connotations for flowers. As Vir had said, some were actually complimentary (honor, liking, respect, affection) but not most of them.
Abruptly it occurred to Londo that two could play this game. He didn't send Vir this time; he went himself, asked around the Zocalo until he found a florist who sold Narnish flowers, and spent some time with the list, asking the names of things, until he had very satisfyingly put together an arrangement: idiocy, ridicule, lack of prowess in bed. (It was actually rather aesthetically pleasing. He liked the little orange impotence flowers in particular.)
"Er, if you're sending this to a Narn, you may be about to start a blood feud," the florist said warily, wrapping the flowers up.
"He started it. I am merely returning the favor."
"Yes, well, if you could please fail to mention where they came from, I'll give you a discount."
At the council meeting later that afternoon, Londo smiled beatifically down the table at G'Kar, who gave him an inscrutable stare.
"Good afternoon, G'Kar. A fine day today, isn't it?"
"Every day in space is the same," G'Kar said laconically.
"Is it? Not all days are the same, you know. Some days, a person might find something surprising in or around his quarters, for example."
"This conversation is beginning to concern me," Sinclair remarked. "And if it doesn't stop immediately, I am going to ask for an explanation, which I suspect no one is going to want to provide, so let's pretend we've already done that and move on to the day's agenda."
Londo promptly returned his attention to the papers in front of him, but he eyed G'Kar sideways, and after a little while, he noticed G'Kar reach into a pocket of his armor, take out one of the little orange flowers, and eat it ... gazing in Londo's general direction all the while.
Giant fucking weirdo.
But it was astonishing that the Narn had developed this when the Centauri had not, Londo thought, returning his attention to his paperwork. Flowers, among the Centauri, were just flowers, attractive and suitable for giving to a pretty paramour. Being able to insult someone subtly, with the true level of insult known only to those who were well versed in the flower language ... he could see this taking off like wildfire at the court if anyone found out about it.
Well, they weren't going to find out from him, primarily because if anyone did know about it, then he'd have even more explaining to do regarding the occasional bunches of dusty, thorny plants that continued to show up now and then at his quarters.
***
After the second Narn-Centauri war began, the annoying plant deliveries stopped entirely, as if a flower-dispensing tap had been turned off.
Londo told himself he was relieved. If G'Kar no longer felt like half-playfully insulting him, it was not appropriate to his new position of responsibility anyway. He did not miss it at all.
***
It had been literally years, and he had long since stopped thinking about it, when he opened his door the day before they were set to embark for Earth on the White Star and discovered a small bundle of plants on his doorstep.
Londo laughed aloud. There was no one around to hear him. He bent down to pick it up. It was just one kind of plant this time, a spray of small yellow flowers on a thorny shrub, tied together with a small strip of leather. He ducked back into his quarters and quickly looked it up on the Babcom internal network, which -- he had learned -- contained a large database of plant and animal life from a number of inhabited worlds. Once he found the name of the flower, he hunted around his bedroom (he couldn't have thrown it away, surely?) and finally located Vir's plant list, folded and refolded, buried under a stack of Homeworld books and other errata.
This one meant, "An auspicious start to a new venture."
***
He received flowers in the medbay. This was an Earther custom he was familiar with, although it was very pleasing -- in fact, it warmed his newly mended hearts -- to be on the receiving end of it from his Earth friends. There was a tidy, rather formal arrangement from Lochley, and a sprawling bouquet (with a balloon, how delightful!) as well as a get-well card from Sheridan and Delenn.
And there was a floral arrangement of rather prickly vegetation with small, Narnish-style flowers. These ones looked like drops of blood.
Vir grinned when he saw it. "Is that from --"
"I don't know, there's no card. Go find out for me what it is?"
Vir was back shortly to report that yes, the flowers were Narnish, and for once, the meaning was exactly what one would expect. They just meant "I'm glad you're well."
"The florist said that they are usually sent to friends," Vir said. "That is, personal friends, not -- so apparently Narns have a number of different levels of acquaintanceship; there are shield-friends, that you fight beside, and there are people who have saved your life that you owe a debt of honor to, and ... anyway, this one is for personal friends. People you like."
"Oh." Londo looked at the flowers again, the little drops of red, like the blood from a beating heart. That was ... a little too much floral honesty, perhaps. But what was flower language for, but to say the things you didn't necessarily have the words to say in person? "Vir, could you ... no, never mind."
He didn't want to dispatch this by way of Vir. He did it himself, a couple of weeks later when he felt recovered enough for a walk down to the Zocalo. In fact he dithered over it for ages. There were flowers for "I'm sorry," for sincerity, for gratitude, for hope. And none of that really felt right.
Nothing felt right.
In the end, he politely thanked the florist and left the kiosk. Instead of flowers, he bought a bottle of taree.
Maybe the time for flowers to do their talking for them was over. Vir was out tonight with some friends from Homeworld, so there was nothing to do at home except bounce around his empty quarters, and he wondered if G'Kar would mind a little company.
***
It was about a year after Londo assumed the throne, and all that went with it, when one of his attendants arrived with a basket in both hands, bowed, and waited to be admitted.
"Put it there," Londo said impatiently. He was at breakfast, which as always he took alone at a long table meant for a group; he was the only person ever there. "What is it?"
"I don't know, Majesty. It was brought to the palace for delivery by a florist from the main business district. The order was placed anonymously, she said, and it was meant for the Emperor, with no message. It has been checked thoroughly for poisons or listening devices, and none were found. However ..." The attendant wrinkled his nose a little. "I am told they are Narnish flowers. So an insult is likely meant."
"Very likely," Londo said, barely reacting at all. "Well, if they are not poisonous, then put them in water so we can look at them later." He waved a hand.
The attendant obeyed. Londo finished his breakfast before he went to have a look, still very casual. He had not seen these particular varieties of flower before. Like most of the flowers he had seen so far from Narn, they were appealing in a subdued kind of way, with delicate little rosettes of blue and white blossoms; very different from the ostentatious and showy flowers preferred on Centauri Prime.
He summoned one of his attendants back. "Find out what this is," he said dismissively. "The type of flower, I mean."
He had no idea why he remembered it with this much clarity, but he had spent so much time perusing that ridiculous flower list back on Babylon 5 that when the attendant returned with the names of the flowers, he actually recognized them. Still, he couldn't remember what they were for; it was not anything G'Kar had inflicted on him before. So it was a couple of days later, when he had bored the Keeper into near insensibility with several hours of perusing tax records, that he casually looked them up on the galactic net.
The meaning was "esteem," "congratulations," and "missing an absent loved one."
If the Centauri did not know this language of flowers, then very likely it was a language the Drakh did not speak, either.
For what felt like the first time in months, he smiled. And he thought it might be possible -- after a while, after the Drakh forgot about this and there was no reason to attach any special meaning to his actions -- to send a bouquet back.
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I mean, after Londo started it with the G'Quan Eth . . .
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I know!! (I gave some thought to trying to figure out how to fit that in directly, but it didn't quite work with the rest of the story without simply rehashing canon; the timing isn't quite right.) It fits so well, though - there are enough meaningful flowers in the show, especially in the first half of season one, that it feels like giving them more explicit meanings can slide almost seamlessly into what's already there.
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Yes! The star laces for Adira. I like the incorporation of the death blossom, too. (And Londo not introducing flower invective to the Centauri court, which given the extant toxicity levels was probably just as well.)
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