Later, Strange finds that the dry oak floorboards have warped and split where he spilled his blood. Furled leaves are forcing their way through the crannies, and worm-like tendrils of roots and stalks, and then, within hours, a spray of white flowers. He doesn’t know what sort of flowers they are. They smell of stagnancy, and the inner lining of coffins. They are not, he thinks, native to the wood. Perhaps a stray seed, or a bit of corn blown in from the hillsides… but then, there is not much left growing on the hillsides, in any direction where the army has been. And Strange does not know very much about flowers. He would after all have made a poor farmer, he reflects.
Title: In the country of the dead
Author: kvikindi
Characters: Jonathan Strange & Neapolitans
Summary: Strange stays in the windmill with the Neapolitan soldiers.
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