The last days of summer hung over the "Old Pine" orphanage like a sultry, languid haze. The air was thick and sweet with the scent of overripe herbs, and the meager vegetable beds and Ulvia's flower garden seemed like the last oases of living green in a scorched world. It was this tiny plot of land, which Ulvia tended with almost maternal tenderness, that became the epicenter of a storm that descended upon the four friends one overcast morning.
She approached her flowerbed, as always, with a light heart, carrying a small cup of water for her most fragile charges—the bluebells, dug up once upon a time at the forest's edge. But what she saw made the cup slip from her hands and fall to the ground with a dull thud. The flowerbed had been savagely trampled. The stems of marigolds and daisies were broken, the petals ground into the mud. Someone had walked over them with methodical cruelty.
"Who?.." escaped Ulvia in a choked, uncharacteristic whisper. Her eyes, usually so bright and lively, clouded with tears.
News of the incident spread through the orphanage instantly. Kaedan, training behind the old wall, came running as soon as he heard Gil's anxious whisper. His usually focused face burned with anger, and the familiar stone pattern appeared on his cheekbones, which he struggled to suppress. Even the silent Dur, who had been in the shade of the old well, sensing something wrong, abandoned his usual spot and slowly but decisively made his way to the scene.
The first victim of the general outrage was a younger ward named Emil, a puny boy with frightened eyes. Someone had started a rumor that they'd seen him near the flowerbed the day before. A crowd of children began to surround him, hurling accusations, but then Gil stepped forward. Her brown eyes, cold and precise as a scalpel, swept over the gathered crowd.
"Wait," her voice was quiet, but with such undeniable confidence that everyone instantly fell silent. "Emil is afraid of fire beetles. Yesterday after dinner, he complained they'd crawled into his bed. And there are always lots of them on Ulvia's flowerbed. He would never have gone that close."
She crouched by the trampled earth, her fingers, unafraid of dirt, carefully tracing the prints in the soggy soil. "Look," Gil pointed to a clear footprint. "This isn't Emil's footprint. His shoes are two sizes smaller. And this print... it's deep. Whoever did this wasn't just walking, they were jumping and stamping their feet hard. Emil is too light to make prints like this."
Gil's logic was inexorable. Like a seasoned investigator from the ballads, she built a chain of irrefutable evidence. She questioned other children, noticing that one of the older boys, a red-haired lad named Mattis, a faithful shadow of the stubborn and surly Korval, was all too eager to agree with the accusations against Emil. Gil remembered that a few days ago, Ulvia had scolded Mattis for picking one of her flowers to pin on a girl from the younger group. Mattis had burned with shame then and muttered something threatening under his breath.
Kaedan, listening to her, clenched his fists. Rage demanded an outlet; he wanted to find Mattis and Korval and deal with them man-to-man, using his growing strength. He saw how Ulvia's cheeks burned, how she looked at her ruined flowerbed as if at a wounded friend. But then he glanced at Gil, completely absorbed in her investigation, at Dur, who had silently positioned himself next to Ulvia, and his anger subsided, replaced by a more mature feeling—responsibility. Vengeance wouldn't bring the flowers back.
"We'll restore it," Kaedan said quietly but firmly, addressing Ulvia.
And then came the most eloquent action of that day. Dur, without uttering a word, turned and left. A few minutes later, he returned, carrying two chipped wooden spades that old gardener Liam used. One he handed to Kaedan, the other he took for himself. His silent action was clearer than any words: "I'm with you. We'll do this together."
Their quartet didn't crumble under the weight of accusations and lies; on the contrary, it solidified. Gil was their mind, Kaedan their will, Ulvia their heart, and Dur's quiet, unwavering support their foundation. They never found irrefutable proof against Mattis and Korval, but it no longer mattered. In the evening, as the sun set, painting the sky in crimson tones, the four of them worked on the ruined flowerbed. Kaedan and Dur turned the soil, Ulvia carefully smoothed it with her hands, and Gil brought water and selected the surviving roots. They had lost the battle with the ill-wishers, but won something far greater—they proved their friendship was stronger than any malice. And in that quiet, shared work under the setting sun, not just a new flowerbed was born, but a new, stronger chapter in their shared history.