August 21, 1891 - Wellingtonshire, Hogsmeade @ a generic ball

Unlike Daffy, Dahlia was enjoying the ball. But then again these days there didn't seem to be much that Daffy enjoyed. She was even more distant and spacy than before. It was a big enough difference since Dahlia had returned from school that she could hardly ignore it any more. So after several dances and a stop at the refreshment table, Dahlia had grabbed her sister a glass of lemonade and returned to her where she hovered on the edge of the ball. She was determined to find out why Daffy was so distant.

"Lemonade?" Dahlia offered to her older sister as she stepped to her side and surveyed the dancing couples on the floor.

@"Daffodil Potts"

  

---

Pretties by Bee <3

This was exhausting. The season, the pretending to be okay, the insomnia. Daff felt like she was going to combust soon and lose it. There was nothing she could do about it, though she had started to lessen her attendance at events. She had attended a few back-to-back hoping that it would tire her enough to get some actual sleep, but to no avail. A few hours here and there just wasn't cutting it. She was desperate for a good, restful night's sleep.

It was starting to become more and more noticeable and she knew it, but she couldn't explain it. Nobody at home had asked yet and Hope was far too busy in her wedded bliss for Daff to be bothering her friend with any of this nonsense, and so she just had to keep up the façade that things were fine and she was fine. Everything was fine.

"Oh sure, thank you." Daff accepted the lemonade from Dahila without even really processing, she was simply moving in response. "Having fun?" She had to perk up a little and just tough it out.

---

  

---

"I am." Dahlia confirmed, taking a tiny sip of her lemonade and surveying her sister. Daffy wasn't even looking at her. "But you're not." Dahlia's brown eyes watched her sister's face carefully at her assessment, her head tilted to the side. It was the truth. Daffy definitely wasn't having fun. She looked tired and .... forlorn? Dahlia wasn't quite sure and so she took another sip of the lemonade giving Daffy time to react to her sister's observation.

  

---

Pretties by Bee <3

"I'm just tired. I haven't been sleeping well." Daff admitted, though that was all she really could tell her sister. She hadn't been strictly forthcoming about her poor sleeping habits to her sisters, just her father, and even then not why, but it was likely becoming more and more noticeable, the less sleep she got. It wasn't anything truly new for her, but it was worse this time and last time she had dealt with it at school, with some very specific help.

Sighing softly, Daff took a sip of lemonade to give herself a moment to think. "I think I'll be ready for the season to die down soon. I know it's your first, but I'm ready to be done." That would certainly take one stress factor out of her equation. "How do you think it went?" Daff needed to get the focus off her so she could pull herself together.

---

  

---

Worry creased Dahlia's face at Daffy's admission and she bit her lip as she tried to think of some piece of advice that might help her older sister. The problem was Dahlia could rarely not sleep. She slept soundly even when she was angry or upset. It was a great way to escape. Once she had even had a roommate get made at her because they had gotten into a fight and the Dahlia had slept soundly while the other girl had tossed and turned all night. So Dahlia suggested what she had come to rely on since her childhood, "Have you told mother? She may know something that will help."

It didn't surprise her that Daffy was ready to be done with the season, she'd never really seemed into it in the first place. Even so Dahlia allowed a sympathetic frown to cross her lips. She could tell that Daffy was done with it all. She acknowledged that fact with a nod of her head and a shift into a soft smile. Then the subject turned to her. Dahlia allowed it, she could always steer it back to Daffy when she chose.

"Oh, I don't know. I had rather hoped it would be my only one, foolishly, I admit." She shook her head wryly but didn't blush. "But I did enjoy it." The dancing and chatting - and of course the lack of schoolwork!

  

---

Pretties by Bee <3

Daff knew that look just as well as she knew what her mother's reaction would be and so therefore she chose to hide her expression behind a sip of lemonade. Daffy had tried everything she could think of, everything she had ever been told to try in the past, combinations she thought were safe; what she needed was a dreamless sleep potion to help reset her sleep schedule. Even if she got five or six hours a night, that was better than the on-again-off-again dozing she managed some nights. And that was better than the nights she didn't sleep at all, or only managed to pass out from pure exhaustion an hour or so before she would need to get up for work.

It was starting to become absolutely overwhelming.

She was not about to truly let onto that however and so instead passed her sister a sympathetic smile. "Even Ama didn't manage it in one season." Though her eldest sister's determination to pursue healing was more likely the culprit than anything else in that regard. If there had been one of them to do it, Daffy would have put her money on Ama or Dahlia. Neither Daff nor Thistle seemed to have much interest, Senna had gotten there eventually. Everything happened for a reason. "The experience was good worth. Plus the summer is not in fact, the only time to socialize or find a husband." She teased lightly.

---

  

---

"Yes, but Ama wanted to be a healer." Dahlia lightly huffed. Whereas Dahlia didnt. She didnt want a career at all. She wanted a husband, family, life of her own. It was left hanging between them, the differences between all the sisters. Dahlia was the only one who wanted this and nothing else. Or at least that was what it felt like.

Dahlia let out an amused exhale at her sister's gentle ribbing. "No, but is the best chance." She sighed, "Its not like eligible gentlemen just wander into the store every day." No, they usually only came in when their attentions were firmly settled on not being eligible anymore and had someone in mind for that purpose.

  

---

Pretties by Bee <3

"Perhaps Ama was not the best example, Sen didn't do it either and you know that's all she wanted." Ama was the family golden child, she got the good job and the husband and the kids. Perhaps that had been the misstep. Senna had never really expressed an interest in the family business like Daff or Thistle had. Sen had wanted to get married and start a family, point blank and it had taken her a while.

"Everything happens for a reason, in its own time," Daffy assured her sister with a smile. She didn't think it necessary or even wise to point out that no, the likelihood of meeting eligible gentlemen randomly in a store, even their own shop, was not that high, but neither was falling for your best friend at school or having a broommaker legitimately fall into the backyard while you garden. Daff still held a candle for Noble, knew that would never fade, but she was not so blind as to see Mr. Grimstone as a multifaceted acquaintance at the moment. There was potential there, based on the ease of their numerous conversations thus far, even if her heart wasn't ready.

---

  

---

"I know." Dahlia sighed. Patience definitely wasnt her strong suit though. "One day." Until then she'd just have to be grateful for the experience and her family - and having completed school.

"You should listen to your own advice, by the way." Dahlia commented keeping her voice light, as she circled back to Daffy's exhaustion. She knew that she herself slept well, but those who didnt usually had a reason for it. She didnt expect Daffy to tell her, but she did want to help. So she would try shooting in the dark.

  

---

Pretties by Bee <3

"One day." Daffy shrugged. She hadn't the foggiest when, and perhaps one day it would just be her and Thistle running the shop together, a pair of spinsters with their greenhouse and their cats, but that wasn't so bad to Daff as it was to some, Dahlia included.

"I don't see how the season is going to help me sleep." She chuckled, trying to brush it off. One would think the late nights would help her, but she found it almost impossible to unwind like she used to. Tea, lavender, deep breathing, none of it seemed like enough to help her get her brain to turn off at the end of the day. There was too much to think about, between the shop and her disaster of a personal life, she simply couldn't find a way to tune it all out and just relax. "Come, maybe a dance will." She changed the subject quickly, setting her drink down to pull her sister toward the dance floor.

---

  

---