#fyi it's also called everlasting or immortelle

[dear-mrs-otome]

Me searching up every possible flower meaning for helichrysum after Galileo's white day story 🥺 I wonder if that'll be 'his' flower?

[dear-mrs-otome]

Galileo Galilei - White Day

"These are for you."

MC is startled when out of nowhere Galileo offers her a bouquet of white flowers, wrapped in paper. (I see that wrapping job there sir, nice attempt at casual) They're very beautiful, she can't help thinking, but she's a bit baffled by the gesture - especially given his usual, standoffish demeanor.

She asks why he's giving these to her, and Galileo reminds her how she gave him chocolates last month, right?

He's merely returning the favor. She hadn't had any expectations that he might, but she's happy regardless.

Aloud, she laughs a little. "You're a conscientious person too," she tells him. (Echoing the way he'd called her that for gifting him Valentine's chocolate as an apology for using his telescope without permission in their very first story)

"I just don't want to be in anyone's debt," he replies.

She gladly accepts the flowers and remarks on how beautiful they are, but she's not familiar with what kind they are. He tells her he's not sure of all the specifics but they're a type of helichrysum - although usually those come in bright colors. These white ones came as a fluke from a university cultivation program, not the color they wanted at all. (AM I THE ONLY ONE READING SOME HEAVY SYMBOLISM HERE?)

He says when he heard they were just going to be tossed, her words came to mind. (How she'd mentioned, when they first met, that she felt like even chance encounters can have meaning) And with her having said something like that, he thought she would treasure these new flowers.

She's kind of silently stunned he remembered her words like that.

"You can throw them away if you have no need of them. Do as you please," Galileo tells her offhandedly.

"No!" she gasps. "I'll take good care of them!"

Galileo just does an about face at that and walks off without another word...but as he goes, the last glimpse she catches of his expression seems softer.

Back at the mansion on the balcony, she's looking at the flowers again and musing how they look like she's holding shooting stars in her hand. Maybe the same thing had occurred to Galileo, which is why he wanted to save the flowers? Because he seems to love the stars so much.

She stares up at the night sky, thinking about his still unseen heart.

~~~~~~~~~~

MRS. O'S TINFOIL HAT RAMBLINGS:

I already blathered a bit in tags o a different post about the flower symbolism, but let me do it again. These are white strawflowers, which are also known as helichrysum, fyi.

Very lovely, and they dry and remain almost perfectly preserved, hence some of their other names: Everlasting, or Immortelle. They symbolize eternal life or immortality - but also something 'always remembered' and some take it a step further and go with 'eternal love'. Usually they come in many different colors of pinks and reds, or white with bright yellow centers.

This has me side-eyeing things so hard though because the very first story we ever got of his involves MC wandering the Timey-Wimey Hallway, being called and cajoled by a sexy voice she later figures out is Galileo's, and she gets to witness a bit of his past and his imprisonment. Drake's story definitely was just a normal, meet-cute on the street style, nothing as mystical as timewalking. I have a feeling this is going to feature prominently in his stories, along with the heavy emphasis that there is no such thing as a random meaningless encounter.

BUT ALSO, here's heavy tinfoil time! Maybe I'm looking too hard but the symbolism doesn't escape me here of him identifying with and feeling empathy towards these white flowers that symbolize eternity (all pale colored, much like our hero, no??) that are an unwanted accident. A misfire of genetics that's only good to be tossed away and culled. I STAND BY MY DHAMPIR/ HALF-PUREBLOOD THEORY.