400. A cold weather, 9 - Jahr 11 ~ Book of Rosemary Eriocalyx

(Myls)

We’ve decide to camp in the ruined city for a while.

We secured a sturdy building on the northern bank of the river. Zeslinry is setting it up, building what needs to be.

I’m scouting the area, exploring the wider city centre to secure the land.

Rose’s new flower grows stronger by the day, despite the snow.

It probably won’t be long before she awakens. Before Spring is likely.

Meanwhile, she’s exposed and quite easy to spot from a distance.

So I’m going to check on her twice a day. To make sure no rodent comes to eat it or pollute it. Since we shouldn’t move the egg somewhere else I think.

Still, I’m jealous.

I wonder if she still fears death? Given it’s almost like it’s a given to her that she will come back to life someday.

Something about the clues I’ve seen around here and around her each time we met, leads me to think I probably shouldn’t envy her too much.

I’m probably better following the path of Zeslinry than the one of these roses.

I’ll remain with only one life like we all should. But then again. We’re humans...

She’s always been something else. An old monster returning to the world after ages have passed. Unable to recognise anything nor to be recognised by anyone, and still dangerous in her own ways.

I breath in and out into my scarf.

Ahead of me, the giant flower bud is looking almost ripe and ready to blossom.

I take a last glance at the tomb stone aside it, and leave.

~

I climb the mountain under the icy wind.

My sense of smell is numb since the first snows and the temperature drops, but I can still guess where things have moved.

I find a cave with traces of movement. Something with the ability to make fire lived there for a while.

Close to a good overlook above the fields, and at a safe distance.

I inspect the ashes and lingering smells. Something smelling almost human lived here, but left long before we arrived.

So we’re not the first ones to come and inspect the place around here.

This area of Europe seems to hold more survivors than the western lands near the ocean.

I just hope they’re not monsters.

~

Each winter that comes, I bet more of us die.

I’ve had the time to think about it now, since we saw that baby.

If we found a village or a city of survivors that was nice enough, that was real civilisation still going on; Zeslinry would possibly want to stay there. I wouldn’t.

She’s older, she remembers the world before.

I barely do.

My world is this one, not an older nostalgic memory.

So if we found a real city someday, we would be conflicted.

But if I found it first, maybe I could hide it from her.

I know I should not think like that, but that’s just how my feelings go.

I probably would tell her... Unhappily.

I’m climbing the peak under the wind. I hide between boulders and inspect the landscape from this higher point of view.

Rose is truly in the exact middle of a large area where nothing grows and nothing was built.

I thought there were no gods involved a while ago, but now I’m not so sure. This layout of things is all but natural.

Even for today.

Rose was not brought to be buried there precisely.

That’s where she died. Probably violently. There might have been an explosion around her, blowing everything else away.

Whatever is there, it didn’t seem to attract too many odd things since we arrived, so that’s good.

But it might.

I think we’re likely better camping on the other side of the city as we are. The rose is exposed and probably visible to all sorts of monsters.

At least there doesn’t seem to be anything to worry about for today.

Everything is quiet and peaceful as far as I can see.

~

The weather warms up slightly.

Zeslinry and I explore the city together.

We keep finding more footprints, the same two pairs, everywhere we go.

We know who they belonged to.

We also find these blue or black feathers again as well, like lost hair.

They’ve explored this before us. Before something dire happened to them. At least one of them.

We eventually found their camp.

Bags. Clothes. Swords. Trinkets. A golden mask? More feathers. Weird stains here or there.

A faint smell of plasma and fluids.

And an abandoned bed. Left in a hurry. I take a closer whiff. It still smells like Rose.

Not enough clue as to what happened. Like everywhere else in the world.

Zeslinry found a working computer to her surprise, among their luggage.

It boots on an encyclopaedia and random notes.

It seems they were learning about the past they missed.

While Zeslinry inspects the computer, I follow another corridor heading to a bigger building even.

I end up reaching a huge abandoned warehouse, with a ship left there in the middle.

Something is feeling out of place.

In that dim light, I begin inspecting that ship that lies there in the middle of a warehouse.

It’s sculpted wood everywhere around and inside. The hull doesn’t seem to have ever touched water.

Inside, it’s unlike anything I’ve ever seen.

It’s not modern looking, yet not that old. And it smells like them.

In its stocks under the deck are numerous plastic and aluminium bottles. Their content smells like wine or varnish.

Everything is odd about this ship. Why would they camp in there as well as outside.

We’re not even close to the river. Its hull is intact, but everything else shows it’s used.

Zeslinry barges in.

She found some notes about the T.I.

Magical powers demystified.

She understood she found something big.

And the ship bugged her as well, as it seems really out of place.

We will eventually find out its secrets.

It’s just a question of time.

~

While a snowy day passed, Zeslinry studied the computer longer on. It was a great treasure left by our friend, while I looked further for the secret of this ship.

The woods carvings and the funnels ended up clicking together.

There was a network of carved pipes, like blood vessels, all over the ship. And at its roots, instead of a heart, was a funnel, and an old smell of mould and sugar.

I tried, as if I were in a game.

Then I kept inspecting around.

Until it began to react.

I felt my heart flutter. A shiver was followed by a thrill.

Impossible.

That’s not possible!

The ship rose slowly into the air, as I was still aboard.

Zeslinry, agape, dropped the computer as she saw that lift from below.

The large shadowy ship rose to float inside that warehouse space.

That’s impossible... Yet Rose did it.

This weird woman with messy hair, sad face and sickly look did it. Again.

She may look like a vagrant while she’s alive, but she’s doing things insane like this as well...

I can see her, embracing her insanity, and all it allows her to accomplish.

One who is not afraid to charge head on gods or demons.

And the weirdest thing of all, is that she sometimes prevails.

And she will return...

Lunatic...

I wish I could be a hero like that, able to bring impossible victories to us.

One thing she’s good at, and I agree with Zeslinry a hundred per cent on that, it’s that she makes us wonder...

~

I’m climbing the mountain again.

Not yet with the flying ship. There’s no hurry.

No, today, it’s to watch the skies and weather.

An odd smell was brought forth by the wind the other day.

I want to see what’s coming.

In the distance, heavy stormy clouds are gathering, and slowly flowing toward our direction.

A storm is coming. It happens.

But...

I’m feeling uneasy. I’m shivering, not just because ti’s cold out there.

As long as I lived, if there’s one thing my instincts taught me, it’s to trust them when they speak. Always.

They never failed me.

And I don’t like the look of this storm ahead of us. There’s something nasty to it I really don’t like.

We’re leaving soon.

~