407. The blue rose, 9

(Rose)

Before I left the city for this town I now recover in, I went to see our graves.

Yours had been covered with rubbles. Mine, was where I had woken up. I think. There was nothing to see. I never found Ana. But I have a glimpse of memory where I think I killed her as she tried to help me.

This sadly ended our time together...

I’m sorry Ana...

All good things come to an end, and even this blue rose I loved eventually died.

In a different time, a different me would not have survived your loss. Well, in a way, I didn’t either, but that’s beside the point.

Rose, I, would not have been able to go on, after your death.

I know there was a time where that would have been true.

Losing you was a pain difficult to digest, not that I had a lot of time to.

Although if the worst had not happened, I would still be alive today. And though it can sound normal or meaningless, it actually does mean something important, coming from me, about your death.

The original Rose, lived for Blue. I lived for her, literally. I would have fallen into monstrosity or pitiful death without her.

I know I’m too romantic, but the blue rose kept me alive, all my life.

My first life. And the next, in a similar way.

Being together you and In like they originally were, it was a dream come true, and real happiness. No matter what you were and what I still am.

Their promise became ours, and we enjoyed a bliss that should not have been possible, in more ways than one.

The original me would not have survived the tragic loss of Blue. I don’t think I would have been able to.

I was already on the verge of collapse just looking for you back then, weaken and scrawny, losing the little weight I still had over anxiety. A cold wind would have swept me away if you had not woken up in the end.

Now I’m getting over my cold like it was nothing.

Meaningless words just there, if you can’t see the context.

I’m getting over a cold the likes of which would have ended me, not so long ago.

I will miss you dearly, but I will live on.

And that sorrow too will also eventually wither.

The second blue rose is dead, but my new self, my usual rose, will live on.

You know, I’m like weeds now. Whether it’s a rosebush or rosemary, I’m hard to get rid of.

Really hard.

I will thrive.

Even without you by my side.

Something the older me would never have been able to say.

I will live on by myself. Without any blue rose any longer to dream for the future.

Two were enough. Two. Twice upon two times, an impossible blue rose blossomed.

You didn’t mention in the heroess twelve labours that a third one should ever rise, so that will be the end of this story. The end of our blue rose story might have been sad, but I don’t regret it, and I’m not dying sad about it now...

Because I’m now able to move on.

There’s no need to rewrite that story even though the end was awful.

Because I can move on to the next chapter of my life nevertheless.

Goodbye Bleue...

What happened next...

Is me living on.

~

No matter what you were truly, you helped me to evolve in many ways. Most of which I was reluctant to go toward.

Part of that, played a part in me being able to move from your loss.

The Rose that was once built upon her love for you has sufficiently grown to be no longer dependant from it. I didn’t see that one coming.

It is shapeless, but that is the most precious gift you managed to give me. Making me able to outgrow you, should you disappear. I realise it wasn’t an easy accomplishment from you.

Because you were haunting me before you came. The blue rose was haunting me like a curse in my blood, since forever.

Because I was myself, with my dreadful flaws, with my love, with my romantic dreams.

Life went on. I evolved with time, and with you.

You removed the barriers. You desacralized the holiness of my blue rose, my chain to that idea. You removed many of my chains as a human called Rosemary Herson.

You helped me move beyond my faith upon the blue rose while you were there.

I’m feeling hollow, because it feels as if my god abandoned me.

But I’m grateful to you for that.

Because far from bringing an end to anything in my life, if I dare say so, afterward, today, it opens new doors. It brought new blank pages to the book of my life, when all I could see was the end of it.

More simply put, if Rose Herson was doomed to exist only in the context of a blue rose, like a character in her own story, you helped me break free from that Bleue.

Slowly, over time, we achieved it together.

We went beyond. I realise it only now.

And now that the blue rose is no more, I’m still alive, in a new world.

And what happens next, is that a slightly different rose will thrive.

~

I got rid of my cold.

I damaged beyond repair many of the houses in this lonely town in the process, turning them into single-use saunas, one after another.

It’s really wasteful, but it should be alright. I don’t think it impacted much of the life forms in the surroundings.

Now that I’m feeling better, I can return to my more natural ways of living. As a nomad.

As an explorer. As an adventurer should I dare to say.

And as a warrior at times.

A part of me enjoys it, I won’t lie.

Amongst the furniture of the many houses I’ve burnt and flooded, I found enough materials and equipment to restart my journey and travel. As a vagrant perhaps, but not as a savage at least.

No rifle nor gun though. But I was able to craft myself a bow that works reasonably well. Not strong enough to shoot down a dragon should I meet one, but good enough to hunt down rats along the banks of a river at dusk.

And of course, the sword of light. The weapon Licht was carrying. Its real backstory is not as impressive as this name I’ve given it might suggests. But it’s a very good longsword.

Plus, it’s a strange feeling to be holding the sword that once pierced my heart and brought me down.

I remember that moment. And I remember also what I looked like, from Licht’s eyes back then.

It’s a mixture of bad memories for me.

And I handle its memento.

What happened to Bleue was one thing.

What happened to me was another...

But such times of fierce tragedy, of revolutions, also bring the sharpest changes and impacts in life.

This was a time for great transformations to occur.

And what grew out of it all afterward, from all this pain, was me. A new rose to bud.

A lot happened to me, and I will think back about these times for all the years to come.

However now is my time to bloom some flowers anew, of different colours than blue.

~