447. Season of night, 7

(Rose)

Once everything was over, when I was finally free to breathe as I pleased, I felt a little hollow.

The time of cooling down was a blend of emotions.

I was too weak to move my body. I could feel Blume’s brambles, tangled around me, carrying me away in a calm flight.

A starless night had fallen. I could see a snow falling, as dark as everything else around. The air was hard to breathe, warm, more than dry, coarse. Volcanic ashes were spreading in the air.

R - I’m... Not dead?

B - No. Not this time. You will rest, and live on. I’ll watch over you...

I moved my head around a little, to see what was behind.

A pillar of smoke bars the horizon and sky, with orange glows here and there. Its diameter is at least twenty kilometres.

R - Did we... Make it?

B - We did, yes. We made it. Most of the released energy went toward the stars.

R - It doesn’t look like we saved much of the surrounding lands...

B - Think how worse it would have been if you had not done that last insanity. The resulting volcano would have been something entirely different.

R - So... We won...

B - I can’t fathom the consequences it will have over time, but yes, we won...

We’re not joyous though. I hope it helped the world, overall.

Blume keeps her soft steady flight, carrying me away in her arms.

I’m passing out.

~

I woke up the next day from a dreamless sleep, in pain all over. My skin was flaking and bleeding underneath the scales of dry tissues.

It was the most intense fight of my life, which I kind of longed for. But it is the most bitter victory I can remember. It’s like a terrible hangover, after finally letting it all out. It’s almost regret.

I managed to sit. I was in a dusty room, in a building long abandoned.

Outside, the sky was dark, and ashes were snowing .

By the window, sat a rosebush with four wings. It’s weird.

R - Blume...

The plant shape turned around some stems and buds, but had no head nor face to show me. Why did she turn?

R - Why aren’t you back in me?

B - Do you want it?

I kinda do. I’m not feeling great right now. But I guess she’s uneasy because of my sudden choices out there. She’s not feeling great either I can see.

R - I would like to have you back inside of my chest yes, next to my heart... I’m sorry for the rush back there.

B - You made the right calls and it worked. I was thinking maybe now was the time for me to have my own body again. It would help also for next time.

R - Ooh... I hope there won’t be a next time right now... But I would love to see your pretty human self as well.

B - Rose... You enjoy killing gods, don’t you?

All the murk inside of me resurfaces. She pocked me where it hurts. I feel Ogre’s embrace all over me. Disgust and nausea are itching me from inside.

I calm the shades down. I swallow.

R - I do... But I think I’ve had enough of this bitter alcohol for now...

B - The flames of strife will always return to tempt you. But again, you are pulling yourself toward your ideal.

R - Yes. Yes... Do you remember what I last said?

B - You didn’t finish your sentence then.

R - I wanted to say that if we survive... I want this life to be the last...

B - Do you really feel that way?

R - That’s how I felt at that moment. I’m not so sure now. But... I guess you get the idea behind that request?

B - There has been enough god slaying Lichts. Rose will now try her best to live more peacefully?

R - I may miss the excitement sometimes, just as I missed you or miss Bleue. But yes... That battle, that destruction, that panic... That was too much. It’s enough for me, for a lifetime.

B - My little Rose is feeling like a bad girl after a nasty hangover, doesn’t she?

R - Shut up! I was trying...

B - It’s all right, I understand what you mean.

I feel like shit about all this is what I mean. I don’t know what I’ve won, but I saw more destruction than a volcano would do, and the land will remain dead. Other consequences I can’t see will follow, and nothing feels good right now.

Blume hugged me with her flowers, gently.

I’m trying to get better at my pace, with my painful experiences and bitter victories.

R - Do you think... We did something good?

B - I’m not happier than you are about then, but I believe so yes. That magenta god was a warmonger. It would have continued growing and spreading over the centuries, until there was nothing left.

R - And then what? What would it have done once all life was extinct? Created a new one like the priests?

B - No, I believe that one didn’t desire to create anything at all. Priest was a useful tool, not an ambition. Otherwise we would have seen more. I think... It would have bobbled out to space, like it tried in its final moments. It would have flown away, and begun an endless journey through the universe.

That sounds odd, and sad. Though I am an aimless wandered too, a little. But Earth is already wide enough for me.

R - You were concerned about the continent being broken over the explosion. Have you checked?

B - Yes, I’ve had a quick evaluation of it. There is now a volcano where it all happened, and a large one. The surrounding land is becoming a chain of mountains around it. The rifts didn’t seem to propagate too much. I wouldn’t be surprised if there are many more earthquakes around Eurasia from now on though.

R - I can’t believe we created a volcano over our fight.

B - Given the situation and the thing we faced, it was likely the less destructive outcome possible that was achieved.

Had this magenta star blown out without preferred direction, the continent would have been far more fractured, and that would have been more cataclysmic for the continent. Worse earthquakes would have scattered all over the world in echoes to the rift being born. The consequences would have been manifold.

R - So we’re heroes, uh? It was dreadful... That was enough. Still, you worry me... Are the other brightest gods you could guess around the world just as dangerous?

B - I’m too tired to focus on that right now. But as I recall, possibly... Actually, it’s hard to evaluate as we were in the middle of it all, but that thing might have been the most powerful one on Earth.

Hopefully?

R - I’m sadly glad to hear that it’s unlikely the Earth will blow up one day suddenly, because of a stronger mad god would have gone insane and without anything we could do about it.

B - Oh, you were worried about real world ending powers? No, I can reassure you, there’s nothing concentrated like that over the world. A power strong enough to blow the entire biosphere or planet in a sudden hit would make such a gravity hole in the ocean, everyone on Earth would know, long before it really becomes planet size dangerous.

R - Good to hear... Even gods have their limits. Good to hear...

B - Of course we do.

I lay back down. I breathe. I’m drained, body and soul.

R - I feel like I’ve awoken from a long, very long nightmare...

B - You have. One long nightmare that had begun many years ago.

R - You mean Licht Trägerin?

B - No. I meant one that had begun even before that, in a train, in a cold night when I finally launched the spark to make it all alive. The night when you became afraid of the gods beyond. The night it all begun for you... Sleep tight, I’ll look after you...

I’m thinking about that day back then. When morning became twilight, and I was thrown in this time. I’m passing out.

When my eyes reopen, she may be right. Maybe I will finally feel free from that initial fear of the unknown but wider forces beyond the veil of reality. Maybe now I can relax for a little while...

~