523. Day and Night, 2

(Rose)

I still have bad dreams now and then. It’s not my sister’s doing though. It’s more traumatic parts of my past that occasionally resurface. Some pains, fear, sorrow and guilt surge back once in a while.

So I wake up tired.

But I can breathe during the day, and smile without realising it. It’s good. It’s a good day.

Night packs everything. She scratches her messy scalp and hair, and picks up her large hiking bag. I soon follow.

Blume still is asleep inside of me like a lazy cat on a couch. I could almost picture her yawning. She seems quite happy to take things at this pace currently. Her inner self needs mending I hear. So she sleeps in the foreign extension to my body, shaped like brambles and rosebushes, quite like in the old days. It’s a situation we both enjoyed.

As we walk, sometimes Nightmare takes a closer look at her giant drop of blood that follows her. She’s doing some experiments in that ball of liquids and keeps an eye on them.

We used to do wonders in art and technology. They can do something akin to it in creating new life. SO I’m curious to see what her experiments will bring in the future. For now, it’s still the research of an elixir of life.

Meanwhile, the mountainous landscapes of the southern Andes keep growing around us, covering soon the entirety of our scenery.

~

I don’t sleep well so I get more tired over the days, while Nightmare thrives.

When we reach a new set of old buildings in ruins where we can easily camp, we decide to take a break for a few days.

We’ve climbed possibly half a kilometre in altitude, quite rapidly. I rest for a little while and let Nightmare frolic on her own. There are still woods nearby, but they become clear scarce and thinner.

She goes to hunt like the young animal she is.

I try to rest myself and nap.

Blume holds me gently in her sleep from within, and shares my level of activity.

I yawn until my jaw twitches. I feel tired, but still in control and balanced. It’s not bad.

B - Do you want to settle somewhere like others do?

R - Hm...

B - Or do you wish to see what the Eldorado now looks like?

R - Eh.

B - Then rest. It’s close now.

R - I’m feeling a little... muddy.

Blume stretches her brambles, leaves and flowers. She holds me.

She’s cuddling me.

B - You can rest. I’ll be there...

She reminds me of one of these foreign memories I found one day inside of me. One of these random piece of memory from someone else that I accidentally inherited through either one of my resurrections.

It’s from my birth mother I think, when she was a young girl. That’s what I presume as I hear her in this lull.

No one wants to be alone...

Blume stays with me.

~

Surely enough, Blume was there in all my dreams during that deep nap. She really meant it that she’d be there.

Giant roses the size of celestial bodies, bigger than the moon where visible in the sky. She held my hand, even there, helping me to rest, by reassuring me no matter what was there.

I woke up in the evening, before the sunset. To a smell of fire-grilled meat, and a faint perfume of roses.

B - Rise and shine, old one.

R - Hm... What’s that smell?

B - Your sister is cooking an animal.

R - I mean the flowery scent in the air...

B - Oddly enough, the answer is the same.

What kind of animal was that?

I stood up and went to see, following the perfumed grilling scent.

I found Nightmare still working on it and focused.

Steaks were sizzling over the fire, but she had still a lot to do.

I could see it wasn’t usual game by the shape of the carcass. And the smell of it. That was a dünyanın çiçekleri, obviously. A new animal species that didn’t resemble much what came before in its ancestry.

A beast like a gigantic salamander or flat dog with very thick legs and tail, with flat back and head.

The skin wasn’t shedding hair nor scales, but large flowery petals. By the touch of them, they appeared to be real and normal petals. So this animal was another kind of hybrid.

The tongue was sizzling along with the liver. It was a large reptilian tongue. The liver was deep red, but the steaks paler more like pork. The skin and the insides of the beast smelled unusually flowery. A butcher’s dream.

N - I thought you might want to keep it as a pet, but then I remembered you already have one.

Who’s she talking to? Me or Blume?

Nightmare sucked some leftovers of juices out of tissues I think were lungs.

N - It tastes a little sweet. Try it.

It doesn’t feel like we’re holding animal pieces. I drink some of the remaining plasma left in the spongy lung.

It tastes bittersweet. There’s definitely something like syrup to milden the bitter taste you’d expect.

The head of the animal, left on the side of the fire, is very lizard like. Weird.

I help Nightmare deep into the night separating what we need from this flesh from what we don’t.

Then I go to sleep in a corner of ourselves, and let them do their new thing.

~

During the next morning, the egg they rebuilt with discarded leftovers and bones already hatches. The very round and plump lizard that comes out has a smooth pale skin. The petals probably grow when it’s adult.

The small animal quickly runs toward our stock of food, to steal a large piece of meat that probably comes from its previous body. It escapes with it in the mouth like a thieving cat.

It runs fast like a lizard. We let it go.

Soon after, Nightmare returns to the wilds while I return inside the ruins to nap.

The perfume of flowers is still lingering around.

B - Sweet dreams my dear.

R - Hm...

I float away. I’ll recover some strength.

And we’ll go see what lied hidden in these mountains that could glint from high in the sky.

A golden city maybe, made by another daiûa.

I want to see, yes...

I’m excited to discover that as well.

There are more unknown flowers to bloom and discover.

But not today. Today I rest.

B - Lazy bones.

R - Hm!

~