Roses

Dear Imena,

Jay and Ty started dating a few months after that party, and my relationship with Milo only got stronger. The few scouts I had sent out had found no trace of Andrew anywhere, so with no leads, Milo and I spent a lot of time together. I took him around the Vail and introduced him to my world, he even tagged along to meetings with the Council and World leaders. I kept him close by in an attempt to keep him safe, but it was nice to have him there, even if he didn't exactly know what was going on and was just playing along.

One day, we were sitting in the garden talking. Spring was just around the corner, snow no longer fell, the air was warm, the grass was growing back green, and my beautiful rose garden looked more vibrant than ever. While we talked, I tended to my roses. Most of them naturally grew white, so I had learned how to dye and breed them with other roses to create different colors.

"I didn't think blue roses existed." Milo said.

"Well not naturally, but through breeding and dying they can." I responded.

"Why do you do all of that work then? I understand maybe doing it once or twice, but they would be just as pretty in their natural colors wouldn't they?" he asked.

I got quiet and pretended I was too focused on my roses to respond, but Milo knows me too well to fall for that. He was kneeling on the ground next to me, and nudged me with his shoulder.

"Most of them are naturally white." I said.

"So? You have one that's white right there." he said pointing to a lone white rose, "What's wrong with it?"

"There's a reason there's only one." I said, and rolled my eyes when Milo continued to look at me expectantly. I stood up and walked over to the white rose. Using a spell, I pulled back the stems and thorns on the wall behind the rose to reveal a picture of an older man.

"I didn't plant this garden, my grandpa did. Way before I was born, he was apart of a group that tended to the castles in all the divisions, and in this one he decided to plant roses along the side of the castle wall here. My mom actually helped him too, she was pretty young though, so these roses are almost thirty years old. When I became Queen, he taught me how to care for the roses, and I had hundreds of beautiful white roses here." I said.

"So what happened to them?" Milo asked.

"Oh, they're still here, I just dyed them. After my grandpa died, I didn't like to look at the white roses. It just made me really sad to look at them. So, I learned how to dye roses and dyed all but one of them. Then, I hung his picture on the wall right behind the rose. Over the years, the thorns and stems of other roses have covered it, but he's there. That's all that matters." I said.

"Why just one? Why not have a whole bush of white roses here?"

"People don't grow like these roses. If they did, they would live forever as long as they were loved and cared for, so my grandpa would have lived forever. But because that's not how it works, and there was only one of my grandpa, only one originally white rose remains for him."

Milo smiled sadly, and put his arm around me. We stood there quietly for a few moments.

"So is this why you're called Rose?" Milo asked.

"Well, no. Rose is my name." I said.

Milo looked confused. "No, your name is-"

"No no," I cut him off, "I know you know me by a different name, but I don't use that one here. In the Vail, it's Spirit Rose."

"Why? That's extremely confusing." Milo said.

"Just remember that everything I do is to keep me and the people around me safe. That's my only priority." I said.

Milo smiled and shook his head, "Alright. You are the boss."

"Well, I'm the Queen." I said, smiling back at him.

Then he helped me pick up my tools, and we went back inside.

-𝒮. 𝑅𝑜𝓈𝑒