393. About love, 9

(Blume)

My pet and I had flown to Europe at great speed.

She was very curious about these lush forests and cold mountains.

She was a child of the sun, of the Persian warmth.

The Mediterranean Balkans were a new land to her.

But we didn't stop much along the way.

The more I reopened my brain to the senses of the other world, and the clearer my destination was appearing to me.

Something terrible happened to my Rose.

It still was unclear what exactly, but her presence was along that storm I could perceive very far away.

So I rushed out there to see for myself.

And I actually wasn't the only one.

I saw a few other beings-like-me rushing in her direction. Some to witness something, and some others clearly to fight against something.

I was mostly clueless over what was going on out there, and now I was growing worried.

We reached the area where the ominous storm was.

My heart was beating faster and more painful at what I was seeing.

~

There were forests all around, but far. A few mountains here where we stood, and others far further away. In the horizon was a dead city along a river, mostly in ruins like everywhere else.

In that valley of rocks and mud before us, lied an atrocious monster.

A dragon of gigantic features, though in shape, wasn't fixed and dense. A monster, large as a forest or a small mountain. Its mostly floral features and shapes reminded me of my first body in England, although what I witnessed here was entirely uprooted and moving.

It roared against a being-like-me that was going against it with flames and fire.

My fingers were twitching nervously as I saw that fight.

I lived something similar a long time ago.

My pet was horrified by the sight of wild life, and the bigger monster eating the smaller demon whole.

Brambles then spread around and began crushing the trees closer to it.

The giant mass was feeding and draining all it could from all that surrounded it, gradually hollowing the surrounding forest into barren land.

W - What the hell is that monster over there?

B - That, little one, is what became the woman whom was once my lover... The one I ever truly loved.

W - What can turn a human into this?

B - I don't really know... She's become... Everything she hated. I don't know what happened to her.

But I can't leave her like that. It's too painful. It's too sad.

And I knew Rose fairly enough to know what she would have begged me to do...

B - Wait here, and always at a safe distance, little one. For I may not return.

W - Wait! What are you going to do?

I gently take her hand between mine. It's goodbye.

B - I'm going to try helping her. Nothing is impossible for the likes of us, though it doesn't mean we always prevail, and the costs may be great sometimes. This one you see there... She once was a human as pretty as you. I will try to bring her back, even if it takes me a few hundred years.

W - Why would you do something like that?

It's been so long Rose...

This child, it's been too short.

B - Because I loved her, more than you'd think. Come on, don't tear up.

I brush her tears off her puffy cheek. She doesn't think I can be coming back from meeting with that incomprehensible thing out there.

W - How could you...

B - You know, we might have met yesterday, but I loved that one for hundreds of years already. She's still important to me and she's obviously suffering dearly as she is right now. I can't leave her like that.

The child is crying because she thinks I will die, and I'm abandoning her.

B - I won't die today. You know how trees and flowers return into their seeds sometimes?

W - Wha... They don't do that...

B - Well, I do. I can. I'm a demon flower.

~

I kissed my little friend goodbye, and bequeathed to her everything I owned.

I gave her my heart as well. The biological one though.

The big fruit of flesh has a lot of me inside.

She was comprehensibly speechless as I got it out of my chest, and put it into her open hands. Without dying, and without losing a single drop of blood.

She held that warm and soft lump of flesh, petrified.

She'll be fine.

I wanted to give her a nice part of my body as a human.

I'm returning to my former nature. I'm turning around, and my attention returns toward you, Rose.

My hollow heart aches for you.

It always has, a little.

I built my humanity out of my love for you, a long time ago.

I was able to overgrow you, and to be happy even without you.

But I can't let you die in the way you now are heading to. It's too painful for me too.

So I'll be reaching you.

I see the beastly body turning its attention toward me as I approach.

I'm focusing my power back to the other side and the boundaries.

I'm reopening all of it. And I now can see the full rupture you've created.

You ripped a little rift between two realities. Energy flows, and feeds you.

But you're not acting with any human intelligence with it. It's primal. It's unconscious.

What happened to you? If I couldn't recognise your smell in invisible water, I wouldn't believe this is you.

My body jumps around, avoiding the blind charges of the things you've fed with yourself.

I'm still looking for you. For the real you.

I roll over the back of that large demon with plant-like body.

I notice where the human flesh is, deep below. I rip the branches and brambles on my way and apart.

I dive into your external shell of a body, to reach the real you.

Only to find your deformed corpse.

I ache.

I'm so sorry Rose. It pains me.

You didn't transform into a demon as you were alive.

You died a horrible death.

And then nature took over what remained.

I really ache...

The beast will try to get rid of me in a second.

More time than I really need for what I want to accomplish.

I have a good experience in creating magical poisons, and flowers.

It's time I help bloom a new rose.

I grab your broken skull with both my hands, and close my melting eyes over you.

~

I can remember seeing the sky, through your eyes.

I once offered my life to you.

You refused to take it back then.

You opened your arms, and your heart, to me instead.

I've had the happiest time of my life with you Rose.

It was meaningful to me. No matter what you were, no matter what I was, our love was a sweet colour painting over our lives.

I've had great fun on my own as well.

I still love you. I wish we had met again in different circumstances.

Many years ago, I gave you everything so you could live again.

Let's restart.

Let's do it once more.

Because I can.

Some seasons have been harsh on you, but there is still enough of you to make a new seed.

So let me help you my love, to blossom once more in the future. In another day, another time, in another life.

With me by your side...

~