Rose Blumen ~ Exogignesthai 1

(Rose)

I meet different aspects or outcomes of myself.

They all shared a bitter history, and different shades of spite against me.

But now that I'm here, they look at me as one of them, as another of their kind, and they are kind.

They are kind...

It's still overwhelming...

What I can think about then is falling back to the fundamentals.

I ask where is Blue.

They say she's not here, to tease me. I know she is.

I can hear my heartbeat beating faster as I get closer to her.

I climb the stairs. I cross path with a rose very different from the others. One that looks like Licht, though she has her two eyes. She looks grim. I notice she's using crutches, and that her feet are missing.

She's glaring at me with deep pain in her eyes. It pains me too by empathy.

I try to reach out to her, but she brushes me off and leaves. It's too painful for her to interact with me...

Seeing that face, and that way to go and act, she reminded me of the eldest of my younger sisters... Severe. Acid.

I saw the same thing with her... It's painful and bitter.

But after a moment, I turn, look at the next flight of stairs, and climb them toward the roof. I open the door to the cold and light rain.

The sky is rumbling, grey, white, ash. Cold but clear, a thin rain falling down, scarce but clear.

I step onto the roof garden. Many different pots lie along the edges of the roof as they would in a greenhouse. One open to the sky, as in her story...

And at the end of this garden lies my blue bird on a branch.

The one whom gave meaning and happiness to my previous life. It's not entirely accurate, but still...

She's standing on the edge, looking in the distance, entirely exposed to the rain.

Her dress is a blue getting gradually deeper as the rain soaks it.

As I get closer to her, my voice gets stuck in my throat.

I'm in a daze.

I've lived years... without you.

Years... Years!

Only a sad short wimp escaped my mouth. I'm beginning to cry where I stand.

I'm losing it. I'm falling inside.

She's turning around and I feel my shivers running along my skin.

I fear to see the devilish grin of Ogre drawn all over her face.

She's not. She looks apologetic, surprised and sorry. She looks moved, with various strong emotions scattered in the back of her mind as well.

I'm falling there, in tears and breath abandoned.

She catches my hand as my knee hits the ground. We hold hands.

She's cold. She's real.

She's shivering too.

Whether she's the real Blue is another matter...

She's thinner than me now.

I'm crying heavily. It's been too long.

I should have returned to you in another day or two...

I'm crying.

R - I've missed you so much...

I'm crying there, face down on the ground at her feet.

She crouches and embraces me there.

She didn't say a word, and held me back together.

~

We stood there under the rain until I couldn't cry anymore.

I managed to whisper a few words again.

R - I'm so glad you're back, Blue.

B - I am not Blue...

I look up to see her face. She has a slight sweet smile now. She brushes some of my tears away.

B - And you're not Rose. Yet here we are, their promise true...

I gasp. I chuckle. I laugh nervously some relief.

She smiles. Her eyes are much bigger than what I recalled, and slightly uncanny at this size, it's a little mesmerizing.

We stand up slowly, still holding hands together. She's still smiling, a smile with a depth that her persistent gaze increases.

R - I... I know I'm not the Rosemary Herson of old times. I'm not the one who brought back an old book from London one day of Summer in 1925... I'm the one... Who never made it back home... I still prefer to be called Rose nonetheless. And you... Who are you then?

B - I'm the one you and the others wanted me to be...

R - That doesn't sound right, but it's true I guess... Others?

B - Beside you? Well... Does it matter? Hm... Very well...

She has a cheeky grin for a second. She then starts whispering them slowly one after another.

B - You... Licht... Dragod... Blume... Ogre... Esther... Daiûa... And finally, Blue herself... It's thanks to you all that I'm here today, and that I am who I am.

R - ... Ogre?

B - Why yes. I think it was meant to torture you, but she gathered a lot of my leftovers which later helped me becoming who I am now. Don't worry though, Ogre is no more. Licht is no more. Blue and Rose are no more either... All that is left, is me, and you...

R - What about Blume?

B - I've heard she's likely waiting for us somewhere in Egypt, and that you would know where. We should go and find her, don't you think?

I agree.

She looks genuinely happy to hear that I concur.

As I try to make another step toward the stairways open door, she pulls me back.

B - Wait. You forgot about my name.

R - What's wrong with Blue?

B - You are not Rose, I am not Blue. Can you guess what comes next?

R - No... Not really.

She smiles a little more. Another teasing only she understands... That's her alright.

B - Our names, would you prefer them to be in French or German?

I think for a minute, still unsure I'm getting to what she means and implies.

B - Pour toi qui préfères rester Rose, est ce que je suis Bleue? Oder hast du mehr lust, dass ich Blaue bin ?

She then laughs at what seems to be a shabby pun the last part implied, which she found very funny.

I'm slightly embarrassed for what I understood.

R - I get it... I can stay Rose... Bleue is fine.

B - French it is then. My name is Bleue from now on.

~

It's a strange dream that begun since I woke up.

Bleue hasn't let go of my hand since she took it on the roof. I'm beginning to think it may be glued now. She hasn't let go all day.

She's peacefully beaming. And so I am probably, given the mocking looks I get from the other roses. At least they seem to be taking the situation rather well.

Bleue can speak directly with Myls and Zeslinry. Where did she learn their language from? I'm impressed.

B - From Blume. Indirectly. From Ogre, mostly. Zeslinry and Myls say they really like you.

The day is so full, it ends quickly.

We head to bed as she still doesn't want to let go of my hand.

R - I won't leave you.

B - But I have years to make up for.

She pulls me back as I try to go to bed. She has something to say.

B - Rose. You'll have to tell me everything I've missed, but... Please believe that every hardship you've been through had one real meaning, the fruition of our reunion. Everything you did, everything, no matter how clumsy or hard, was meant for one objective, one vision, one purpose...

She wants me to say it.

That promise that embodies our bond.

R - I lived... To see our blue rose bloom.

She suddenly hugs me. I hear her crying, and feel tears wetting my shoulder.

She's crying?

I then faintly realise what she must have felt so far.

After such a birth...

I've gotten used to this new world over time, it's not new to me any longer. Even meeting copies of myself was a reality I was aware of.

But she, she just arrived. She must have been scared, terrified deep by everything, and...

B - It really is you Rose... I'm so glad...

I caress her hair as she's the one sobbing now.

We both were dead scared with our reunion that the other may not be the one we remembered, or the one we thought. What I felt, she felt manifold as well.

I sat on the bed. She kept sobbing against me.

Bleue stood strong for a little more than a day in this surreal new world, split between many identities, origins, and a loss of sense for what I, Rose, could be...

Bleue was afraid too.

Reality must have been terrifying to her...

Meanwhile, I found an awful pun to reply to her poem. A really lame one, I'm not better at poetry than I am at writing short tales.

R - Hm... You are not Blue, I am not Rose, yet with us their dream is true, as a blue rose now grows...

She looks agape back at me, gawking as if she just saw the most disgusting of dishes served to her.

I wipe one of her last remaining tears, chuckling.

Her eyes are definitely bigger than normal. I don't mind.

She sighs in embarrassment. 'Told you I was lame at writing. Goodness she knows.

I chuckle more. She tries to hide her smile. She really loved it I think.

~

(Bleue)

Night is well set.

She's sleeping beside me, soundly.

How could I manage to sleep? It's impossible.

Without her, I'd have become insane in less than a week... Maybe?

I still feel too anxious to sleep while she is...

But I don't want to wake her up.

I go for a walk as the castle is in slumber.

My memory is weird still unsettled.

I have a mixture of my own memories, pieced together with other things I don't understand.

I'm aware of things and people I've never met.

Unfortunately... Maybe it's the true memories from Blue that are the strangest of them all...

I inherited that past as I woke up.

That entire past life has been like a dream, but the reality is much more surreal, if not unrealistic to me...

I sigh in a large chair in a dining hall. Some wandering thoughts in my heteroclite and motley mind still manages to make me smile.

I jump as the rose with crutches comes in. She notices me. She has a second of reluctance and then comes closer. She looks like an old sun. And she can't find sleep either I can guess.

L - Are you really Blue?

B - I'm Bleue.

She looks pissed off. She begins to walk away, muttering something. I think she said that Rose shouldn't have brought me back to life.

I laugh at that, annoyed, ticked off.

She turns around, hearing me mocking her grunt. I smile, a dark smile.

B - Do you remember, when our home was being rebuilt? Do you remember when we returned there to sleep inside, for the first time? We slept on the floor, the windows and curtains still missing. The room open to the night and morning lights. Do you remember how we felt at that time, that morning?

She sure does. Her face gets less tense and stern for a moment. Some bitterness fades as she remembers one of the sweetest memories she has in her existence. That floating morning of sunrise, cold, but ever so bright.

But she annoyed me, so I still want to tease her and to be a little mean to her...

B - I remember that morning of bliss, feeling like... There was only us two left in the world... Just us two, in a peaceful silent world... You must have felt the same way at the time. I know you did, Rose. Today... I'm sorry for what you went through, for the hardship you endured and had to overcome. Please believe, it all had one meaning, one vision, one purpose...

L - The blue rose... But bringing you back...

B - Do you still believe that I came to be because the other Rose wished it to her daiûa? No... That vision, that purpose, it began long before you all... No... We're here, I'm here, because a very long time ago, I wished to my daiûa, for this moment you recall, to last forever!

Her eyes slowly widen. She has shivers. I got her.

The mastermind, was I.

Now to put another nail on this tale.

B - That bliss, being just us two alone, all alone in an entire world, empty for us, happy together. I made the wish for it to become true someday. No one is left to prevent us from being happy for ever. Not my daiûa, whom helped; neither yours, lost on another continent, nor devilish ogres, nor gods like Dragod, nor Licht... Just us. There's only us left... This world... It's my wish, from four hundred years ago, come true. Don't you see? I have won...

I play my evil laughter to her.

~