(Rose)
When I woke up, I was lying on the grass, a blanket over .
I heard the music of a fire being tended to. I wasn’t alone.
Could my friends be here?
I stood despite my pains all through my body. I was sore all over. I wasn’t all mighty any longer.
As I stood, I saw soone I did not know but looking sowhat familiar. A woman with rather long and unruly hair, white, greys and another colour on the course of vanishing through ti.
She heard , stood up and turned toward . I got a shock in my heart as I saw her face.
Mother? No... It’s not her, but she has sothing on her face that reminds of her. Sothing in the soft wrinkles perhaps, or the shape of the edges of her mouth.
Surely not the eye-patch. I guess she lost her right eye.
She brings sothing sweet to drink. An herbal tea I think.
We don’t say a word before I finished drinking the content of that small bottle she had ward up on the fire. I look cautiously at her. She looks... confident. At ease, not worried and rather happy to see .
R - Thank you for saving ...
L - You’re very welco dear. I’m glad I was able to help you. We don’t see roses falling from the sky every day around here.
She chuckled at her own joke. She then gave that very warm and kind smile of hers.
I feel like I already know her from sowhere. Maybe because she sohow reminds of my late mother?
I introduce myself politely. She nods as if she already knew my na and then ponders a second before answering.
L - I’m Licht. Licht Trägerin. It’s very nice to et you, Rose.
~
She’s not as old as she looks, and very skilled in living around. She’s like a huntress and can read the wind and the faintest slls in the air.
She was after actually, because she had caught up an unusual sll in the air, and ca closer to see what it was.
It was the sll of , Blu and Ogre about to settle things. All three of us carried similar slls.
I tell her about what happened. She’s intrigued. I tell her everything but she looks like as if she already knew most of it already.
By the ti I finished telling Licht everything, the evening had fallen. And now she’s treating again, for dinner now.
She’s cooking so eggs from an animal I don’t know. We keep talking about what surrounds us like good friend already. Then I finally ask her who she is and how did she save . Because her na doesn’t tell much.
She loses her smile for a mont there.
L - I’m... Quite like you. I’m not human anymore and was brought to this world by a childish god... A capricious god... Then, we differ. You have little power while you and your creator love each other. Mine and I, we don’t like each other at all... And I ran away with as much of its power as I could take... We’re enemies now and I will face it soday.
R - It sounds as if Blu and Ogre had been one and the sa for ... I can see where you’re from now... Will this be alright for you?
She smiles quite heartily.
L - There’s no need to worry. My creator cannot move. I’m free, and we won’t have to face each other unless we really commit to it. We don’t. We avoid each other truly.
R - So you’re just at odds.
L - You could say that.
She smiles in a slightly sad way.
She repeats that she’s free. Her enemy, she doesn’t need to go face it anyti soon, if ever at all...
So she enjoys her life, and the world. She found confidence in her peace, or their truce rather, as she found herself free and her enemy unwilling to pursue her. She has power, she has wisdom, and beyond her fears for her creator, she had freedom.
She entered this world recently, with the sa eyes as mine.
As of the power she stole, she shows its extent this night.
~
She woke up in the middle of the night and told to look at the sky.
The peaceful night sky of sumr. Licht is smiling I can tell. I’m barely awaken. I miss Blu.
Licht is doing sothing as I can feel sothing warming up the air. We look at the sky. The night is clear and the stars easy to see.
Sothing seems to burst out from her, a ray of blinding light. She creates enough light to blind at first, and then to illuminate the clear light woods as if day had returned. A cloud of light spreads over us and slowly rises into the sky, slowly spreading its glow.
The sheet of sunlight slowly vanishes as I gaze agape at its light fading. The night slowly returns.
It dies in a swarm of sparkles, then the stars reappear in the sky. I’m unable to react for a while at what I just saw. Magic. Licht is a witch.
A powerful witch even. Or perhaps she’s actually a being-like-her, only one whom managed to fully imitate a human body?
L - I know what you think. What you fear when you see a power far stronger than yours. I know these feelings all too well... Beyond that, wasn’t it pretty?
R - It was pretty... However this reminds that my wizard is gone.
L - Don’t let your sorrow and worries overwhelm you. The more we touch their light, the more we tend to lose our emotional balance, and risk falling into deep depression. Be careful and rember who you are. Rember how fierce you can be.
R - I’m frail in tis of peace.
L - You don’t have to be, and I’m sure that’s not entirely true. Adversity can be more than just a state of war. I’m sure you happened to show your will at peaceful tis too.
R - You already seem to know very well Licht...
She doesn’t reply. I see it. She knows more about than she should. Hints about it are accumulating over the short ti we spent together since we t.
Yet, be it. First, she’s right, then, I trust her. Because she looks motherly to for one thing. Because I try to be the self I aim to be anew. I am not aimless. I am not lost.
Everything in life is a bet a way or another. I want to live... To gather up what’s left of my past and fuse it into sothing great and new. I want to move on. I have quite everything I need in order to do so.
Licht is trustworthy it seems, no matter what she hides from , not very well by the way.
She looks a little what I want to be also. She’s kind and very interesting.
Now, let’s move on. We shall.
~
I’m still sore all over in my young body. I still cling to the decaying flowers of Blu. I’m not sure about where her mind is left currently. I’m sure so part of her still lingers very close to .
Licht barely sleeps or eat. She can survive from her imnse power alone, almost? She just sits there and looks at the sky. Or at . Her eye is not quite showing curiosity. It’s more a kind of... relief.
She is younger than she looks. Much younger. Much younger than I could imagine.
I realised it another day by a river.
~
We’re heading toward my friend’s house, south west from there. I have lost all my affairs but my clothes and my sword, so I have no clue regarding where we are. Licht knows the way of course.
Of course...
Licht walks swiftly, with agility. She has the strength of a bear in her slender arms and legs. When I fell, she lifted up with one hand. She always has this tranquil smile on her badly aging face.
She slls her way ahead like a dog. She can create fire at will like Blu, snapping her fingers toward twigs, and much more.
She’s very optimistic. She has a high opinion of , of my love for Blu, and my aim of travelling with her to the continent. The world is so wide, she says, we ought to explore more of it.
We laugh like old friends already because we are very much alike on our good side. My dark side is under my control she says. Hers is too it seems. I can’t picture her trying to kill soone though.
This new friend is like a perfect match to . We laugh already of the oddities we both encountered on our journeys.
Yet hers was shorter than mine, despite her seemingly old age. Why was that?
I found out at this river, close to where my first friend lives, as far as I know.
We washed ourselves rather happily. After a while, we get accustod to the stench of ourselves on the travelling ti, but washing ourselves truly is a necessity, and a joy at this point.
The sumr is still very warm. The sun is radiant. I’m gladly rubbing my skin all over as I float in the water, this feels heavenly. She’s washing herself a little further.
I got out and began to dry my skin. When she returned, naked, I saw and understood.
Without her eyepatch, I saw her hollow right orbit. On her skin, I saw many strange scars if skin had been ripped randomly or burnt, or sewed back on roughly.
But what I needed to see to understand what she is, was her belly button.
The sa as mine. A wide mark shaped like a crescent. One left from being created by one being-like-her I know rather well.
Could there be another?
R - Where does your god lie, Licht?
L - ... Over there, a few more days walk.
R - So it is the sa one... You already understood that, didn’t you? The one I called Dragon, is your god.
L - Ah... You understood. It was only a matter of ti. Yes. I’m sorry I couldn’t tell you sooner.
R - Are you what I think? From what you told ... You were the first one created by your god, but then others were made. They all look the sa. Though they have no will or consciousness...
L - Yes. We were all created from you. From the materials you gave it in exchange for eternal life. I was the first, or amongst them, and I also inherited so of your knowledge and mories. I suffered its experints at creating and controlling us, until I rebelled.
R - This ans your... You’re...
L - I’m less than a year old truly, yes. I’ve spent half of my life in the belly of god, under its control. Then, I fled, and lived freely ever since.
R - You’re... a copy of ?
L - No. We were made from the sa materials as you, that’s all. The mindless roses are my sisters, not yours.
She got closer to and looks at with a smile showing empathy. A peaceful will, but a strong one.
Her anger I detect behind, is not against .
L - Rose. This is my life and my family matters. My god, is not yours to care about.
R - You don’t want to get involved?
L - Exactly. I want you to pursue your life and journey. What I am is mine and mine only to care about. What is between god and , is our matter. Please, let us deal with our problems by ourselves. Plus, you have your matters to care for.
R - I... Well. For a one-year-old, you’re quite mature.
She laughs like an adult I can say.
L - Technically, you’re younger than now, Rose. Aren’t you?
R - You’re right... Though... Alright Licht, I won’t ddle in your affairs. I feel less concerned about it than I perhaps should, but I’ll leave it up to you. However, can you tell what you plan to do?
L - God is a strong being. It can survive without its roses. I don’t plan to kill it, don’t worry about losing your way to resurrect once in a while. I want to free my siblings from its control and it to stop creating us without free will. I don’t plan a war, but I won’t give in. I want freedom for my people.
R - I wasn’t worried about my way to resurrect. It’s alright... I guess it’s because of what’s from within you that I see that I ca to trust you so quickly but you know what? I trust you. I won’t ddle. Your god is all yours.
L - Thank you Rose. And you know, my history never made think low of you. I knew you were out there sowhere, but I couldn’t find you. That is until you ca back from within it. Since then, I went back on my tracks to et you, learn who you really are, and eventually, I helped you.
R - You already knew a lot about . You’re not disappointed?
She just laughs.
She brought ho, to my friends. She’ll head back north. Us eting wasn’t important. What matters to her is that I live as I want to when I’m happy and optimistic. She wants my freedom, as much as her own, or the one of the so called mindless roses she’ll try to free one day.
That day hasn’t co yet. She’s not ready yet to discuss the matter with her god.
Before we parted ways, I asked her to help bringing Blu back to .
She pointed at my heart and poked my chest with the tip of her slim finger.
L - Blu never left you. How could she? With what you did as you fell, it’s just a matter of days before she returns to you as you wish.
Blu never left . I smiled at the obvious statent. I’ll offer my apologies.
And soon after, we’ll be able to resu our journey for good.
I have to say... I can’t wait before we are walking along again.
On the empty roads, with none but ourselves. Her mocking sotis.
I loved that ti, and I love her.
I’m gleeful, thinking that soon enough, this will beco true again.
We’ll start a new journey she’ll surely agree with, toward the continent.
We reach the town, smiling. We say goodbye to each other.
Licht is a strange being I could have been responsible for. Yet she chose to embrace her freedom with all her might, facing her new world, her grim reality, with absolute confidence.
She wanted to et by re curiosity for her origins before her creation, and that was all. That’s truly impressive, and a reflection of her radiant personality I admire.
~
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