(Rose)
We made it to an abandoned city.
One amongst too many to count. Nothing unusual to see for us at this point. A giant tree, weird animals and plants. Elements going a little wrong. Strange lifeforms hard to describe otherwise but as flying stains of colours. And no one else but us remotely human to see.
Nothing out of the ordinary. It's the country we live in now.
Blume had taken the lead to this place for we agreed upon a plan to face the ogre a last time shortly.
Today we begin the setting we discussed. And we came here for a reason only Blume could find. There is another artefact of power in here. Somewhere in this town, died a being like her, and its body power fused and concentrated itself into an amalgam we could claim.
Our plan involved mostly hiding to our enemy that the so called dragon gave us both enough power to survive. Blume already worked on that deception, and on everything else almost.
The artefact here would be a great help for us as its power would more easily hide our real intents and strength. In another word, it would be the perfect decoy. Hiding a power behind another power.
We made our fortune camp in a large hall with some moss conquering it slowly. Nature mostly do not try to reconquer the ruins of my time so far, but there are exceptions. For a first, most places were already long abandoned, so the end of our time didn't changed that which had already ended.
Blume can still make things burn magically. She says I could too now, but I haven't tried yet. I take care of the camp fire my old fashion ways.
We sleep there, together quite like lovers. This feels different now that she is human.
Then on morning, we venture into the abandoned city, looking for something even more unusual, that she can somehow sniff like a dog.
We enter a park and reach a fountain, covered in moss. It's long dry. She says it's below. Probably in the sewers? We search. Instead, we find the entrance to a museum quite close. The park is its front garden actually.
An abandoned museum is quite a strange sight. It doesn't matter if all the paintings are gone. It's still a fascinating sight. The dust. The rays of light. The noises of the wind right outside, muffled. We split up to search. We guessed the building has an underground extension.
I walk alone in an empty palace, great grand room not unlike the National Gallery I know or the Louvre I guess. All empty but dirty like an old attic.
A gigantic yet quite empty attic. The attic of our culture... This place is fascinating... I feel exited visiting this, looking for clues from the past as if I had discovered an ancient crypt from a long gone civilisation. Which in a way isn't that far from the truth.
I walk by a rotten couch. The wall beside has markings. Paintings were hanging there I guess. Once upon a time only...
I hear Blume's voice in the distance calling out for me to join her.
I smile a last time at the poetic void of an abandoned museum room, on a quiet sunny morning, and go to meet up with my weirdest love.
~
She found the staircase leading to the basement. No more windows, It's dark below and we have very little equipment.
Blume had left to our friends most of my affairs, amongst which an odd egg that neither wants to hatch nor die. I'm curious about it but it'll have to wait. At least I know it's in good care.
We climb down.
Spiders and other insects flee as we proceed. Blume creates a hovering ball of light as if it was the most normal thing in the world. We enter the vault of the museum.
Odd stains of colours move around the walls. They follow us in a way, or the light maybe.
I have a strange picture flashing in my mind. What if the artefact was a ribbon? I pictured someone grabbing a flying piece of ribbon and releasing it into the wind right afterward.
What was that picture?
Another fragment of memory that doesn't quite feel like it was mine. It happens sometimes now.
I clench on Blume's hand a little tighter.
We pass rotten canvases on shelves. A few still harbour colours and figures. It always makes me smile when I can recognise the depiction of Mary. Old tattered Mary... I remember my Mary because of that...
We reach the end of the vault. It's damp. Cabbages are growing here, they're almost white. They look like they grew out of the canvases and tapestries stored in there.
More than a door leading to the next room, there's a hole in the wall leading to a cave. A small cave.
Someone is lying there. No, it's only dust. Some furniture lies around as if it had been thrown inside that hole without a care. Antiquities are scattered. I recognise a scarab from Egypt, I don't know where the rest comes from.
Behind this mess lies another corpse. I remember wondering about the lack of corpses in the cities. What was the reason again? I can't remember. Memory feels fuzzy again...
That skeleton still has something in its ribcage. A heart? A small heart...
Blume is getting closer to it.
R - The previous one was much prettier. Where are the colours? Where's that feeling getting to the head?
B - I'm afraid that being was very different. This one has far less power than I expected. It needs much more to alter the senses of those around. I'm sorry this wasn't as pretty this time.
The kneeling skinny woman grabs the thing swiftly. It looks like fossilised flesh or a sculpture at reduced scale of a human heart.
R - I guess some things can't always be as good as before the second time.
B - I'm sure someday we'll find another pretty one. After all they're not that uncommon.
R - Was it that person's heart?
B - I think that person was a being like me. Only as it died, it's power sank and concentrated in there. It's his memento.
R - Will it be enough for us?
B - I'm sure it will... You still don't feel fully back together don't you? I can tell.
R - ... I still feel oddly absent minded, a little off, yes...
B - It's alright. We have time. And once the danger is gone, you'll be free without risk anymore.
R - I think I know we've already discussed this before, but how many monsters live across the world?
B - Beings-like-me, probably a few thousands today. Beings monstrous like Ogre, less than a hundred all over the world I would guess, give or take. But like human life, it's dynamic. We live, we die, we return differently. New ones come, others don't.
I sigh greatly. My mind is fuzzy. I'm stull half awaken only.
R - I remember... Feeling freedom all within me. Being free... Before you and later with you. But since I returned it's...
Not quite that anymore...
I feel entangled in a process I don't understand anymore.
I'm not feeling like myself quite anymore... Only a lower part, a smaller part. I'm missing something and it's not getting better over the days...
R - I'm scarred...
B - Come, let's go. I know what we have to do, please trust me a little longer.
I follow her out mindlessly...
My mind...
I realise it's still somehow shattered. I'm shattered?
Death maybe did not let all of me return to this world...
I'm not in control of my own fate anymore.
~