(Rose)
The radiant day has left, though some of her light remains with me.
This now feels as a new start for me. I just have to get things ready for Blume's return.
I could have been more scared of Licht and what she means.
A few weeks ago, I would have been. I would have been terrified by what this woman was next to me.
But if she Licht herself is at peace with her own identity, and only wants us both to go on living freely, not giving our origins more importance than it truly needs to... I can't argue with that way of thinking. It's the kind I always admired and try to follow (with arguable results). She looks natural at it while it's my ideal, my utopia.
Nevertheless, I think she was right about everything. Her life does not depend from mine, and mine is free too.
I'm Rose. I might not be the only one anymore, but it does not matter to me right now.
What matters to me is seeing my friends, seeing my love return, and then sailing away for a new journey.
To Europe... Before Winter.
Blume, I have faith you will accept my apologies for losing my temper against you, and that you'll gladly accompany me to the new world over sea.
I don't think it could be otherwise. I'll wait for you.
~
Zeslinry and her daughter are there. They tend their field and crops with mechanical equipment they gathered from everywhere around. They're rebuilding their small town. Only the two of them.
We hug each other joyously when we recognise each other.
I notice they're not carrying guns on them at all times anymore.
I guess... Time has passed.
Myls asks me about Blume. The young woman is concerned.
R - She's gone for now, but she should return soon enough.
M - Blume loves you. Lots.
I'm surprised to hear her say that. I smile kindly. How right she is... She has no idea how far this is true.
Blume's love for me could need a new word to describe and name it. Ihr Liebe...
I wonder if she's like to go to Germany? She has some origins there in a way. Not a parent exactly, but her prime understanding of human life came from a German scientist, chemist I think, whose dead brain she assimilated. So she does have german roots as she is. (And I have some Scandinavian roots I heard once my father say).
My friends are rebuilding the town in a way they see fit. Even though they're only two humans. They grow fields and vegetables in the squares of the city. They built some walls to close some of the streets and create limits to the parcels of agriculture in town. It's the outskirts of the dead city, but if they live hear this means now that they checked and know every inch of the city.
There is no river close to there, but there is a waste management processing plant and good sewers. They show me.
Every machine is at a stop, but they gathered lots of chemicals there.
I begin to understand after a day of visits and explanations.
Since no one but them lives there, the sewers are stopped. Meaning it became an underground network accumulating stagnant water over time, but without much filth falling in anymore.
So they use it as a large expanse of water, and they managed to clean it entirely somehow. It acts as groundwater, city groundwater, isolated in lead pipes rather than rock porosity. I would have chosen a river instead, but they're the ones living in future times; and they show their progress every time I return.
They're amazing. It's complicated but their system obviously works like a charm, looking at them and their crops.
They gave me a house.
This sounds insane. The thing is, most houses in the main block they inhabit are still standing and solid, and many were turned into warehouses of scavenged goods.
They expected my return, perhaps with other findings, and cleaned a house for me. A place to return to, and where I could stock whatever I want. A safe place or haven.
A home...
They would like me to stay with them, for ever, as usual. As always, but as they know, I will leave again shortly. I never stay, but they wanted to give me this base anyway.
A home. After a family, they gave me a home. I kissed them both. I'm so grateful.
My house is on the other side of the square and is essentially empty. It's mine to fill.
In the armoury (because there's one), they left me a sharpening stone most of all. They know me too well already.
There's a large greenhouse with rosebushes in some pots on the garden side. That's why they chose this house especially. For us.
Clothes. Water. Food. Roof over a bed. It's heaven.
I want to return to the happiness of traveling with Blume, but I appreciate heaven too.
At night, while I sleep, I can hear a second heartbeat close to mine. It's Blume resting with me. She will return shortly.
~
A few days go by. I help my friends at their harvests. I learn more about them. They learn more about me, and why do I have white hair (again).
Myls just recalled something to herself and runs away. Zeslinry and I keep filling pots with fruits and warm water.
When Myls returns, I remember too. She brought back something I had long forgotten. An egg.
The gift from the snake whom I shared some warmth with, last winter. A gift of gratitude, and an oddity on my endless list of them.
It's been months, and the egg still has neither hatched nor died. It has grown however. This egg is bigger than I remember.
And it slightly glows it would seem. I laugh at the discovery, because this is really a funny egg.
I sleep with the egg next to me. I wonder what it holds...
A blue bird? A dragon?
Probably something I would never be able to imagine, like a flying talking jellyfish.
I chuckle as I fall asleep. There's something new I want to meet now... I've thought ip of its name, whatever it is... Perhaps just a snake?
I hear Blume's heartbeats at night. I hear her humming. She's close...
I'm happy she'll be back soon.
~
I miss you so much. I'm so terribly sorry I've hit you...
It's a new guilt I have to bear from now on. Can you forgive me? I love you...
That night, my chest, my ribcage began to hurt. A cyst, a parasitic growth was pressing over my lungs and my heart, making it painful to breath.
I know it's you...
In my dream, I saw you standing right there before me. I look at your back a step ahead of me. I call for you and you turn around.
You have a face I can picture now... It looks like the old me. The frail, desperately lonely and in love, me.
I see you. I hold your hands.
You smile tenderly. Can you come back you ask?
Of course you can. Please come back. Don't leave me alone a single moment longer. I open my arms gladly. Please Blume, return to me!
You smile... And you do. You come back to hug me. You come back to me.
My heart has room for two.
~
My skin ripped open this night, and flowers sprouted from the wound in the middle of my chest. Not a drop of blood was lost. The parasitic lifeform cares for me with all its might. Not a single blood cell was lost or damaged as she transformed me, back to who we are. Back to who I want to be, as well as she.
B - Rise and shine, my dear Rose.
R - Oh... Welcome back Blume... Welcome back.
~