(Rose)
I breathe and I see fog appear in the air when I exhale.
There's snow everywhere and it keeps snowing. I'm not quite sure about where I am currently.
The sound of snow being stepped on as I walk is oddly pleasing. Sometimes it sounds as if someone was playing piano in the distance. Softly, slowly. I probably dream up these notes.
We're cold but doing well. The travel is difficult, challenging, but very pleasing.
The sights of the land are so beautiful. I understand why so many people used the word majestic to describe these sights now that I'm there.
I do miss fall and spring a little though. Winter is coarse around here. And I thought the weather would become warmer as I march south. I should have headed toward Provence, not straight to the Alpine mountains.
It doesn't matter that much for now. We'll be alright.
I hear strange sounds hidden in the wind. Complaints. Voices? Cries.
The road is lost. The music returns. I spot a translucent but coloured ghost in the corner of my sight. I hadn't seen them in a long time. The translucent things flow around unconcerned as they always do.
I hold on tighter onto my clothes, as to wake up whom lies below.
R - Blume. I think there is something happening around.
B - What makes you say that? I haven't noticed anything unusual but the weather.
R - I heard music notes, then voices, I think. And I see one of these colours you see better than I do.
B - You heard the sounds loudly? Clearly?
R - No, faintly, in the distance.
B - I think I heard what you're talking about. I heard them too, though more clearly. Rest assured, it's just, well, ruins in a way.
R - What do you mean?
B - The cities that lie in ruins out there. Some sounds from that time remain here and there, just as damaged and slowly deterioration over time. It's like an echo.
R - How could sounds remain as echoes for years?
B - My guess would be that something in the surroundings, maybe rocks, trees, or even the air itself, registered some of it at the dreadful time. Now it's slowly fading away but still being retransmitted. It's not new or unique to here. But I guess you heard it this time because it's in stronger intensity around here.
R - Besides ruins, sounds and very occasional survivors, what else potentially remains from my kind?
B - Thoughts, emotions, monsters, memories too sometimes. And probably more things beyond my reach yet. I can't say.
R - Emotions and memories can survive us?
B - I can feel them at times but I'm unable to read them as they are. Only yours I can, as they still are embedded inside your flesh, so I can read them.
R - Could I read your memories?
B - I think I can arrange that. From when would you like?
I think about it for a minute. I don't even doubt that it's possible to do now.
When we hadn't met yet... No, when I was dead. Or right before I returned?
I'm getting tired and confused suddenly. The realisation of yet another wall of reality broken finally takes its toll on my psyche. I don't choose anything, now a little shocked.
Blume feels my disarray.
B - I'll create and leave an open access for you. You'll be able to check what you want anytime, there's no rush.
R - .... Thanks.
The cold wind and snow suddenly feel awfully hostile to me. I need some rest but there's no shelter in sight. I have to walk further.
~
I couldn't stop yet at nightfall, as I was still caught in a poor weather and without any shelter.
Finally, as night was getting dark, I reached long abandoned buildings. Factories I think, given how immense this is. Though the interior looks like nothing I ever saw. The machineries are the size of my house, and my house was big.
There are many of them, and they all fit inside this giant warehouse.
I'm curious but I'll care about them in the morning.
Fire, though nothing here would burn. We resort to a more powerful use of Blume's magic.
She heats a piece of machinery the size of a car. She does it until starts glowing red and then yellow. I can feel the burning heat from a distance.
It begins to melt and provides a lot of heat. I settle carefully close by to this open furnace slowly cooling off.
Seeing this makes me curious about something else entirely. But now I have to ask. Because if I'm no mathematician, I know it takes some energy to lit sticks in fire, and an incomparable, far higher amount to melt something the size of a car...
R - How much energy can you provide?
B - Hm, hard to say. We share it also you know, like for flying. I would say I can maybe melt this ton of steel once or twice a day. Or if I heated it continuously, I could maintain it at a few hundred degrees perhaps.
R - This is huge energy... And this means... You could melt the snow around and ahead of us continuously? Preventing me from feeling any cold at all?
B - Yes...
R - Then why...
I wait as I sit there. I don't finish my question. There's something uneasy in my mind.
I look at the orange warm glow of that enormous pudding of molten metals, in this otherwise dark warehouse on a very cold night.
What do I want? What does she? I'm starting to feel awful. I hold down my head.
R - Blume... Can you tell if I'm getting sick? I'm starting to feel nauseous. My emotions are going wrong.
B - Let me check... Hm, you seem to have a slight fever and various new microorganisms in you here and there, but I don't see anything worrisome. You're feeling bad because of the cold weather?
R - That, and the extent of your power... Why didn't you tell me?
I hurt her. I was aggressive. I'm starting to feel wrong.
B - It slowly grew if that's what you mean. I couldn't do that much last year. Also I'd rather not use it at maximum output all the time, it's dangerous. Transforming energy will attract attentions, and we're not at the top of the food chain.
R - Right... Maybe going all out wouldn't be a superb idea if there are other ogres lurking. But... Blume, care for me, please? I feel rather bad and I'm afraid I'll have bad dreams right now.
B - I'll watch over you and keep you warm. You can rest safely.
Good night sweet. Thank you.
I try to sleep while fighting off rising dark thoughts. They fly around my head like bats...
I close my eyes on the glow, still feeling the incredible warmth coming from it.
~
I oddly saw through her memories of that exact time as I slept. I saw through her what she saw through me as I asked her if I was ill.
The perspective made me dizzy, as it was as if I was looking at myself from somewhere else than my own body. I saw as she took a deeper look inside my head, warming up a little more than usual because of my immune system being active.
She then looked at my blood vessels all over and various organs and ganglions, looking for the bacteria and their effects, or other signs of wrong health. They appeared as bluish spots inside her mind. Is my body made and filled with that much bacteria? The dream must exaggerate what I saw.
I'm cold. Yet she can melt steel at will.
She doesn't want to attract dangerous attention on us by using carelessly her power. But more than that...
As I, we; think about it, we realise she wants us as much as me, to remain human.
She wouldn't enjoy using her otherworldly powers to make me more of a witch or a monster suddenly...
So we keep it as a last resort...
Maybe I can endure the cold. And cling to what's left of my humanity while it lasts.
~