(Rose)
The weather is a mixture of desert sun and flying sand, with a leaden ashen sky. It's not clouds that fill the sky, but smoke. It's snowing ashes here.
The pyramids are in sight, and so is clearly the black mountain much taller right behind, spewing a stream of smoke high into the air.
A volcano, and an active one at that, stands behind the remaining wonder of the older world.
I walk on a plateau leading to the two tallest pyramids. I can't find the third one I think there was around.
The Cairo volcano looks quite ominous, much taller than the pyramids covered in ashes at its foot.
The mood around here is rather unsettling. It's warm, quiet, and snowing grey ashes that mix to the sand.
I reach the human made structure from an era long gone, longer even before my own. I brush the warm stones with my hands, removing a thick layer of mineral dust.
Slowly, I climb the giant staircase that the great pyramid has become. It takes forever and I cover myself with dust and ashes from head to toes. I can hardly move my trembling arms anymore when I reach the summit.
Someone left stelae up there, but I can't read them.
I sit and breathe. There's a slightly acidic perfume in the air, but it's mild. I raise my chin and see right ahead of me, quite far in the distance and slightly hidden by the clouds, and still very close, the active volcano. The pillar of smoke keeps slowly rising and growing, softly, endlessly. It's like a giant circulation, or would I dare to say, a giant and endless snake crawling to the sky from beneath the Earth.
R - Is this Apophis?
B - The sun still shines. I think this volcano has already erupted and is now cooling down. It's probably already over.
R - It's over...
The land is colourless. The pyramids still stand.
By the immense feet of the giant in dark and grey, I can guess some of the lines of the past city of Cairo.
I thought the pyramids where in the middle of the desert but I was wrong. There was a wide city right next to them.
Blume shivers all of a sudden. She's feeling uneasy. I'm still conflicted about this place and don't notice right away.
I expected a more peaceful sight, but the volcano looks sinister.
B - I have some bad news Rose.
R - What is it?
B - Your last sin I think... Is coming this way.
My last sin... The girl we couldn't save...
What?
R - She's alive? Oh... No... So she's coming back as a monster her too... Why?
B - She's looking for us without even attempting to hide her intention. She wants revenge... I think.
R - Are you afraid she'll be a problem?
B - She sounds dangerous. It will be violent.
I sigh. Can I correct a sin with another one? I doubt it.
I can't make it right anymore, but we will make it end. I stand up and stretch a little.
R - I'm sorry for her, but it will end here.
My punishment is on its way to meet us...
~
Fate is a funny thing. Odds are nonsensical when it comes to what is already done.
Yet, another monster I've killed in its previous life comes to hunt me. It's the nightmare all over again.
A resurgence of pain, guilt, madness and horror.
It's on its way. This time, I'll be ready. Blume will be. We will prevail. My hands will be further stained with death.
I've lost all rightful chances for Heaven ages ago.
So as they say, we will build our own instead.
And I won't fail against another fallen human.
I'm climbing the slopes of the volcano, the coarse and abrupt mountain just there. I want to see. I want my sins... If they can't be cleansed, then reduces to something I can live longer with.
I'm sort of lying... I can feel that rising excitement in me again.
I feel the stress coming back to me and making me want to survive and prevail. I can collapse when there's nothing standing against me, and feel stronger and more solid when something is challenging me, dreadfully.
Some part of me wants this fight.
I want to fight for my right to live. A little, at times.
It makes it so much easier to live. So I'm eager to use my thorns at times.
A part of me still feel sympathy and sadness for what happened to Horanah.
But we're now beyond, and it's something else, inhuman, that took over for her. I can fight without moral dilemma now, only guilt for what's past.
R - This is further away from my ideal, but truer to myself I think...
B - Truer is a word?
R - Yes. I've embraced some of that violence I need to express. That sad mean girl is the perfect opportunity for a last dance before the end. Once we're done with her, we'll proceed as planned, to resurrect all three of us, alright?
B - You're wild.
I grin. I can enjoy adversity at times.
I won't deny that anymore. Though I still want my ideal... I treasure that ideal me I want to be.
Though it may never become reality.
I may settle for a new life for me, with you by my side.
We can be reborn as the flowers we all wished to be. We can...
We will.
I will make the most of what this life and this world have to offer. And to me, it means bringing you back to me, one way or another.
As long as we remain human in doing so. The world does allow it now. Things can live again.
From this chaotic world, we will bloom.
Our blue rose will bloom again!
~
From the edge of the caldera, I see an odd random land. It only smells like burning kettle left on stoves. A dry land, in a way. It's just too hot, even for Blume's silver coat.
I find an immense block of rock and molten then dried metal, or almost dry. A large platform that burns my feet when I step on it.
Chaos. Chaos. I keep thinking about that word. This world has some.
Blume recognised someone we met on her way to us, but we're quite clear what's coming is neither her, who died, nor anything remotely human at all. Our enemy is chaos personified.
This world is chaos.
We are filled with chaos even ourselves...
And I'm kind of happy right now. From this land I've seen, my wish will blossom after. From this earth, from this will.
It's like a cycle of life and death, each dead being allowing the next one to live, from plants to animals, and then back to plants.
Chaos is the death of the old world. But beyond it, new wonderful flowers will begin to live, to exist, to be.
And I find myself in the middle of this wonderful time of changes, from one life to the next, from the old flowers we tried to be, to the ones we will become.
Humans, beings-like-her, plants, animals, we all evolve through this time and renew all the wonders of this marvellous world.
I'm laughing. I'm so happy to be alive.
I'm so happy to see with my eye the oldest wonder of an even older world from high up here.
I'm happy to wait at the summit of time and chaos for a dear enemy to come.
Well, this one is the least of all among my current reasons to feel happy. I don't feel happy about what her destiny has become...
But other thrills affect me.
I'm happy to caress the sweet and soft dream of my wildest dream soon to become true.
I will see you again. New flowers will be born from chaos, from the world simply. And we will be amongst them.
Just a little while left to wait. Just for this ineluctable and trivial fight to be over.
It's a nonsensical battle in so many ways... That it makes me laugh again.
If the risks are low, we might as well enjoy this as a game. No, not a game, a play.
Blume and I played as being human. The monster that the mean girl has become is really a lost thing. She's a very sad thing now. A beast, a monster. And she wants to fight us. I'll find my fun in wining this nonsensical fight.
It's immoral, but it's inevitable anyway.
B - Are you still conflicted?
R - Of course. I'm sad for the poor girl she once was, and that all she can find meaning in now is to fight us to death. But part of my heart is thrilled at the idea. And I'm happy that once this is over with this sin and its consequences, we'll move forward to something much more fulfilling. Are you ready?
B - We will prevail. We're both better now. And then indeed, I will work on granting you your dearest wish.
~
I removed Blume's coat and the heat from the air, the earth, the ground itself, felt as strong as the sunlight. This place is a furnace.
I'm almost naked. What's left of my normal clothes covers my intimacy, but not my arms, my legs, or even my belly anymore. I forgot that my belly button is gone. I have this large crescent of moon like scar instead. Always bugs me to see it.
My ears are filled with wind, rumbles and smoke. My hair is a dirty mess from brown to grey, with still some white tips.
My lost eye has regrown over time and is almost as good as before now.
Blume is rebuilding her ribbons.
I'm so confident in our strength. The thrill that inhabits my heart made me lose all modesty. I'm looking forward to meeting this fate.
I tense up, contracting my whole body. I'm using Blume's power through my veins. She fuels my desires to make them come true.
We exchange a few wordless thoughts as if we were only one mind. We're ready.
I ask Blume to clear the sky and she agreed. She tells me to throw that magic up. I move slowly as if I were underwater, and throw something invisible, but that I can somewhat feel through her, upward and with strength. I feel my blood boil in my arms as I throw this invisible disc in the sky.
Something then explodes above my head, silently, and a suddenly cold wind brushed my face and hair.
A patch of blue sky spreads violently. I open my tensed arms to the new scenery appearing as Blume's spell spreads in force.
The blanket of clouds that layered the area is pushed away and thinned down. The fumes of the volcano contract and rise higher and higher, instead of being trapped in the mattress of clouds.
The sky becomes clear and radiant blue... A radiant day was always there.
As the sky clears, I can enjoy the most mesmerizing scenery of my life with the great pyramids of Egypt and their shadows in the distance and in full view, against an endless complex desert.
Behind me a seemingly endless pillar of smoke is reaching the stars...
I stand there, with unladylike clothing, but there are only me and beings-like-her left in this land.
I await atop a mesa for a time of... Chaos... To start.
An adventure like non other that doesn't obey to reason at all. A tale's end even my dear father could never have imagined in his life.
What would you think of me now father? As I stand there, strong and proud, as a savage with a gleam in the eyes, and a confident smile I never had in our time?
In this incredible place, in this incredible time...
I'm laughing again, as you surely would.
My naked feet hurt from the heat coming from the heart of this mesa. This mostly flat square above the scenery where we can bring an end to what a sin became.
It's an open balcony to enjoy the sight of the old world, while meeting the end of one's destiny.
Blume's ribbons stretch around me. Her white roses on my chest give me a sweet perfume.
I close my eyes and smile.
In the sky, in the distance, my sin is coming this way.
I'm more ready than I'll ever be.
Let's go.
~