289. Qualia, 1
(Licht)
Brisk. I’m walking slowly across woods covering the slopes of mountains and sinking towns.
My footsteps crush dead leaves. Unusual sight.
The small sound repeats itself, each time slightly different. I can hear myself breathing though.
I hear an unusual sound and turn around. My scarf gets stuck on a tree trunk as I only witness the branches falling here and there. I got myself stuck by inadvertence.
I smile.
My brown irises are becoming bluish and paler. The sunlight hurts my eyes more easily since that begun.
I blink, and my eyes colours go back to rest.
I’ve changed.
I’m a little lonely.
But I’m smiling.
I will thrive.
Because I’m a Rose.
~
Sticking to my chest like a parasite, is a slightly glowing pink and orange crystal.
It contains the soul and power of the previous Licht Trägerin.
I’m not letting that poison kill me as fast through its passion and obsession.
Licht was blind. I’m trying to be smarter than that.
Smarter than my other selves...
I’m walking carefully, bow and arrow in hands, because I’ve seen a small boar not far.
My darkness and my doubts about my reality get second, behind my daily needs for survival.
The identity and power of Licht can wait.
My identity as a Rose is less relevant to me than the process by which I live and survive.
My dark thoughts, my thorns, and my fears, are thoughts of another self I tend to distance myself from nowadays.
I try my best to control these thoughts.
I release an arrow that flies and hits, but doesn’t kill. The small boar flees. I follow. I predate. I hunt.
I soon shoot another arrow that hits as well. Soon after, I’m catching up with my prey.
The boar is falling along another slope.
I swap my bow for my long sword. I plunge it without hesitation through the chest of my prey, piercing the heart straight, but not the bowels.
It’s stuck. I sit by its side as it finishes gasping for air and dying. I pay proper respect to it as best I can.
My arrows return to my quiver, and my sword returns to my makeshift sheath.
Then I pull the boar at standing height in the air, using a rope and trees.
I suddenly hear charging. I dodge the charge of another animal, barely. I pick my sword again, this time to fight.
The bigger boar I now face is double the size of my bleeding prey.
But seeing my unsheathed fang, and that I’m not fleeing at its sight, the animal is smart enough to rethink what it wants to do.
I focus.
My eyes become bluish, and I see the flying rainbows alongside us in the air.
I also can speak a different tongue in there. I’ve picked up a few tricks from Blume and my brethren as well.
With my voice and my smell, I transmit to this animal my ideas.
We communicate, if just a little. Simple thoughts.
I can see and smell its sweat, the colours it has, and the emotions it carries.
I get your anger, but you won’t kill me.
I’m unable to give you justice for what I’ve done, but I am sorry.
You have my sympathy. Please. Sorry.
The emotional boar finally gives up and leaves. It will mourn, but not waste its life against my sword.
I take care of my hunt properly, to its rightful end.
~
A few days later, I reach the summit of these mountains. Many modern countries are showing me their landscapes from there.
I’m free to go wherever I please.
In another time, this freedom would have scared me to death.
My second heart, the one of stone, itches. It’s the furious will of Licht.
I sooth it a little by taking it out of my chest. The glow becomes stronger. It’s angry.
I wrap it in my bag. My skin between my breasts is translucent, as if partially dissolved. That thing isn’t good for my health in more ways than one.
I let my skin rest and recover for a while now. It will heal.
I’m finding balance.
Somewhere in the unexpected wide range of roses, between heaven and hell; between the heir of the promise, and the forsaken second Licht.
Between human, monster, and flower, I guess.
I’m one of the very few who now travels alone, and survives, with a smile even.
From Licht and Blume, I’ve picked up a few tricks.
I’m trying to be smart.
Young in limbs, in judgement old,
so that my fate wouldn’t be inscrolled.
As another one would say.
Believe it or not, I’m becoming the most balanced of the roses. In more ways than one.
And so I smile, as I gaze at the open skies. This world is so large.
Another land, another Rose.
We still are more than a few, evolving on our separate ways now.
For now, I carry not the heirloom of the blue rose, but the light of the last and wrathful Trägerin, along with my own views and hopes.
I like this world. I like this life.
I like this little Quietzalcoatl pet, which seems to travel along with me, following my trail from high above in the sky.
I like and hope the Rose walking alongside Blue or Bleue is happy.
So I will be traveling my own path.
These landscapes from the eastern Alps are so beautiful. The world is.
I resume walking ahead. To where, I do not know. Perhaps I’ll stop travelling toward the Orient when I reach the Kamchatka peninsula?
I smile, because I like the idea. I’m going for it now.
Let’s see the other end of the world.
The flying snake far out there, with its feathery wings, is circling in the sky above me. I recognise it. It’s still following me. And I’m sure it’ll come to warm itself with the camp fire I’ll make tonight, like me. Just like me.
Funny company, like a guardian angel, or a fairy. It’s so fun. It’s still feral and distant, but someday, we will be friends.
I see clouds eating each other in these limitless skies.
I see small flowers blooming along our way. Pale yellow. I’m happy.
We’ve lived on through another winter you know.
With Spring, new flowers will begin to bloom, everywhere, and I mean so in more ways than one.
~
