[Short Story: The Dying Rose Garden]

[dreammoonchild]

Music: Gate of Time - Skyward Sword

"Why is everything, so... abandoned feeling" Suburu said, in her exploratory suit and helmet, looking at the cold blue world before her, stepping with trepidation.

"Because this is what happens with a Lotophage Refraction. They aren't stable. They aren't meant to last. They're never fleshed out." Ashley said in her own get-up.

"But it wasn't like this even a week ago!" Suburu protested, stomping her foot, the sun dying black and blue, motes of dusts dancing in the blue air. The world around her was rotting. Pieces missing. And everything else seemed like it had been dead. Dying. For years.

"Again, that's what happens with a Lotophage Refraction, Suburu. Or as Mom calls them, 'unrealized realities'." Ashley said tired and forelorn, picking up and pushing aside rubble, breathing in her own air system.

"That doesn't tell me anything!" She said, upset.

"... Do you want me to be honest with you, or would you rather I spare your feelings" Ashley said, after a pause, halting her movements.

"... You said you wanted to be with me and Katherine, right?" Suburu said, looking aside, at a collapsing sign. "Then, be truthful. "

"..." Ashley paused and took a deep breath. "You know the coven of witches I ran, right?"

"... Something along the lines of the Illusion Witches, right?"

"What I'm about to tell you is the innermost sacred mystery of my order." Ashley said. "And I want you to keep it that way. Most of the girls who learned it, well. They developed a sense of bitter nihilism." She felt the weight of the world piling up on her shoulders again, as the emotions stirred up in her, threatening to well up.

"... It's that bad?" Suburu said, rubbing her arm anxiously, trying to avoid eye contact, but the sorry state of what used to be her world kept making her wince just as painfully.

"... Something about it just. Breaks most people." Ashley said with a painful sigh. She looked around and saw a bench. She waved Suburu over to sit with her. "But I don't think it's bad. ... At least not anymore."

The two of them sat down, the bench still sturdy, even as the world around them just seemed. Hollow. Empty. Falling apart. And lost in a twilight eclipse of black and blue.

"... So what is this sacred mystery?" Suburu asked, putting her hands on her lap.

"It's what you could call the corner stone of the order, both as science and faith." Ashley said, taking another deep breath. Whatever it was she was trying to say, it seemed to stay on the tip of her tongue, anxiety chewing her. Fear filling her on what she wanted to say.

"Earth's science claims the idea of a Many Worlds Interpretation, where everything is effectively possible." Ashley said, starting, lacing her gloved fingers together nervously.

"Yeah, I've heard it once or twice, I think." Suburu said. "And?"

"It's true but it's also, wrong to an extent." Ashley said in reply. "There's infinite possibilities, but that doesn't mean they last."

"... Go on."

"The metaphysics of whatever creates worlds, whether it be an original Big Bang, or the mysticism of what Mom cites as the myth of the Domdleifymt Tcypem..."

"The what?" Suburu said interrupting.

"A creature from the religions and stories of the oldest civilizations in the 12 Dimensions. The Painter of Worlds might be a better term for it, for you to think of it poetically." Ashley said.

"I'm still not seeing the issue."

"... There's infinite possibilities, Suburu, just as there's an infinite chance everywhere might be a rose garden, but..."

"But not everywhere is a rose garden." Suburu said, instinctively completing Ashley's sentence.

"The point is, and why this world is like this, is whatever provides the fire for a world to exist. The ideas of a painting, well it's very rare for a world to be fully 'fleshed out'. The ideas, the differences are just too inconsequential. There's just not enough of 'something' to keep them going." Ashley said. "So, this. Tends to happen." She waved her hand broadly at the crumbling dying twilit world.

"And... just so I know bluntly... what is... this?"

"The dying of a Lotophage Refraction. Its differences aren't enough 'fire' to keep it going. Mystically, the Painter of Worlds lost interest in painting your story, and with you gone, it crumbled even faster." Ashley said.

"...oh." Suburu said, quietly.

"... let's get going, the people left in the refraction are dipping as we speak. Hopefully, with you and your sister being a core of it, she'll be one of the last things to completely fade before the refraction returns to the nothing in the sea of possibilities." Ashley said, getting up.

"... But you just said there's no point to it." Suburu said, getting up, anxiously.

"No, I said that most of the roses that try to grow wither. There's a difference, Suburu." Ashley said, walking forward. "Most of the girls from the Witches followed your current line of reasoning, if our rose bush is finite potentially, and the grand number of worlds simply die before they can last. Then. There's no point. It made them all bitter vicious nihilists."

The two kept marching, as Ashley kept track of her device. "The strongest signal is this way..."

"... And you're not a nihilist?" Suburu said, nervous and looking down at the twilit ground.

"... I used to be. But... ever since my mother and I reconnected, and I met my little brother... no." Ashley said, moving over to Suburu, taking her hand gently squeezing it. "It's not pointless. It might not last forever, but even the finite is beautiful, Suburu. Our time matters, even if the Painter doesn't deem it so, we can make our own meaning."

"..." Suburu said nothing, her eyes silently tearing up.

"That's why..." They walked, holding hands. "I'm helping mom. Someone tried to burn down several rose gardens, and Mom saved what was left of them, but..."

"The new rose garden is sick, right...?"

"Basically." They stopped in front of a cheap hotel.

"This is where the strongest signal is. Most if not all of the rest are just... fading. Let's go and hope she's still here." Ashley said.

The two apprehensively walked up the stairs to a bedroom on the second floor, no one else in the build to stop them. Only empty clothes.

They came to the door to the room with the last signal.

"Are you ready?"

"... I'm trying."

"Let's go, no more chit chat." Ashley said, pulling her fist back, and smashing the door open.

They walked in and looked at the bed. Suburu collapsed to her knees.

Ashley tapped her helmet. "Kat. We're grabbing someone, pull us back ASAP, and get a storage system ready, the one I built before we came here."

The bubbly girl's voice echoed very quietly. "Roger."

Ashley put her hand on Suburu's shoulder, as if to silently say "I'll do everything I can."