Story:Twilight Crystal 2/Prologue

What does a rose promise?

Purity? Romance? Fragility?

From what arc, from what feature is such a vow derived? Is it the wreath of thorns, that perennial sacrament of ardor and agony? Is it the corona of petals, unfolding in vivid and vulnerable display?

Does each lineage whisper in a unique and efflorescent voice, or does one definition transcend all? Perhaps each gives to the rose the countenance of that which they love, and receives from it a coloration according to their inclinations and devotions.

Perhaps all said is merely idle and superstitious speculation. One would not offer such an opinion, however, on this shining evening. The sun’s dying rays weave gently down the rolling, rusty hills of eastern Ashland, seeming to shudder in anticipation of the night’s advent.

The Canidine of this land have a particular tradition when sending on their dead, a marriage of burial and cremation quite unlike those of the other races. A pyre reaches to the sky upon one hilltop, adorned with rosebuds still green and wet as if weeping.

Appropriate, that such a garland grace the resting place of that species, who often pass on before their fifth decade is over. Two such Canidine - siblings, not yet thirty - finish dispersing the roses, a mixture of relief and sorrow written upon their canine features. The brother seems almost overcome with emotion, saved only by the reassuring hand of his sister on his shoulder. She leads him down the hill, where the small assembly of guests awaits.

As they leave, a final stream of sunlight weaves through the pyre’s maze of branches and boughs, pitying the flowers that will never bloom. Beneath it all lies a simple wooden box, and the man who tonight will fly as the wind. But for now, he lies buried yet exposed, as the rosebuds whisper to him their fears, their dreams, their sins.

One speaks of ravenous hunger for the world’s offerings, an oblation never to be satisfied.

One speaks of a more sensual desire, to be felt, to be feared, an all-consuming consummation.

One speaks of a self-comforting inertia, a folding into the self, a vanishing into obscurity.

One speaks of malice and grudge, the seizing of loss that is perpetually palpable, unobtainable.

One speaks of avarice that walks the thin rope between deception and reality, many-faced, ever fated.

One speaks of rage unquenchable, immolating from the inside, catalyst upon catalyst.

One speaks of vainity, grasping eras of the ego, irradiating itself in the mirrorlight of glory.

Maximillian Renard cannot hear them, nor can he sense their roots diving ever deeper into the heart of humanity.

For a single rose shall soon speak for all.