A white feather, a nightshade. Little needed to be said when Elanor brought those tokens of proclamation to council, but Hilssgar was never one for brevity, or for grasping the reactions of others – although Marinor had started to suspect that Elanor chose to be vexing.
“When the flames of the scrying kylix died down and the shards of omenglass were turning to ash, I found both of these items amidst the dying embers. Now, the most curious thing is that I hadn’t even tried to make contact with our seraphic kin. The Amaranths have been silent for a very, very long time, so an answer seemed unlikely, but they are awake, after all. One wonders if the withering has reached even the bowels of the earth and the firmamental zenith.”
“One wonders if we’re fucked, that’s what one wonders,” said Gatharin Santia. Of late, Marinor often found herself questioning the wisdom of putting a neurotic prone to hysterics in charge of the Office of Deterrence, and all the military might of the Rose. But there is no military might anymore, so maybe Santia is being kept here to keep her from messing up elsewhere. “What do they want? An audience? Our heads on a platter? This is the last thing we should be troubling ourselves with while we are still immersed in a crisis so dire.”
“No, quite the opposite,” said Henriette. She adjusted her eyepatch, fingers brushing up against the rose sewn onto the fabric. “It is better that we don’t leave such matters unanswered, for the future. They are fellow magical girls, like it or not.”
Marinor certainly didn’t like it. It meant nothing to her what the nightshades might say of their tainted nature. One could not wield the magic of demons without being changed by it. That was an unquestionable fact about magic, so why should it be any different for magical girls that drank from the blood of fiends?
“Have they actually sent a message, Elanor, or did they just send you those… Items?” Marinor questioned. Their kin, both celestial and infernal, were certainly theatrical, but this was particularly unhelpful. “I suppose it’s very impressive of them to perform this little display of magic, but it says nothing useful to us.”
“No appreciation for dramatics and symbolism, you really are a merchant’s daughter,” Elanor laughed. “There is also a message, of course, when the feather and flower are pressed together with a rose between two sheets of paper. A simple spell, more ceremonial than actually intended to cipher the words within. I had Ingunn prepare copies for each of you,” she waved a hand, and at once her subordinate circled around the chamber to distribute sheets of paper. Such pretty handwriting.
“Hm,” Lunéciel was the first to finish reading, and neatly folded the message before setting it in front of her. “So little time to prepare. They must consider the matter of great urgency as well.”
“Not urgent enough to spare us the verbiage,” Dorthea complained. “All these tricks, all the lengths we had to go to and the time we spent before we finally received an answer… Those women are enamored with their symbols and trappings, and all their self-importance…”
“Whereas we are innocent of such sins,” said Marinor, staring at the huge red rose on the eyepatch of Henriette, last member of the Rose Council, keeper of the Keys of Rose, and who surely also graced a room with the scent of petals whenever she broke wind. “Well, I suppose we ought to make arrangements to receive their envoys. Their letter does not indicate a grand affair.”
“Not at all,” said Elanor. “History records that such congregations have been discreet on the few occasions they chanced to occur. My understanding is that our separation is meant to be a sturdy wall, not a mere formality or division of duties but a definitive schism and a promise of independence.”
“A most dignified way of relinquishing to us all the duties that should be theirs as well, as magical girls,” Irene Nimautt complained. “What do they even do in Mahenvort or the Firmament? Time and again the world could have used the aid of our righteous angels, but they must have been too busy strumming their lyres or whatever it is that occupies their time.”
“You’re very small-minded if you think that’s all that the Amaranths do,” remarked Margalit Zariesh, who had refused the responsibilities of commanding the Office of Mysterium but was unopposed to receiving privileges equal to the position. Of course, erudite as she was, she still could not match Elanor in knowledge of the esoteric mysteries, so perhaps she refused the Office to avoid comparisons with Hilssgar, but the comparisons were made all the same, so she really just came across as petty and listless.
“What do they do, then?” Asked Faustyna. Margalit ignored her question.
“I still don’t understand why we must appease Blossoms that have consorted with demons,” Priscilla said. A dozen voices raised in unison, and one of them was almost Marinor’s, but she held her tongue when she realized that all this arguing amounted to naught but noise. She sighed, then caught a glimpse of Henriette and Elanor exchanging words, the latter smiling.
“Be quiet, all of you,” cried out a voice that, though it came out of Elanor’s mouth, did not sound like her own. All of the gathered Blossoms seemed to listen, and promptly became silent. “Heh. See, Hettie, I told you that I can imitate my sister’s voice. Our own father was always fooled.”
“When Layla returns to us, I will be sure to coax her into mimicking your voice,” Henriette said, then laughed politely, like a true noblelady even in her amusement. “As for the rest of you, I won’t have this disaccord while we receive our guests. Nightshades and Amaranths both prize unity, and the Blossoms shall not disappoint. The last thing I want, in our moment of weakness, is for us to be judged, and for our independence to be questioned in any way. And it is for that reason that we must put our house in order, so to speak.”
“You speak of the girls that have seized the lower levels of the Tower,” said Princess Sayuri, stating the obvious. Elanor chuckled, Narges let out an exaggerated sigh, but Henriette did not react at all. There sits a woman who is always in control of herself, whose grip on her own feelings, even the slightest ones, is like a vise. Her laughter and her smiles were all too measured to ever be involuntary.
“What else?” Grumbled Gatharin. “They’ve taken the pallium chamber, and several runic workshops. Another group has occupied the treasury and relic vaults, demanding an audience immediately.”
“And why haven’t we granted them one?” Asked Irene.
“Because we already know what they want,” said Lune. “To gripe, to have their qualms acknowledged, to receive hollow promises… Some new Blossoms from Shinbasse are unhappy that we don’t have plans to garrison all our outposts there. It’s not plans we lack but the numbers. If we sent a hundred pale Siodrunean girls there they’d be unhappy too, but the simple truth is that there are only unhappy paths for us to tread now, and we will all be left unsatisfied.”
“But it is true that most of that dissatisfaction is felt by those who don’t hail from Siodrune,” said Tomiris. “It is not that they are incapable of understanding that, but that they feel – justifiably, I’ll add – that they are not being prioritized. Their homes are not being prioritized.”
“What promises can we make that will appease them?” Marinor asked. “Our words would be like wind. Once, becoming Blossoms might have been like a dream to them, but now it is like a noose. I know Bosheikh and Nsanela are experiencing turmoil.”
“Turmoil is a polite way of putting it,” said Aissa Haidar, who was quite visibly the only Shinbassean in the room. “Ingrates and opportunists began staging power grabs as soon as they heard the first news of the tragedy that befell us. Nsanela is full of separatists, and the absence of Blossoms has emboldened like never before, and Bosheikh has more than a few dynasties that would be eager to dethrone King Keynadid, claiming him to be a traitor that sold his nation to Tesmaria, but who, now bereft of his backers, is defenseless.”
“If they want to become fodder for demons and dark powers, then that’s fine,” said Priscilla. “They don’t want to have our protection imposed upon them, is that so? Once whole cities and their populations are sacrificed by plague priests to feed their false gods, they’ll beg for a reprieve, and they’ll serve as an example for the other fools. I name that a bargain.”
“Our girls from Bosheikh would not,” remarked Faustyna. “Istar, Marsey, Asli. They have names, you know. If you actually left your chambers, perhaps you might even learn their faces.”
“Forgive us for trying to keep the Red Rose together,” Gatharin whined. “Fine, we all understand what you mean, and we are all impressed by what a worldly soul you are. Are these girls occupying our vaults?”
“Only Marsey, the youngest. The others might be torn between their allegiances, but they are complaisant, dutiful. We must make them feel like we are actually listening to their words, not merely nodding so as to shut them up. They are Blossoms like us, so they are our peers. We must treat them as such.”
“Crude as it may be,” Marinor began, “we can, ah, buy their nations’ peace, in a way. We have demanded the repayment of debts from our closest allies, but to do so in such distant lands would come across as petty. It would make them certain that we intend to abandon them. But even with a dearth of Blossoms to defend their lands, we may still offer a more material sort of aid. We may be loath to rely on mercenaries, but if we can promise security to all of the territories, and help given freely, we can gain the time we need.”
“Or we can be robbed blind,” said Priscilla. “Mercenaries can’t be trusted. Neither can outsiders, for that matter. As far as I’m concerned, any lands that are not under our direct supervision might as well be rebellious.”
“It doesn’t matter what concerns you,” said Faustyna. “Unless we can swiftly train ten thousand Blossoms to replenish our ranks, and ensure their loyalty and competence, our only alternative is to sit on our asses and do nothing, accepting all these losses as inevitable, knowing that millions of souls might be damned. To say nothing of how the morale of our own magical girls would fray at seeing our willingness to condemn their homes when it seems expedient. I’ll remind you all that our pacts bind us to our allies, that it’s not a pledge of bondage but of cooperation. We don’t want them to betray us as soon as it becomes convenient to do so. So, we must do all that is within our power to uphold the faith we’ve nurtured. We shan’t abandon them only because the cost to continue protecting them is great. The cost is always great, a fact we all have accepted when we became magical girls. We all promised to pay it.”
Somehow, that seemed to shame the room into silence. Kitze wasn’t wrong, Marinor knew. How would she react if she learned that the Red Rose would abandon Loclain to its luck? The only difference was that Loclain was closer, that the people there looked more like the ladies gathered here. Alas for them.
“Well, that’s one of our problems,” Dorthea leaned forward, and tapped long immaculate nails against the table in an annoying, playful rhythm. “It’s our great fortune that we have managed to impress the imperial princesses, because if they had come to see the sights today they would have been quite disappointed… And what a hostile reception they’d be shown. It appears that Princess Ofelia’s Efflorescence has proven controversial. The youngest Blossom in all our years, how unlikely…”
“Princess Ofelia is brighter than many adults I’ve known,” said Tomiris.
“But then, you’ve known some truly cretinous adults,” said Priscilla. Tomiris did not deign to respond.
“If they are so unhappy with her Efflorescence,” said Narges, “then perhaps they should have objected before she became one of us. I swear, I tire of those who point fingers and accuse favoritism rather than consider for a second that they receive no favor because they don’t deserve it.”
“Go tell that to the Blossoms barricaded within the treasury, I’m sure they’ll be appeased,” said Gatharin. “I don’t understand, what the fuck do they want? It seems to me like they’re whinging for the sake of whinging. Can we bring back caning? Just for a day?”
“They want what all men and women want,” Henriette concealed her mouth behind interlocked fingers, “what every child and every elder struggles for. They want to be assuaged. They want a gentle hand on the back of their heads and the promise that they won’t have to bother with worries or thoughts. Swear that all their anxieties shall be tranquilized and ease them into a gentle lull where they need only wait and watch the pieces of the world fall into place. That’s why we bloom so young, is it not? We too were little buds, and we too remember the promise that our Rose watched over all, a sleepless guardian, warm like a mother, lovingly amicable like a sister we trust, a confidant in our most uncertain years…”
“Say what you mean,” Gatharin demanded. “Riddles annoy me.”
“When the Rose appears weak, so it is,” she said. “When we wear our anguish, the world knows we break. When you take notice of the first gray blemishes amidst a wondrous garden of scarlet, all the beautiful colors will dull and the gray is all you see. It is confidence and certainty that must drape us.”
“Even when they are lies?” Marinor asked.
“They are all lies, of a sort, and always have been. To swear to guard the world from darkness, is that not a lie dripping vanity? But that’s what the first Blossoms said, when they were not yet hegemons but only a dozen magical girls. We played the debtors not because we so desperately needed such riches but because we had to remind all those overfed nobles that we have come before them and will endure long after their children are in the ground. In our moment of weakness we remain greater than their strength could ever be. They will not escape their responsibilities to the Blossom that shields them. And if newly-bloomed magical girls think they have the influence to steer our course astray then they must be taught elsewise. So, my ladies,” she began to rise, “I task you with resolving this situation. Layla Hilssgar would have pacified them before noon and made them feel like they were victorious in their exchange even after giving them nothing. For all her many flaws, Grand Master Yazhu never once struggled to persuade her fellow Blossoms to unite for the collective good. So I have faith in you,” her hands reached for the red frills of her dress, and she offered them all the most perfect curtsy Marinor had ever seen in her life, so noble that no doubt it would have driven Prince Lauryn himself to tears. “And if I’m wrong, then I will have faith in whoever is next appointed to your Offices in your stead. But worry not. If you fail, the Rose will still use you, for you will be the living answer to our younger Blossoms’ questioning of who will defend our homes in distant Shinbasse, halfway across the world?”
The Rose's Torn Petals 