By the time Yawen came knocking on the door of her quarters, Ise had started to seriously fear that she might rot inside this inn, all for the sake of not attracting attention. The days made her restless, the nights anxious, and her only relief was hearing whatever news it was that the other Blossoms brought. Cecilia had hindered the liss trade and demanded an answer from the Gairnites, while Stel and Triella had located the Host’s agent within the city. Sieglinde had met with the captain of the guard and the mayor, and learned quite a great deal from it. Ise, meanwhile, had been sitting on her ass achieving nothing of value. Even Erika was more useful than her, scrying spells bringing no new information but at least giving her something to do.
“Come with me,” said Yawen. Ise was happy to obey, hoping that she might finally be of some use. Her days had grown so dull that she was only vaguely aware of the passage of time. She thought night was falling, but upon a more attentive inspection of the world outside her window, she saw it was just a gathering of storm clouds. A rain would do this city some good. A long rain that cleans all of the filth.
The Blossoms met in Sieglinde’s rented room, the largest among them, spacious enough to host them all and as private as any of these quarters were like to get. Erika, seemingly desperate to show that she was hard at work, worked her spell; thin silver strings coiled around her fingers and between one another, half a dozen small gemstones floating in their midst as Erika shifted her hands. She certainly seemed to be doing something, but Ise doubted it was working.
“Let us pool together all the knowledge we’ve gained,” said Sieglinde. “Chantesse, your… Scrying, is it? I admit this spell is unknown to me. What does it reveal…?”
“Each motion has a meaning,” Erika said. Ruby in a circle, turning around a still sapphire and spinning around its own orbit, a thin line of black stone intruding the empty space before lowering itself and entangling amidst the silver. “The prism drinks light from sun and moon, great emanators of prophecy both, and the spell stirs the colors within, attuning to that which I seek. The gems then shift and from their oscillation coordinates may be discerned. It is a complex technique but the enchanted silver and stones are more portable than bulkier instruments of divination.”
“Great,” said Triella. “So what have you found out?”
“I have no idea,” Erika said, peering into the gems. Dots of gleaming hues blinked within them, but Ise couldn’t tell if that was meaningful or just the natural shift of colors under candlelight. “I tried to attune the prism to treason, to blasphemy, to all that the Host represents, but the coordinates keep on changing. If the Gairning Host had any meaningful presence here, the scrying might have told me something, but only the vaguest glimpses revealed themselves to me.”
“Splendid,” Ise scoffed. “Our enemies may or may not be near, and they may be few or many, and in fact they may or may not be our enemies.”
“Forgive me if your judgment sounds hollow when you’ve also accomplished nothing,” said Erika, who continued to try and fool herself into believing her magic served some purpose.
“Moving on,” Sieglinde swiftly regained control of the discussion, “my findings were not surprising. Captain Mirion is aware that his men are paid to turn a blind eye to the liss trade. He justified his inaction by saying, as expected, that he did not want the wrath of the Gairning Host to fall upon Leyrvallti and the nearby villages. Neither Cecilia nor the Dawners found credible evidence of Mirion being bought, so it would seem more likely that he is merely a coward.”
“The wealthy within the city don’t wish to see chaos behind their thick walls,” said Cecilia. “Trade fills their purses agreeably, so they prefer that affairs remain unchanged, as the victims of the liss trade are mere paupers that remain contained in their wretched district.”
“Naturally, the Lord Mayor Verne counts himself as one such merchant,” said Sieglinde. “He has interests in logging, masonry, and owns a brothel not far from here.”
“Marinor once told me that a clever merchant knows to diversify,” Stel remarked. “This Verne must have learned the same lesson.”
“In short, the merchants and landlords of Leyrvallti pressure Mirion into not taking any action that might disrupt the stability they’ve nurtured. That includes attracting unwanted retribution, but also in bringing about the inevitable chaos that comes when the captain of the guard is slain by his own men. Since this stability does not hurt Mirion in the slightest, it is a most agreeable arrangement for him.”
“And how did they respond to Kleinfeld’s actions?” Yawen asked.
“I hear from the Dawners that the confiscated canisters of liss have been secured by men known to be devoid of honor,” said Cecilia. “Just as the city watch doesn’t want to disturb the Host, the Host might not want to disturb the Rose.”
“That is so,” Yawen told them. “That is why I returned. I observed the comings and goings of travelers crossing Leyrvallti’s eastern gate, and hastened back after I took notice of two Gairnites approaching. They have not yet entered the city. Perhaps before they do they mean to announce their arrival to the guards in league with them, so as to avoid any misunderstandings.”
“So we’d best remain attentive,” said Sieglinde. “Under the night sky, the darkness can conceal their movements and actions.”
“It will not,” Yawen promised. “Ubami, Amathiste, I’ll have you accompany me tonight. I trust you have no objections?” She asked Sieglinde, who shook her head.
“I will trust the three of you to handle the matter,” she said. “Cecilia and I will keep watch over the guildhall that serves as the mayoral chambers, the Dawners will remain observing the activities of the guards to identify possible collaborators, and Erika and Stelmaria…” She pondered the matter. “Rather than the guards themselves, you’ll follow the product they might try to move. It’s possible that there are intermediaries between the guards and the Host, beyond just Galm. And remember that, ultimately, our aim is not to rid this city of Gairnite influences, but to track down where that influence comes from. That means we ought to let our targets live,” when Sieglinde said this, she was looking tight towards Yawen.
“I swear I won’t kill any Gairnites tonight,” Yawen promised. She even sounded genuine. “I’ll have Galm questioned, without using any force, if that pleases you. I expect him to panic upon being approached by Blossoms, and that ought to lead us to any contacts he might have.”
“That seems optimistic,” said Stelmaria. “Still, it’s not in Gairnites to die for a cause, and that’s doubly true for those who foolishly work alongside them. ”
“Well, they don’t want to die for a cause, is rather what you mean,” Erika smirked. “Well, I ought not waste any more time, given how useless I’ve been. I expect that I’ll have more success in tracking still, lifeless objects. And if I can’t even do that, well, that’s why nature made trees for fools to hang themselves on. Shall we, Stel?”
Wordless but eager, she followed, leaving her plate half-finished. Stelmaria’s thirst for vengeance disturbed Ise on more than one occasion, not because how poorly it seemed to match her normally serene nature, but precisely because those two demeanors lived so closely together in seeming harmony. The dependable friend and bewitching songstress was the same girl that dreamed of slaughter and bloodshed. I question what might make me despise someone so. I am not above such hatred. Ise thought of the evil that scattered her family like winds do to dust, but all the servants of the Great Nightmare were dead. A most strange deficiency, this absence of someone to blame, to despise, to wish the unspeakable upon… In the end, she thought to herself, looking away from her fellow Blossoms, it was not evil that wrote this fate but the magical girls themselves. She could not hate the dead, and the living… It was sparse relief to curse the few who lived for the fate of the righteous dead. But it was the only relief left.
Yawen hurried her and Triella, who promptly followed. The sun set fast, too fast, and the wind’s breaths grew bitter cold. Night falls fast on ventures that shame the sun, she recalled an old rhyme that Kirari had taught her as a child. Kasumi seemed to find that very amusing. It’s not from shame we hide and flee, she said. In the dark we just aren’t found. Ise always felt comfortable contributing to her sisters’ discussions, lighthearted or serious alike, so she did not hesitate to share her own thoughts. Maybe the night lets us pretend we do not see our own shame, she said, or we would not be able to carry on with it. Her sisters grew silent after that. In truth, Ise had been thinking of times when she had sneaked out of bed at night to steal sweets from the house’s pantry. Out of the mouth of babes, Haruna whispered, the only comment she had made all night, reclined lazily on her couch.
They stopped where the street took a sharp turn towards the Leatherworkers’ Quarter, stone tiles giving way to dirt that narrowed to wend through pauper districts where houses seemed to spring from each other, not residences planned and built but grown like weeds. Here there were no lights but distant torches and candles, and some of these structures seemed too easily inflamed. Still, there were buckets filled with water along the streets, chained to wooden posts next to each home. A sign of a lesson learned through pain and loss, perhaps.
“Extend your hands,” Yawen commanded. When Ise and Triella did so, they were surprised by something slimy placed upon their palms. Something that felt like flesh. Ise tried to look, but Yawen held her hand too firmly, pressing the soft thing and spreading its warm wetness.
“L-Lady Jiang…? What is this…?” Triella asked, while Ise was unable to, paralyzed with bafflement.
“Meat,” she said plainly. “From the Gairnites I slew.”
“Y-You said…” Ise babbled, suddenly sick.
“I did not lie. They did not enter the city. And I won’t kill anyone tonight. Their bodies were ashes not long past noon. Imorial will have no cause for complaint.”
“But still, this…”
“Worry not. It will be a temporary affair. The seeming will last long enough for you to meet with Galm and fool him. And you shan’t even need to kill him. All are happy… But for the two slain, of course, and their well-being is hardly our priority.”
“The… Seeming?” Ise asked, and then she saw, facing Triella.
Where a moment ago there had been voluminous and wavy pink hair there now were only short black locks. So too did her fabrics turn to crude leather, her eyes dark brown and tired, not the pale lively ones Ise had grown so used to without even realizing. Her face was slower to change, and it did so gradually that Ise couldn’t tell at what point the person in front of her stopped being Triella to become… A dead man.
“How…?” Ise asked, and when she saw the way Triella stared at her, she realized that she, too, had changed. But when she looked down at her body, at her hands, she was the same. She felt the same, felt the length of her hair the same as always, her height, all her sensations, all too familiar.
“Is it so strange, compared to the pallium you went through?” Yawen asked. “All because it is not your face you wear…? A seeming is very simple magic. Although simple magic is a gross contradiction… Be that as it may, a visage is something so quickly and easily forgotten, but for the barest details. It takes only flesh and blood to weave a material facsimile of the self. The less you know, the more truthsome it is, and a copy seems altogether more suggestive of verity.”
“Why do I see the changes laid over her,” Ise asked, “but not on myself?”
“Why would you? You know who and what you are more perfectly than anyone ever could. No mundane magic could lead you to believe otherwise. But you don’t know what it is to be Triella. You may know her appearance, but that is just shape and color. You do not breathe as she does, do not know the unity of self that makes her know that her fingers, her toes, her heart beating fast, are all her. You have such an incomplete knowing of her, of anyone. She is a secret to the world, and so are you, a secret only you know. You could see with her eyes, you could indwell her flesh, and yet you would not be her, or anyone else. Only you know the unbroken being from the cradle to where you stand now. Perhaps this will impart upon you the complexity of pallium, of your mantling. Mere change would not suffice. To be something at the same time that you’re not… But I digress. Galm knows more of the dead Gairnites, but not enough to break the illusion in any way. It is a frail semblance, and it cannot last, but I assure you that it will hold.”
“It’s… Warm,” said Ise. Wet and slithering, the red horror was a violation, and for a second she felt less like herself, until she forced herself to recall that she was Ise Ubami. “Is it…?”
“Beneath all the recondite and pomp, magic is ultimately like all our mundane emissions. Blood and phlegm. Ink and seed. Tears of grief.”
“Never heard of anyone who bleeds ink,” said Triella. Yawen looked at her as though she were a great imbecile.
“If you opened your eyes, child, you would see that the stars, they flow. The light of starpaths and the warmth of the boiling rivers beneath the earth, they are of a nature with the magic of the leylines we know. But you wouldn’t know, would you?” She was suddenly right in front of the two, and though her eyes peered into Triella’s, Ise felt as though she was being seen in a most queer way, that gaze all-revealing in its cold candor. “You weave a few spells and think you understand the Art and the world and the Order, you think you know the way the world is written, and to you it is so simple, because you think your ignorance is all that there is to see and to know, when you should instead be despairing, for our Order is a tree and we are but moonlillies the morning snuffs out. Ink, fools, it is all ink, all that shapes the world and writes the fates we are vain to think we are not part of, you understand? Flowers damned and doomed, and yet so arrogant… There is no distinction. All blood is the same blood and the same flesh and grass that lives and dies and that is why you cannot change the world without savaging it, rending it. Do you understand at last what I am trying to tell you?”
“Not really,” Triella said meekly.
“I suppose it is well that you did not lie to me,” Yawen sighed. “My apologies. My ghosts were disturbing me and demanding I impart such truths unto you. It cost me a great deal, understanding the nature of magic to the point of being able to achieve these deeds. Only after the withering of our bloom-sisters could I produce such results.”
“…Why only after?”
“Because only tragedy lets you open your eyes, and understand that all your life, you never truly did see. You were born in sorrow, grief your midwife and horror your father. Our three great Founders were so great mainly for this reason. Agony forces greatness upon you. I pity you, I dearly do. No child deserves these evil blessings.”
“Why blessings, not a curse?” Ise asked.
“You can break a curse. And when you lament it, the stars weep with you. But a blessing… That bell you cannot unring.”
Yawen’s peculiar ways of thinking brooked no argument, and Ise was not inclined to waste her time trying. She was more likely to find success in talking to a brick. When they neared the leatherworks, Yawen chose to stay behind, so Ise and Triella headed together to seek Galm.
“I suspect much will come to improvisation,” said Triella. “So let’s be cautious and make use of all openings and opportunities. I’ll stay behind you, but be sure that you enter alone, just in case Galm calls you by the name. It would be most unfortunate if it appeared we don’t know our own names, as it doesn’t seem that Lady Jiang bothered asking for their personal details before she butchered them.”
“No, it doesn’t,” Ise agreed. “I’m not used to lying, though…”
“You wouldn’t be, I’m certain,” said Triella. Ise had no idea if she was being praised. “Don’t worry. You might not be able to see your own glamor, but rest assured that you’re burly enough that you don’t need many words to scare Galm into compliance. You’re bald, scarred, and some of your teeth are filed.”
“Mayhaps death was a mercy to this poor devil,” Ise remarked. “Any other advice when it comes to deception?”
“Don’t get found out,” said Triella. There was an edge to her voice, even as she tried to make a joke. Though she looked like a Gairnite man, her voice was still Triella’s. Perhaps it is because I know her true identity. Nevertheless, Ise warned her companion, and would try to be cautious herself. “One thing, though… I would ask you to be discreet in regards to what I mean to tell you… Before our departure, Lady Lunéciel of the Office of Intelligence requested that I attempt to contact some of the Rose’s known assets and informants within Loclain. To that end I was given lists of names, codes and ciphers. I am to remind such agents that the Red Rose yet blooms and that they remain under her protection.”
“How very thoughtful. Have you met any of them as of yet?”
“One who was alive,” Triella said, awkwardly. “Others I found in Agaepsonia, erm… Sliced to bits by Yawen.”
“Not all can withstand the Rose’s protection, I suppose,” said Ise. “Do you believe Galm might be one such asset?” Triella nodded. “It is said that bold men do not grow old. Well, no point in lingering. Let us go.”
She was the first to head into the leatherworks, fist hitting the wooden door with the brusqueness she felt fitting of a Gairnite. Galm whined something from afar, but when he stood before Ise, he froze. To see such fear in a grown man’s eyes… It made Ise wonder whether it would be worse to cross the Host or to cross Lady Jiang.
“E-Ervin,” Galm recoiled away, suddenly small. His eyes turned upwards, so Ise had to guess that this seeming was of a taller man, but nevertheless the sight of a grown man so shrinking before a young girl. “To what do I owe the-”
“Spare me the groveling, Galm,” said Triella as she walked in. Though her voice remained distinctly hers, Triella had made it deeper, harsher, convincing enough to frighten the man into obedience. “We are not here on pleasure, and even if we were, we wouldn’t be going out of our way to visit you in your shit factory. I trust you know why we are here, or is that too much thinking for your head?”
“N-No, or rather, I know, or, well, it’s not too much thinking-” He stuttered. Ise almost felt sorry for him, before she remembered that this life and fate were of his choosing. “The liss. I swear, the Blossom just appeared unannounced, all sneak like, the men keeping the hoard could’ve done nothing about it, they-”
“Galm, my man, now is not the time for you to worry about others, and rather concern yourself more with your own behind,” Ise said.
“Perhaps the urgency of the matter would be clearer if we addressed you by your other name?” Triella stepped towards the frightened man. “Verrlell of the Hide? Did you come up with that yourself, or your rosen handlers?”
“P-Please,” he now seemed one stern word away from directly contributing to his own stockpiles of night soil. “How did… Why…? I have never worked against your interests, I swear! I merely acted the asset on Master Restren’s orders, he knew it was necessary to operate so close to Agaepsonia. I swear I am not traitor-”
“I believe you,” said Triella, placing a comforting hand on his shoulder. “Truly, I do. You chance the well-being of your heart too much, friend. You are not such a young man anymore. I will ease your burdens and terrors: when the Blossoms come seeking respectable Verrlell, you will answer their call. You will answer all of their questions, and you will give them whatever they want. And you will steer them towards us.”
“T-Towards?”
“You heard me. They will ask you about the source of liss, about your suppliers, about your intentions. Answer them honestly. They may test whether or not they can rely on you, so be sure not to lie. Arrange a meeting with the Host, and lure them, letting them think that they’ve frightened you into betrayal.”
“You’re good at looking frightened,” said Ise. Such petty cruelty seemed true to a Gairnite. “You’ll do fine. You should smile, really. Most people’s blunders don’t amount to such valuable opportunities as yours.”
“Perhaps next time we can have a longer conversation,” Triella said, turning away. “Best of luck, Galm. Pray the Blossoms are gullible.”
Ise hurried to follow. The less we speak, the less chances we have of our deception being revealed. She wondered if this seeming could be remade, or if this was the only opportunity they had. Mayhaps Yawen had collected some spare organs.
The glamor faded underneath the moonlight. Yawen had not lied when she said it would last long enough, but had been exceedingly literal about that. Ise felt herself somewhat lighter, but it could just be an impression, not truth. Triella shook herself clean of the moisture clinging to her, then coughed once or twice. Ise felt she should say something to her. For some time, now, she had needed to say something. A compliment? An apology? Her harsh words still troubled her, brought her to guilt. But there was no taking them back. And part of me still meant them. I cannot say otherwise. It was easy, sometimes, to pretend to be something, someone she was not. Far worse was facing truths so hideous.
The Rose's Torn Petals 