Black Roses and Green Eyes

Auranar sits in a garden, a lovely garden full of flowers, but also trees. The boughs of those trees reach upwards into unseen hights. The wild elf is toying with her fingers as she sits, but as Verna approaches she looks up and smiles softly. Rises to her feet and motions to the tree she'd been sitting beneath. She waits for Verna to get closer and then kneels at its roots. After a moment, she pulls out a handfull of seeds and offers them to Verna.

All is a wondrous view: far more lovely than bleak snow, ice, and freezing fog. Of all the verdant and brilliant colors of the foliage, it is Aura that radiates most in Verna's sight and mind. The smile is reflexively reflected and the beckon undeniable.

She moves to join her, and then follows further in kneeling at her side. Then there is the offering. With care, and no small amount of trepidation, Verna cups both hands to accept them. Yes, she wishes them; no, she wishes not to spill any.

The little seeds pour into Verna's hand, and as if her thought became reality, she spills the seeds out onto the lush back earth. As she moves to regather the little seeds, they begin to sprout immediately. Growing too fast in the dirt. Like a fast-forward motion of time the flowers bloom into black roses.

'Just be yourself, that is what will make all best.' 'Any mistakes will be just something to laugh about long after.'

The first comment is fresh in mind as Verna attempts to relax. Unfortunately, she quickly discovers that 'herself' is equivalent to 'butter-fingered.' She gasps and quickly grasps at the ground to retrieve them... and they are already sprouting? Perhaps the seeds avoided her black thumbs to everyone's benefit? Maybe this will be something to laugh about?

Until the blooms, themselves, sprout. "No..." she utters softly, unsure of what to do. She cannot well stuff them back into seeds nor the ground, neither is she keen to promptly try and tear them from the ground.

The blooms are full of tiny little thorns which prickle and poke at Verna's fingers. Worse, her blood seems to feed them, and they grow larger; thornier. The area seems to darken around Verna, the other plants wilting in the face of the black roses growing up around them. The flowers even begin to wrap themselves around the trees. Choking out the larger plants and digging their thorns into the bark. Sap leaks from the trees like blood.

There is no laughing. Verna is now certain that they should be removed, but she could not even grasp them; not without feeding them more. She scrambles to her feet. "Aura!"

Amidst so many unknowns, there is at least one certainty as she reaches for Auranar to help her up. Up and back; away from the growing mass of hungry, thorned dark.

Auranar reaches for Verna as well, but the roses _move_ reaching out and grasping the wild elf. They pull her into their heart and there's no rescuing Auranar as she is pulled into the thorns and flowers. All around Verna things are dying. The trees, the flowers. There's nothing left. Just Verna and the black roses spreading like a sickness through the dry sand.

NO!

It is a scream. Aloud? In Verna's mind? All of the above? She does not know, nor is it a concern. One less concern in a growing thicket of her every other concern seeming made manifest, in most unpleasant fashion. Which could, or should, be a significance noted of its own.

Could be, but is not. Just as she should continue to flee the growing kudzu or see to others. But there are no others at the moment; instead she claws at the thorned vines and brush regardless of the illogical ineffectual efforts of it.

The thorns scrape and poke. Drawing red lines on Verna's hands and arms. She's bleeding herself on them to no avail. There's no sign of Auranar now. Nothing but the roses. They're taking up a huge amount of space now, growing over the desolate landscape as if fed by Verna's blood and desperation.

Verna knows she must halt this, that it must be stopped before it consumes all. She must retrieve Aura, must keep her safe. Knowing this much is easy. The knowledge of how to do so is far less so. All is growing and incoming too much, too rapidly. She needs data. Guidance. Something.

WHAT DO I DO?!

It is another scream, very much like the first. It is the underlying question that, whether she realizes it at this moment or not, that brought her here, to this.

A wolf crawls out of the roses. One with green eyes. It turns its gaze on Verna and then transforms slowly; painfully into Auranar. It stands before her, eyes still green. One hand reaches out for Verna. When the vision of Auranar speaks it's with a man's accented voice. Not hers. "Destroy me... If you can."

Auranar points at Verna. "Before I destroy everything you love."

As the wolf emerges, Verna shifts from overwhelmed to focused. Whether it is one aspect or several combined, it is a single focal point here and now. A target for her emotions, which quickly turn to ire.

The rage only increases with the transformation, Verna suspecting, then inferring the end state before it is complete. Formerly flailing, clawing hands now clench into fists, albeit at her side and she meets not-Auranar's gaze and point coldly. "I shall." The vision of Auranar shifts again. This time into three wolves, and they flee from Verna quickly. Leaving her alone with the roses.

And then she wakes up.

-End