{Rosé wine: a type of wine that has some of the typical color of a red wine, but only enough to turn it pink}
[blending: a method of producing rosé wine; the process of blending a small portion of red wine with white wine to produce a pink wine]
She can't decide what her favorite flower is, really.
She supposes the camellia is nice. Reminds her of origami.
But the lily of the valleys give their tinkling dewdrop laugh that she imagines them to have. She can almost hear it.
And the wise iris bows her purple head. She smiles. It smiles, and opens its mouth to–
What? She makes no sense.
The clouds are drifting in the lurid sky.
You know, the iris stands for truth and wisdom and all that.
Yes, I know. Yes, she knows that.
And the camellia represents admiration, perfection, gratitude...
I know that as well.
And the rose...
Stop.
It stands for love.
No. Go away.
Stop doing this to yourself, Rose.
Roses are red... violets are blue...
"Flowers are certainly fickle, aren't they?"
… sugar is sweet… and so are you.
She hates flowers. They make her cry...
Flowers are lies. She learned this a long time ago.
Life cannot be represented in a flower.
Her life is broken, like glass.
[skin contact: a method of producing rosé wine; the process of removing skins before they are allowed to impart enough color to produce a red wine]
Blood smears on the floor.
She steps through shards of broken glass.
"Rose..." A shadow behind the veil.
She stumbles, and cries out when they pierce her flesh.
"Cain...!" Something stirs inside her. Hope, maybe.
"Rose..." The voice is deep and scratchy, but she doesn't care. She wants to go to him and see his face again. Her feet walk by themselves.
A hand on her shoulder...
Grits her teeth.
Feathers scattered all over the floor. Birds... dead birds...
Endures it.
The flame in her heart is extinguished with cold, dousing water that washes away everything until there is only reality. She stares at the mutilation in horror.
Gets up.
"You should never have come here."
They are looking at her.
"Father Cornello gave us hope; what right did you have to take that away? With him we believed we could do anything, even bring back the dead!"
Hope.
They are listening.
"We're a desert village! We had nothing before that!"
"... You're saying we should have just let everything go on as it was?"
"But why not? What do I have to live for, now that I know Cain won't come back?! Tell me that, Ed!"
He turns away from her.
"You'll have to decide for yourself. Walk on your own. Move forward. You've got a good strong pair of legs, Rose; you should get up and use 'em."
And she continues on.
She meets him again as the Holy Mother, years later. And she tells him she loves him.
And then he dies.
She is broken again like glass. This is Cain all over again.
And then he comes back to life.
Her hope is rekindled.
But Truth takes him away again, and she is left shattered on the cold floor.
She knows what her favorite flower is. It's perfect.
It's dubbed "bleeding heart" flower and looks just like it too.
Her heart is bleeding as well.
She wishes she hadn't been named Rose. Love is only a double-edged sword.
Perhaps it would be better to have a plainer name.
So she changes her name to Rosé. Like the wine. She's never had wine before.
[saigneé: a method of producing rosé wine; the process of bleeding off some of the juice in a red wine fermentation tank to leave a higher concentration of skins, seeds, and stems in contact with the rest, and to allow the winemaker to concentrate the tannins and colors in their final red wine]
It sloshes around in her glass and looks somewhat like diluted blood.
It's bitter. She likes it. It takes away her problems.
She slumps onto the counter, drunk. The glass slips through her fingers and shatters.
Broken glass everywhere. She is slowly bleeding herself empty, like her heart, like the flower, like the juice in her goddamned wine.