With a small cry of dismay, he quickly moved the rose from one hand to another, being more careful this time; and watched the small pearl of crimson liquid that had began to form on his finger where the thorn had pricked.

It was a beautiful flower, and he did not even think before bending down to take it from its bush. The soft white petals had a faint pink nacre tint to their base, and each was the shape of paper-cut heart. Its own heart was golden; a rich, handsome shade of gold which would have been unwelcome in such a delicate flower had it not been almost entirely hidden by the petals: thin, fragile, transparent. His eye had immediately been caught by it, among all the other roses of his father's garden; even though he had never given much heed to the physical beauty of things. It smiled to him, it alone; and it was not even a question whether he should or not cut it at the stem, take away from it its life, only to hold it between his index and his thumb and have it moved closer to his nostrils, not he moved closer to it.

He was bleeding, he realized. It wasn't flowing, or dripping, or even changing anymore. At a certain point, when the drop of blood had really become as a pearl, small, round, perfect, it did not continue to grow. He wondered if it was because the wound was small, and the blood scarce spilt; he realized that he should wipe it off from his finger somewhere, but he could not bring himself to part from it. My blood, it cried out to every part of his body. My blood.

After a while, he brought it to his lips, and licked it clean off the skin. It tasted sour, like iron and rust.

The flower's deep scent enveloped him as he brought it closer to his nostrils. It had something of the freshness of spring, something of the fullness of summer, and the rich explosion of autumnal colours, and his lips formed into a smile even as he breathed in deeply, drowning himself into the unworldly fragrance, almost chocking upon the nearly material presence of the perfume. A strange doubt sought to pull his mind from the complete olfactious communion. The flowers' silky petals tickled his nose and lips. Its scent filled his nostrils, his whole body, running through his limbs along with the blood rushing in his veins; it was not scent alone, but converted to colours behind his dropped eyelids and gentle touches upon his skin and music in his ears. Something tried to pull him away from it. It was as if he had trusted his face into a pillow, and he could neither see not breathe not hear, the utter submersive submission slowly gaining a deadly grip on his all senses, and there was this nagging thought as the far end of his brain, pulling him back, anchoring him to the world, to reality, something that told him that this was not what he sought, not beautiful enough, not perfect enough, not complete enough for death.

He gasped, and released in a sudden sigh the breath he had held, his eyes starting open as the world abruptly washed over him like a wave, nearly knocking him off his feet.

The crimson pearl on his finger had reshaped itself, from new blood; and again stayed there, unchanging, innocent, upon his fingertip.

Tentatively, he approached the rose to his nose again, careful to keep a firm grasp on his mind. It spoke again to him, of a dream, of an ideal, of a revelation; and yet this time he found it easy -easier- to dismiss it as a delusion. There was something it lacked, something that indeed he had seldom encountered in the seemingly eternal spring of Valinor; but something of bliss and of grief he had not found in the flower's wholesome lures: and this was maybe the sharp, crisp feeling of the snow crushed under your foot, the burn of the snow in your hand, its thousand daggers in your eyes.

Something was tickling his arm. Startled, his hand let go of the flower, letting it flutter to the ground; but it was only a small white spider crawling on his skin. Reassured, he stared at it for a while, until it arrived at his shoulder where he could not see it anymore, and brushed it off with a careless gesture. It must have come from the flower, he thought. Strange.

He looked down to the ground, and did not see the rose. Slightly perplexed, he looked around, stepping forwards slightly, in case an ill-timed breath of wind had swept it off. But he did not see it.

It was only when he turned around that he realized that in his surprise at the spider's sudden intrusion, he had inadvertently crushed the flower under his boot.




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End Part 1