Thorns by liahime
Nineteen Rose Finale
Disclaimer: liahime originally had no further plans to write more. But thanks to a youth group, a box of croissants, and one final dream, she has to say, once more: I don't own Digimon.
When life hands you a happy ending, sometimes you need to hold your breath and wait for the tiny print to come into play.
As the crowd died down, and the rain pattered on, the world returned to it's normal pace, falling, rising, tumbling and sighing. The spectators walked away slowly, buzzing with dying excitement, peace of mind.
But the earth was unsettled, holding it's breath in anticipation. It trembled, afraid of the coming rumble in the earth, the dust clouds not quite settling, not quite rising or sinking away into the air. It was as if the heavens were buzzing in an unseen pressure, anxious The world waited, breath held.
It was a subtly quiet roar, rolling like an earthquake's dim crescendo before it erupts into air. As if thunder had been caught beneath them; an ocean wave rocking back and forth. The rain kept falling, mud and gray washing over the platform.
Like a cat without all four paws on the ground, Rika felt it as well. Breaking away, she turned, searching for something that wasn't quite all there. She felt surges of something against her, prickling her, biting against her skin. It was coming.
"Are you alright?" Ryo turned as well, following her gaze over an empty sweep of land. "Is there something wrong?" She didn't answer him, tense. "Rika?
And then, the earth cried out.
-
Wood platform and rope imploding beneath her feet, Rika flew into the air, almost as if a sleeping person caught in a nightmare. The rain fell on, swirling paths and yard into a puddle of mud, damp and sticky.
From the earth, the shaking grew, great drum beats, quivering the ground. The mud was popping, not from rain but popping upwards- as if something- or someone- was underneath it, forcing their way through, swelling forward.
Rika began her tumbling descent, an odd bird flying down in her arc against the gray clouds, spiraling closer and closer to the hard wood. The royal guard milled about, rushing here, running there, away from the princess, towards the princess, away from the quaking platform. Through the swarming chaos, only a few remained still and watching, left stranded, silent observing pebbles in a rushing sea.
The quaking earth seemed to speak, voice rasping and cracking, pushing it's way forward through the mud. Dry and old, it continued on, the mud bubbling and boiling as the voice grinded it's way up to the surface. Words without meaning bubbled through the air, rolling deep and low.
With the voice came a growth, a tangle of black, smoke gray. Wispy and thin, shadows of half-light, mauve and shadowed iris, roiling and hissing as if alive. Rika, falling, seemed to slow in its mist, as if caught on the threads of fog rushing from the ground. A cloud seemed to break her tumble to the ground, vaguely human shaped, robes billowing.
A muffled shriek erupted from the black-clad girl, her pale hair fanning out as she rushed forward. "Don't- You can not- "
The clouds settled, stopping Rika all together. Shaking itself off, as if to brush off the dust of the earth, it smiled. "I can."
The young councilor gasped. "No. There is no way that you could have come back. You were gone. You were exiled. " Soldiers gathered, West kingdom blue and Middle kingdom white mingling. Saruwatari barked at them, ordering them left and right as they circled it. Warily, they held sword points up, armor stiff and ready.
"Oh, but I am back." The dust solidified, freezing into a pale, pointed face, greasy hair whipping back. "I'm back indeed, girl, and you, little brat, and very much alive as well." Rika seemed to float, inches above clawed, wrinkled fingers.
"Let her go." Saruwatari, broadsword up, glared venom up at her. "Drop her and back away."
"Still can't say my name, dear training master?" She laughed, grating and harsh. "That's too bad. For you, though, dear Saruwatari, I'll let her go." She opened her palm, waving it downwards, as if to crush a fly underneath her hand.
Rika plummeted down to earth, awaking as she tumbled down to the ground, gravity pulling hard. A crowd rushed in, arms reaching to catch her. The princess's last godmother sighed.
She raised her hands, hissing words through her teeth, fast and sharp. Serpents of the air coiled themselves around the unconscious girl, dry skin turning and writhing around her. The crowd backed away from fangs sharp with poison.
"Humans," she chortled merrily. "They're utterly predictable and completely the same.." Her teeth flashed merrily as she waited for the girl to crash to the ground, alone. "A few little pets and they all run off to hide."
Yet Rika stopped above the ground. Saruwatari had come forward, pushing through the small group who had found the courage to stay, sending them scattering backwards as the old man leapt in. The snakes arched and hissed, sinking teeth into bare skin. He stiffened, biting his lip.
Seiko rushed over, dragging Alice along with her. "You old fool!" She grumbled, setting her granddaughter up, gently helping her stand. "You absolute idiot! You could die from this, you know!"
"Your majesty- the snakes-" He backed away from her, keeping his arms out of her grip. "They'll bite you as well-"
"No." Seiko looked up at him, steely eyes echoing her granddaughter.. She leaned forward, clipped and grey grandmother as she was, pulling the hissing snakes off his arms. Gripping them tightly by the neck, she handed them off to soldiers behind her. The dowager queen threw a free hand back, waving at Alice. "You, girl! He needs treatment for snakebite- quickly."
Rika was standing again, head buzzing louder. Everyone seemed to be talking at once, swinging swords, screaming and running around her. She was being pushed back into the mass of swarming, nervous people, away from her godmother glaring down happily at them all.
The fairy's hands moved quickly through the air, darting and shimmering with some unseen magic, weaving in and out. The edges of her fingers were forming something, as if a ball of stray magic was being swept up, pulled to her as a magnet pulls iron.
It had been a distraction, she realized. They had been lead off into a different direction, watching the snakes and illusions of the eye. Distracted by the magic, they had missed the hands bent on final revenge. The godmother's hands were spread wider now, under the weight of a magical whirlpool, compressing and twisting until it's edges were shadowed and nearly solid. A great gray whorl, of rain cloud and shadow and death, it was rising forward and upward, towards the sky.
Towards the crowd.
There was nothing she could do to halt the fairy- she had no magic, she had no sword. The ball was lowering now, speeding- and no one seemed to notice, as if fear and chaos had been spelled into the crowd-
Perhaps she shouldn't have done this, Rika reflected, as the mauve whirlpool drew closer. Perhaps, there was some other way, some safer method of doing this. Perhaps there was a miracle that would have happened in the next three seconds.
Perhaps.
The princess, white silk flying, leapt.
-
She plunged, deep into the shadowed explosion of purple and gray, free-falling forward to the heart of the magic. The energy screamed around her, crackling and burning at her skin, in her hair. It bit at her, nipping and scratching.
The world was crashing down on her, borders between earth and air smudging and shifting. The magic was boiling and churning beneath her. A surge of something was against her, pushing her back, biting. Rika kicked out, cold iron luck connecting with solid air, crashing, breaking-.
And then she was through.
She had landed, somehow, further than she had jumped, on the ground near the old fairy. Breathing heavily, her last godmother leaned on a cane, as old and twisted as she was- silvery gray metal, spiked to a shark tooth point.
In the corner of her eye, she could see Ryo shouting at her, running forward, but sound seemed to be suspended here, as if noise was too deep a burden to undertake in this cracked, dry air. Sound was muted and far away, as if under the ocean, as if in a memory of a dream. Even actions didn't seem quite real anymore.
The ground rippled underneath her. Saruwatari was bellowing, shattering the frozen silence. Alice was chanting, head thrown back. The world slammed back into motion again. Noise came back to life once more.
The fairy stood rigid, pointing her cane at Rika. There was something familiar about her footing, her posture. As if the cane was not quite an old stick, but a sword-
It lunged towards her, tarnished silver leaping in to fill the space beneath them, thorn-sharp point cutting her skin. The princess leapt back, weaving away, dodging helplessly from the angry cane.
The fairy was breathing hard, breath ragged in her throat. With each new wave of cane, she moved the earth, set so on revenge that she had long given up on life. Now it was merely her and death of the princess, with the world standing in her way. Her death was something that was merely a tool now, life an accessory to her revenge.
Waves of earth sent Rika stumbling back, walls of gray rising up. The incoming soldiers were thrown back, and the godmother shrieked her joy, sanity long pushed away by vengeance.
Feral and half-alive, the battle began.
-
Ryo stood, silent, watching her, voice caught in throat. .He couldn't think, panic and fear running through his brain as he watched Rika. There were walls surrounding his princess, tiny gaps cracking through like dark stars of sky light. The rain falling tapped and danced on the ground, cheerfully drumming as she leapt, a white snowflake towards a blazing flame.
A cat's scream pierced the air, sending the army faltering back. The earth was tumbling around the two, shadowed and gray. Pandemonium broke out as soldiers rode the earth's waves; crashing into the rest of the confused army.
But even he, he decided as he watched from afar, would have done something other than scream- the question just was what he could do. He had nothing with him- two swords, and a circle of helpless guards that had surrounded him, making sure he couldn't get away- as if I would, he thought, indignantly. The renegade outlaw- never mind that he saved the princess from execution- was followed by a score of soldiers trying to regain their masculine pride. Even if he did know what to do- he had no way of doing it.
And then, on lightning impulse, praying it would work, he hurled the swords into the fray.
-
As she leapt away from the lethal cane, she heard it.
The dry air peeling back quickly, as something fell forward. It shook and faltered in its speeding descent. Her head whipped back trying to catch a glimpse of it, a black blur coming through mauve. It fell short.
Another blur sped through, like an arrow being shot through the tiny cracks in the walls.
It came closer, and closer- and she realized what it was. Sprinting towards the shadowy object, Rika reached out to it as it fell. Eagle's pinion sharp, it landing in her hand, falling, shining like a cast out star, and landing with a familiar, leather grip.
A sword.
The fairy had caught up with her now, breathing ragged. "Death holds you in a tighter grip today, little princess, sword or no. Don't try to run from it, now." Her hand whipped forward, moving the undulating walls towards her.
They snaked forward to her, engulfing the cane. Carefully, the metal prodded and pulled the shadowed color forward, shaping it so that it became thinner, longer, more alive.
She could swear that she saw it move.
It hissed as it dripped downwards, gluey. It became vine like, serpentine, tightening around the cane, lifting and drooping up and down. Rika stood back, wary, sword point up.
"It's just a few little friends of mine, dear goddaughter," the fairy murmured. "Friends that you could have met so much earlier if I had just been given a chance." She shrugged. "At least you'll meet them now, princess. I'm sure they'll love you."
Was is just her? Or were the words being heard from the inside of her head?
Her godmother chattered on happily. "You've never had friends like these, Rika. They don't care about the order of the salad fork, the fish fork, the soup spoon. They don't have to like the marchioness from the south. They merely go to the point and finish things. Rather like you," she smiled. "Rather like you." The cane had lifted up, it's dangerous point wrapped with the shadows.
Metal rushing forward. Rika's muscles reacted before her brain did, whipping sword into play. Shadowy fragments tumbled away from her bleeding hand, the black sword. "Perhaps," she said, through gritted teeth, "not quite." Feinting right, she hammered forward, uppercuts raining down.
Each one was bluntly blocked by the cane. "Oh no, my dear." The fairy sidestepped, letting shadows flow from her to the sword. "Take a close look."
Purple iris shadows rolled fluidly towards her hand, stealing away the warmth and color. Behind it, there was merely a blank emptiness, dark fog on a winter's chill night. Coiling around her bleeding finger, the shadows swelled as Rika shook her hand frantically, trying to shake them loose.
"It doesn't work," the cane swung towards her. "They're leeches. My own little darlings, all of my creative invention. Death only by cold iron and holy water. Such determined creatures. Persistent until they die, loyal to the end."
The shadow had already started to grow on her, a plant on new, rich soil. Vines twisted her hand like a bracelet. Shifting the blade's weight to her other hand, Rika lunged forward. "Leeches."
"Yes, that's quite correct."
"They're fat, blood-sucking, little worms with nothing better to do but gorge on others." The princess ducked. "Rather like you."
A low-flying cane angrily cracked across her forehead. Her breath flew from her throat in the shock, sending her back-
"Don't talk. Breathe" He stared at her, insistent.
"I was fine-" She stood up, freezing in the breeze maliciously blowing past them.
"Perfectly fine drowning, I know." He shook the water off his hair, sending tiny droplets into the frozen air-
Don't think. Breathe. She gulped back a deep breath, swallowing as she regained her balance.
Her hand was shadowed, she was tired, she was sore. There was no way out of this mess that was likely to happen anytime soon, and she was stuck in the middle of it all, until it had come to this peak point of catastrophe.
Yet she found a smile creeping oddly onto her face, pulling at the corners of her eyes, nudging her mouth upwards towards the rising sun. She kicked out against another swing from the cane, iron horseshoe ringing solidly in the morning air.
Breathe.
-
The fairy godmother looked down at her cane, an annoyed expression on her face.
There was a dent.
A horseshoe, branded into the metal, had pushed its way into her wand, lodging the distinctive iron shape flat into the side of the cane.
It was iron. It had to be- the element that solidly went on without magic, that had been of science and earth and all things practical. Magic's bane, it's silent, cold enemy. Iron was a calm, solid metal, that had no illusions- just gray, dull shine.
The shadows had crammed into a smaller space, seeming to grumble as they shortened and blended together. Iron made it skittish, as if the darkness was dancing away from a cold flame.
Rika kicked out once more. Without thinking, she blocked it.
Yet another crack.
The princess's sword flashed into play once more, scratching against the cane's silver. It couldn't be iron, would it? Swords were made of silver, or steel- never pure iron, never this tough.
Yet the cane was scratched and dented, looking as if it had merely been made of common wood. Splintering, even.
Panic began to seep in slowly to the feral brain.
It's imagination only. You're naturally worried, so you have a bit of paranoia, she reassured herself. Just look at her. She's weak. She's helpless.
You'll crush her.
She swung the cane to block the flashing light of the sword. Daylight was streaming in now, through cracking magic running wild. Panting, she pulled her magic toward her, trying to slow it, stabilize it back into the looming walls. Rushing into the cane, the mauve flew back, pushing inwards, bringing the walls in closer and closer, until it formed a bubble of walled magic, nearly crackling with electric energy.
The fairy, she told herself, was in control. She was the one with magic, she was the one who would demolish the arrogant young princess and her iron sword.
A tiny sliver of clouded gray peeked through the red and purple thunderstorm above them. Mocking her control, it sent ordinary rain down through the walls of magic at its slow, unaltered pace. Tapping down, it pooled into puddles of murky mud that splashed over bare feet. For a moment, she spared a glance upwards towards angry heavens, pounding their displeasure towards her, ageing her euphoria to a slice of reality.
And in a silver rush of wind, steel sliced her cane in two.
It grated, pulling the ball of purple-black in towards it, stretching a roiling magic that hissed and turned and screeched as if alive, fingernails on chalkboard. Screams intertwined, sword and human and fairy, in the exploding rush. There was nothing but darkness for a sliver of time, and the tight grip of old silver and forged steel burning away in blind hands.
Don't talk. Breathe. Each breath was a labor, a triumph. Ragged in the magic's downpour, godmother and princess lunged forward, pushing against the other. Sword and cane were locked together, steel embedded through the middle of silver.
It was a blur of shadows and magic, steel and rain and smoke mixing in air. Rika's hand was screaming now, heavy with shadowed magic growing fatter by the second. It dripped onto her from the arch of cracks and rain that made up the sky. The ground blended into with the melting sky, iris robes fluttering like a bedraggled moth in the storm.
And perhaps her eyes were tricking her, hallucinations to ease this pain, but was- could it be- the godmother was slowly becoming one with the chaos. As if somehow, in some impossibility, the water and mud ate away at her, sucking her into her own tangled web of magic. Panting breaths, the fairy's blood ran slower, starved for oxygen. She hadn't moved far from home, much less fought, for the past decade, and she felt her age.
The web's tangled threads caught around her feet, snaring her. It was no longer part of her now, but something separate, rushing like a hungry swarm. They shied away from the steel, mobbing the silver wand.
A cracking voice screamed out, furious, wordless in its rage. Pain echoed in it, fear rang through it, bell-clear and sharp as a shard of glass. Rika stood still, her legs threatening to blow away underneath her, drops of magic clinging to her. She felt fragile, as if she was nothing more than a leaf's dried skeletal frame. The princess was burnt away in the storm, a raging silence crashing onto her, a whisper sharp in her ear.
Vengeful spite lashed out from a godmother who wouldn't let go. "You think you've won, little girl?" Her voice rose for a moment, angry and alive. "Think again. My spells don't die so quickly. You will be stuck with your lovely little flower allergy for quite a while longer."
Rika was out of breath, choked in the downpour of magic. She stayed silent, helpless to the rush of curse-spells pouring out. Magic-amplified, they boomed past the cracking waves of mauve and violet chaos dancing around them.
"And the princess will fall deep into poisoned sleep, never to awake until her true love kisses her," The final words sealed off her curse, shaking with effort. "And if one who is not true kisses her, he will die with her, withering away until eternal death."
A scream rose and died in Rika's parched throat. The final wave was coming, a tsunami of crackling electric energy. Dim sunlight shone past it, the sky peeking out in a shade of gray. The fairy's final syllables were backlit, a wavering silhouette unraveling as magic claimed her.
"And there will be no happily ever-"
The wave crashed down, engulfing them, sending the last words flying away like a flock of dark birds. Iron and silver clashed together, bell-like, in the onslaught of wind.
Her eyes fluttered closed, the wand of thorns piercing her finger. And in the death-laced dark, the corners of the princess's eyes creased downwards as a memory wafted in through the storm of tears from the sky.
She thought she smelled roses.
-
The wave of magic had crashed over her, and he was helpless.
Yet still running towards it, hope or no, as fast as he could. His legs threatened to fold under him. But still, he kept up his pace, trying not to hope too much, fear too much. To not think at all, really.
The rubble was clearing, steam and overspill blocking the path, creating small mountains and canyons in the flat courtyard. An iron sword poked out, a marker glinting dully in the rain. Sprinting to it, he went through the remaining people, darting through them as a triggerfish through coral.
His leg could be bruised, could be bleeding, could be chopped off- but Ryo didn't notice, ignoring the pain of thin boots, rough splinters of dead wood. Lost in the running, of the left-right-left-right flow of it all, he continued, leaping across the sword marked tomb.
The chaos was highest here, destruction rampant. A mound of uprooted soil had risen up, studded with silver, with vines that had grown up in the ground. Thorny vines and gray shadows mixed and turned. There was no trace of the fairy godmother but the fragments of cloudy metal and magic, fading away. He clambered over it, heart thudding.
Was she dead?
His breath was caught, mind so intent on answers it wanted to do nothing else but find the truth. The princess was scratched and bruised, eyes so tightly closed it seemed as if she was dead. Snaking vines had settled around her, roots sunk deep into the ground below. Already, enchanted leaves poked out of the twisted maze of rosewood. At a speed only magic could obtain, the roses moved through the seasons, growing tightly curled buds, soft pearl white and cream.
They could be bridal roses, happy love, or funeral roses tangled around her, for final sleep. It all depended on how you looked at it, Ryo decided to himself. It could be both.
Rika would have laughed at him, told him not to be such an idiot.
People were murmuring behind him, guards dispersing. The aftermath of a storm was always this way- a calming, trying to get life back to it's normal beat once more. Precedents were discussed, damage repair costs estimated. Sane, normal life.
But could it ever even get close to normal peace when there was a hole in it the size of the sun?
He bent down, kneeling on the mud. He watched her breathing slowly grow shallower, her ashy skin grow pale. The final shadows slithered off her fingers and into the death's roses, love's roses- perhaps they were the same thing after all. Tiny, pale flowers spread out, a living tomb.
It might have been, he heard, softly behind him. It could have been happy.
Could have been. Might have been. Would have been. The words echoed in his head bouncing back and forth.
Could he do this?
Should he do this?
Let her go as a thing that may have happened? To recall, in misery, the time when she was there? Was it better, he wondered, to end this now, to walk away dead until the day he left this earth? Would he let his words, his promises, his life- move on as the rest of the earth did?
Could he live with one more cold grave?
Ryo leaned forward.
The young councilor, watching out of the corner of his eye, turned, dropping his papers and polite courtesy to the ground, sprinting towards him.
"Don't do it!"
Alice, close behind, reasoned with him, shouting. "You'll die! Don't throw your life away for this-" The words faded away, unheard.
People turned, looking back at the silence that was coming, as Ryo leaned closer, brushing aside a curl of vine, a smudge of dirt.
And there, in the mud, rain soaked, weary of soul and body, he kissed her.
For a moment, there was nothing but the wind flowing past him, the stunned silence left behind. A fly buzzed past, oblivious to drama.
Seconds ticked by. A minute. Raindrops fell and hit the ground, nature slowing down to match the moment. Perhaps he would die after all- perhaps he could feel himself dying now, slowly and painfully as the curse had said-
And two amethyst eyes flickered open, and glared.
-
"You could have died. You might not have been the one. Did you ever think about that, hero-boy?" She was sitting up now, the tangle of roses pushed away roughly, so that they circled her in an earthy halo.
He sat next to her, mud soaking into his pants, rain dripping from his hair. "No, not really." Unnaturally cheerful, he grinned at the princess.
"You're doing all this just to impress me, aren't you?" She glared suspiciously at him.
"Is it working?"
"You absolute idiot!" She frowned at him, pushing as much ice in as she could, trying to keep her voice from melting, softening.
"Did it work?"
Rika was silent for a moment, turning away to pull a bedraggled ribbon off one of her mud and silk sleeves. She picked at the lace, face blank and cold.
"Yes. It did." Her head turned back towards him. "So?"
He smiled triumphantly. "I knew it."
"How in the world did I fall in love with someone as stupid as you?" The glare was faltering, melting away faster and faster- a spring thaw. Her eyes were past saving now, full of tired tears and happiness, a heaven of violets' souls.
"You'll just have to live with it, princess."
"I know."
"Forever."
-
Authoress notes:
This ending was incredibly hard to write. Incredibly. It took a lot to pull this through, everyone... A huge load of Korean drama OSTs off youtube, speed-cramming homework and studying, some hardcore ranting, and a lot of bread. My brother was born, stalling it.
As an author, it's hard to close the book, to write "the end" and tuck the story away. Perhaps because true love stories never really have an end. Perhaps I got too attached to Thorns, and my Itachi, my Priscilla, Rika and Ryo and the entire cast. And perhaps this ending was incredibly stupid and boring. Perhaps it was actually... good?
But it was worth it to write this.
Every single minute.