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When Azalia was younger, her mother had taught her how to speak through flowers. It was a language taught to every noble child, one of discreet promises and threats, hidden fears and unspoken desires. Azalia never put much thought into it, being blessed by Magran, blooms and trees and weeds seemed so far out of her element, she was never able to grasp the subtleties of various arrangements, her bouquets ending up either too blunt or incoherent. She knew she’d never reach the mastery to rival that of her sister Kalena, who was able to weave a sweet-smelling message of soft-worded rejection, or a deceitfully beautiful bunch of thinly veiled insults. Azalia loved watching the recipients of Kalena’s bouquets, their faces going from stunned at the beauty of them, to flickering through a myriad of emotions when they finally grasped the full meaning. Azalia knew she’d never be as proficient as Kalena, so she paid no mind to it, confident she could do without that part of her education.
As it often happens in life, something she didn’t much care for, soon became essential.
It was that peculiar time, when her abilities had just started manifesting and she learned she could convey her feelings mind to mind, soul to soul, without the imperfection of words and their ambiguity. There was a moment when she thought she could abandon verbal communication altogether, because what could be more straightforward and more truthful than being a presence in someone else’s mind?
Except it quickly turned out that for people who were not like her even love could feel like an assault, and that what she tried sending out was more often than not a confusing jumble of emotions and sensations, apparently particularly disturbing if the recipient was taken by surprise.
Azalia remembered the terror she felt when she accidentally rendered her little brother unconscious just by trying to share with him a simple, yet precious memory. There was also an underlying disappointment in the sudden realization, not only that she had to be more careful with normal people, but also that she’d never be able to truly share those powers.
Azalia’s mother found her sitting in the dark corner of her room, trembling and wallowing in despair; she wiped hot tears off her daughter’s face, while promising on and on that Azalia’s brother was feeling better already and didn’t blame her at all. She brought with her a bouquet of baby’s breath and cinquefoils, and put it on Azalia’s nightstand while she was finally getting to bed. And then she asked Azalia to repeat what she remembered of the language of flowers, taking the images of them to her sleep, and oh, could it be that simple?
Flowers made feelings clear in a way she was not able to communicate herself. So even though it took some time, eventually Azalia learned to talk in flowers through her mind, to translate her feelings into bouquets, and to see them in others in the same way.
A few months later, she was introduced to her trainer, a stern orlan, who taught her to navigate her powers. He showed her not only how to wield them properly, but how to shield herself and others, how to enhance her abilities, and even how to attack, but he was not prone to share anything else, reluctant to let her in even when necessary.
At some point, Azalia almost stopped yearning for the moment when she could walk freely through someone else’s mind.
*
Every cipher’s mind was their kingdom, one crafted tirelessly throughout their lives, where anything of import was concealed behind details that seemed meaningless, while in truth they were heavy with the cipher’s personal choice of symbolism. Azalia’s mindscape, for example, was a meticulously constructed maze garden, her memories hidden within flower beds it its corners and dead-ends, out of touch and out of sight to anyone but her (used to be, at least, before the Awakening, before the foreign-yet-familiar presence invaded it and started seeping through its paths and walls).
Grieving Mother was different. She was yew and purple hyacinths, shrouded in uncertainty and loss. She wielded her powers with natural ease, an integral part of her entire being, making her use of them seem almost callous. Her mind was like an open canvas, a chaotic, ever-changing landscape, with the Birthing Bell plateau as a centerpiece. It was surrounded by a thick, dark cloud; a memory neither hidden nor erased, but desperately ignored as if it could be forgotten.
Azalia felt exhilarated. There was no real need for simplification when touching the Grieving Mother’s mind, but at that point flowers and other flora accompanied Azalia’s powers without her conscious decision, making small golden celery flowers grow under her feet as she entered the other woman’s mind.
The other looked at them, glancing curiously at Azalia.
“The flowers. They have a meaning, yes?” she asked, touching yellow petals, that fell apart under her fingertips.
Azalia nodded shyly. “My mother taught me. It made things easier.”
“Could you show me? Please?”
The Watcher cocked her head, rising a corner of her lips in a mischievous smile. She lifted her hand, holding a single daisy.
Grieving Mother frowned and hesitantly took the flower by its delicate stem. She looked at Azalia, and the Watcher felt gentle tendrils of… something, searching her mind, like vines, creeping and probing in a tentative manner, until it found what it was looking for and pulled back, disappearing without a trace.
“You’ll… think about it?” she tried and Azalia couldn’t help, but giggle.
“I’m sorry. That was… pretty awful,” she admitted.
Grieving Mother paused for a while, and then there were two purple aster flowers in her hand.
“I share the sentiment,” Azalia translated, in an exaggeratedly acidic tone. “Fine, I’ll remember that,” she added with a wink, and then set to explore the surroundings.
The Birthing Bell seemed a beacon to her from behind its heavy veil, and Grieving Mother did nothing to abate her curiosity. The cloud felt chilly to the touch, dark mist wafting gently between the Watcher’s fingers.
Azalia went forward.
The memory swallowed her and then spat her out, its secrets still untouched.
*
“Why won’t you show yourself to others?”
They were sitting under a sycamore, sweet scent of freesia wafting in the air. It made Azalia smile a little, more carefree than she’d felt in weeks.
The world around their small patch of grass seemed a bit more stable than the last time, the forest gently changing colours, the sky blue and not overly cloudy. The Birthing Bell plateau loomed above it all unchanged, silent and oddly foreboding, and yet it made Azalia feel grounded every time she looked at it. It was something to fix, something to solve, and even though its meaning kept slipping out of her grasp, there was something solid behind it.
Much more so than her own increasingly volatile memories.
“I do not know what to show them,” said Grieving Mother, playing absent-mindedly with a vividly purple vetch flower."
“Just… you?” Azalia shrugged, pulled out of her musings. “They seem to have gotten used to having a cipher among them, so I don’t think you need to worry about their reactions.”
The other woman glanced towards the clouded memory and shook her head. She seemed to have shrunk on herself, hiding her features behind a veil of dark hair that had grown longer and thicker than just a moment before.
“I do not know what to show them,” she repeated in a whisper, the flower crushed in her fist.
Azalia reached out hesitantly and touched her hand. It turned deathly pale, almost transparent.
“Why not let them see you as I see you?” she asked softly, trying to stop the other woman from retreating even further.
Grieving Mother kept looking towards the plateau. The sky grew darker, and Azalia felt raindrops sizzling on her cheeks.
“I forgot how it feels to be seen; it makes me… afraid,” she admitted hesitantly.“And you see me… differently. You see more of me than anyone ever has.”
Azalia felt her face going hotter, and she was sure she must be glowing like a torch.
“Oh…” she stammered. “I’m… I’m honoured,” she added and then winced at how formal it sounded.
The other woman smiled shyly, her lips slowly turning from almost paper-white back to a lovely rosy colour Azalia tried not to dwell on too much.“Well, then I am as well.”
In the end, the cloud around the plateau seemed thinner that day, but turned out no less puzzling.
Azalia woke to the sound of chimes and a small vetch flower laying on her pillow.
*
Something was wrong.
There was no plateau in sight, just an endless, garishly coloured meadow, full of unknown flowers devoid of meaning, trapped under a constantly shifting sky painted in adra-green and soul-purple.
Where were they? Did she pull them into her own deteriorating mind? Was that what her perfectly crafted and cultivated mindscape had become?
Grieving Mother was sitting on her right, Iovara on her left, and Azalia felt like her mind was splitting in half.
“Is this real?” she whispered, trying to shield her eyes from the assault of conflicting sensations. The flowers were in bloom and rotting at the same time, their pungent smell making her nauseous.
“Is it ever not?” Iovara whispered cryptically, reaching out as if to touch her.
Azalia blinked rapidly, frantically pushing her hands away.
“No, that’s not… Are you really here? Or am I dreaming?”
“I am always here,” Iovara gazed at her calmly, standing under a white cherry tree. “I am your conscience. Or were you mine?"
Azalia wanted to shake her head, but the landscape tilted with her. The tree burst into flames, and Iovara just let them consume her as well. It was both painful and mesmerizing to watch, something to focus on, while the world around lost all meaning.
“We should leave,” Grieving Mother’s hair smelled of lilac and cypress, and that was significant, Azalia knew, if only she could concentrate long enough to remember, then…
“I need to know where I am first. I need to find… ”Everything. Anything. Myself.
“No, you just have to wake up.”
“No, I am not sleeping.” Azalia shook her head vehemently. The chaos was threatening to swallow her whole. “This is not how I dream. This is wrong, it’s all wrong…”
“Please, Watcher, just wake up, please.” There was desperation in the other woman’s voice that made Azalia panic even more.
“I can’t, I can’t, I don’t know what’s happening,” she sobbed.
There were hands on her face, and Grieving Mother looking at her with concern.
“I’m so sorry,” she whispered.
Later, Azalia would remember the kiss as a singularly most perfect moment of pure bliss, a few seconds of absolute stillness among the burning hurricane.
And then everything crashed and erupted in white hot pain.
Azalia woke up screaming.
*
There was a shift in the landscape, one Azalia wasn’t sure what to do about. They were standing on a field of pilgrim’s crown, and yet the sorrow was so palatable she could feel the yew needles piercing the skin on her feet.
The clouded memory seemed closer, more vivid, and yet it seemed to be fighting them on every step.
“I’m losing my mind,” Azalia said, earlier that day. “Let’s at least find yours.”
There was fear in Grieving Mother’s eyes, the deep foreboding just before you knew something horrible was going to happen.
They stepped in.
The cloud fell apart into a thousand marigolds.
*
At some point in her earlier travels, Azalia met, briefly, one other cipher. The woman seemed… cold, disturbingly so, in a way that had nothing to do with her pale elven features and snow-white hair, but more with her steel-blue eyes and the freezing depths of her mind hidden behind them. Azalia took a dip that ended up a dive into a mindscape that turned out to be an endless sea, dark and unforgiving, with its icy water closing over anyone who dared to touch it.
Azalia came out of it shivering and gasping for breath, sprawled on the street, passersby looking at her worriedly, and the cipher long gone.
She would have died, if the elf hadn’t decided to let her go. She would’ve drowned in a frozen sea, on a hot summer day, in the middle of a busy market street. Azalia knew cipher powers were dangerous, she knew they could be cruel and vicious, but there were limits that still terrified her, ones she would not cross.
And now, there were also some she could not even comprehend.
Well, Hiravias did seem to be fond of telling her over and over that for someone who goes snooping around in people’s minds and souls, she still could be astonishingly naïve.
Erasing a memory didn’t erase the deed. Azalia knew it, logically, and in her heart, and yet… and yet. She would do anything Grieving Mother asked her for. To her growing horror, she realised, she probably would’ve done it even without being asked. She would’ve done it out of sheer panic, of the persistent denial, of the could haves and what ifs about her own powers. It was too much for her already breaking mind.
So she took everything, chased every tendril of the memory, any loose snippet somehow connected to its existence and rediscovery, trying not to dwell on how much of them Azalia had to erase.
You will be barely more than a stranger to her, the not-Iovara whispered in her mind, it hurts to be forgotten, you will see.
“And it hurts to remember,” Azalia answered quietly, watching intently as Grievieng Mother opened her eyes and took a deep breath. She seemed… younger, with a soft, carefree smile on her face that felt like a knife through Azalia’s heart.
“Watcher? Are you all right? You look troubled.”
“It’s… it’s nothing.” Azalia waved her hand dismissively. “It’s the dreams. I just need a moment to collect myself.”
Grieving Mother nodded, and without another word went to collect her belongings.
Azalia took a shuddering breath, and slowly, delicately, she touched the other woman’s mind. And recoiled at the sight of it.
Because there was nothing familiar in her mindscape.
And there were no flowers.