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She knew that Subspace was there when a single daffodil in her hand began to wilt.
It took much patience for Vinestaff to take up gardening. Of course, she had the talent of a green thumb innately born into her, given her gear. Additionally, the peace she had come to gain at her age and condition allowed for the virtue of patience to blossom from its strong roots. It took many years and resources to cultivate the beauty and vibrancy of a flower; almost anyone could bring a plant to the minimum of existence with carelessly rationed amounts of sunlight and water, but a plant showed its satisfaction in its existence by the way the color of its flowers popped out against subdued bushes and filled the air with a pleasant fragrance. Vinestaff had learned how to love her plants with practice, and they favored her care with the reward of life and the gift of patience.
Patience was supple like willow and sturdy like oak, but the stench of wafting rot could erode a tree entirely with ease. She believed that only time could wear a tree to a true and peaceful death, but her faith in that notion fell when she was introduced to Subspace's rot. Wherever Subspace went, she killed. Her rot was not limited to the arena—it spread like a plague, infecting life in everything until it consumed the weakest and began to etch away at the strongest. The life that Vinestaff had spent time, energy, and patience to cultivate withered so easily to the rot born from an innermost desire to kill.
But Vinestaff still loved Subspace; she loved her dearly. Subspace had life, too—wilting slowly just as hers was. It took just a touch of compassion to see Subspace for herself and not as her rot, yet many seemed to have their hearts left untouched. And Subspace loved her back, not in return for how Vinestaff doted on her like most assumed, but she loved her back because she could and she would. Even on the days of immense pain that reminded her with the flashes of memories in her head and shots of pain up her right arm, Subspace still sought Vinestaff's arms wrapping around her like ivy's protection on a crumbling stone wall.
So even if the plants were dying, so were they. And just as the seeds of a new generation sprang from a wilting plant, so did memories from a dying pair intertwined.
The hanging leaves and stems of the flowers reached for her as she walked through Vinestaff's garden, but she took extra care not to allow her rot to affect the plants, even if they both knew it was inevitable that the flowers would die when she passed by. Despite the inevitable fate, she had done a marvelous job keeping her distance from the plants and containing her rot by holding her breath until her face looked as pink as her crystal.
Vinestaff turned around and giggled upon seeing Subspace's face, "You shouldn't hold your breath."
When Subspace had reached the center patio of the garden, she freed her vaporous breath into her hands until the particles dissipated. "I just did not want to kill off all of your hard work." However, she winced when her eye landed on the daffodil that Vinestaff had been cultivating, its soft yellow petals now crumpled until it looked almost charred. "Though I see I did not succeed..."
"Don't feel bad, Subspace. This one was reaching its time, anyway." Vinestaff brushed her finger over the wilted petals with an odd peace to her demeanor; it was a beautiful peace to Subspace, but it was so strange to her that someone so young and beautiful had so much peace when she was doomed from the very second she existed.
The two sat in silence, but when Subspace could not move her mouth, she moved her figure instead. She began to feel fidgety, scratching at the stone of the patio with her claw and rocking back and forth to soothe the anxiety that she did not know the source of. The garden was tranquil—a dreadful atmosphere for Subspace. Blackrock was like a beehive, as something always had to be done. As if barking orders to subordinates and conducting experiment after experiment was not enough work for her, Subspace had recently found out that she wrote sloppy notes and ideas for new experiments in her sleep. Tranquility brought silence, and silence brought the fear that nothing would be done. And if nothing were done, then no progress could be made; if no progress could be made, then none of Blackrock's goals would be accomplished. And—
"Subspace." The fleshier of Vinestaff's hands rested on Subspace's good shoulder, grounding her like an anchor. Subspace unintentionally released an exhale of surprise, but she quickly captured the vapor from her breath back into her hands, burning them with the searing effect of the rot. Her palms and fingers tinted just slightly more of that sickly neon pink as the particles sank into her flesh, but she gritted back the tingling pain and squeezed her hands shut quickly to numb the pain.
Vinestaff began to rub Subspace's shoulder to relieve her of the tension in her body, "You shouldn't do that. You'll only hurt yourself even more."
"Sorry!! Just didn't want you—"
"Shh..." As if Vinestaff's voice was a soothing spell, Subspace's voice dropped from a screech to a murmur. The only time she remained calm and was satisfied with the serenity was when Vinestaff guided her to that airy state of mind.
There was no need for her to apologize with words, as Subspace allowed her silence to do the talking. Vinestaff's smile was always peaceful, and so Subspace always sought to keep that smile on her face; peace looked beautiful on her.
Vinestaff retrieved a pair of scissors in her roped belt and snipped the withered flower off of the step, resting the beheaded blossom into the dirt. Sensing her restlessness from the silence that had fallen upon the pair, Vinestaff pulled Subspace a little closer by the arm until she was close enough to drape her arm around her shoulder.
"Do you know why it is good for flowers to die?" she asked as she put the scissors to the ground. It was a morbid question, but it was one that Subspace was willing to entertain. Anything was better than this dreadful silence.
"Why so?"
"It allows for new life to form. If it tries and tries so hard to return to health again when it shows it is impossible, it can even kill its other fellow flowers in the process."
Subspace perked up a little bit, adding to her fact, "Yes, and withered flowers release ethylene gas that can kill the other flowers!!" She had done a little wiggle in excitement, and Vinestaff laughed sweetly at her excitement of the scientific aspect of flower life. The day that Subspace had seen Vinestaff's garden, she had immersed herself in the science of botany and dendrology simply to impress Vinestaff at first, but it soon grew into an appreciation for nature as well. While reciting the scientific name for a tree or flower made Vinestaff giggle with delight, Subspace also eventually found Vinestaff in every single part of nature. The rustle in the leaves, the exact count of petals that determined if the flower was a monocot or a dicot, and down to the mere soil where the flowers grew from she soon found the thought of Vinestaff follow in her train of thought.
"Indeed! A sad truth it can be to watch a piece of life die in such a way, but..." Vinestaff brushed aside the stem which she had cut the flower from, revealing a stalk of several immature daffodils springing from behind. Subspace marveled at their gentle yellow color that tried to reach out to her and Vinestaff. "When it dies, many new things can spring from it."
"And if it chooses to be stubborn and uncut... it would be taking all the nutrients for itself and releasing harmful gas!! A selfish act for a mere flower!!" Subspace huffed, eyeing the wilted flower with contempt. Maybe it was best that she had rotted that stupid flower—
"Yes, but do not find fault with the flower... for I, too, was once like it."
Subspace's mouth dropped open from beneath her gas mask. For Vinestaff merely to compare herself to a withered flower alone made her ready to spring to her defense, and for her to imply any sort of selfishness on her own character was beyond appalling.
"Vinestaff!! You, SELFISH?! No, no, NO!!" Subspace threw her arms around Vinestaff's neck to hug her and rock her back and forth. "You could never be selfish, my darling blossom!! You have the grace of a swan, the kindness of an angel, and the beauty greater than the most precious rose!! Even I at my worst would NEVER compare you to something as lowly as a rotten daffodil!!"
Vinestaff laughed a little, but she guided Subspace's arms back to her own space, "Subspace, dear, you are missing my point." Vinestaff picked up the wilted daffodil to Subspace's face. It reeked of the stench of rot, but it only seemed to affect Vinestaff, as Subspace was accustomed to the smell.
"It is no secret that I am slowly dying, my dear. But I was once like this daffodil, too; I was stubborn, so obsessed with searching for a cure to my curse that I ignored what mattered most—the present. I almost wilted myself in a frenzy to search for the comfort of a cure, but it is in the present that I finally feel more alive than ever."
"Oh, Vinestaff..." Subspace used her good hand to cup Vinestaff's cheek, though her own eye was more teary than Vinestaff's. "I swear to you, my dearest blossom, that I'll find a cure!! I will drop all of my work if you just say the word!! I will—"
"Shh..." Vinestaff hushed her again, and just like before, she fell into a serene silence. "The only cure you can give me is yourself. Simply enjoy the moment with me, and that shall be enough."
Still, Subspace tried to scrounge for excuses to cure her of her ailment. In silence, Vinestaff listened to her ramble on and on about possibilities for a cure and what they could do when Vinestaff was healthy again. But when she had wrenched her heart out from desperation to exhausted tears, Vinestaff was the one to wipe away her tears. She scooped her into her arms and held her close, stroking her thin, stringy hair to soothe her.
There really was no point in Subspace searching for a cure for Vinestaff, and it was a harsh truth to swallow down. She always lived in the extreme, but the extreme would only be a detriment to both of them. She would lose herself in research for a cure until she lost the memory of the reason for her work, not to mention that her own rot was killing her just as Vinestaff's curse was. But perhaps Subspace had reached a certain peace with her rot just as Vinestaff had reached with her curse; instead of demanding a remedy from Vinestaff, all she wanted from her was her love.
Even as cruel as Vinestaff's fate and Subspace's consequences were, they allowed them the blessing of a few special moments together, and that was more than enough for the both of them.
Between breaths that slowly evened out, Subspace choked in the crook of her neck, "You know, my blossom... Maybe if we spend enough time together, it'll feel like we've lived our entire lives together."
Vinestaff smiled as she embraced Subspace and rested the wilted flower back into the soil, letting it sit right beside its offspring that carried out its memory in ever-growing life.
"There's no quota we have to fill, dear. As long as you're with me here and now, we've already shared a thousand lifetimes together."