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Soft to the core, she’d told her in her dying words. Alisha was beginning to think that was true.
After all, the world had been saved, hadn’t it? All thanks to Sorey, and Rose, and the seraphim, and even Alisha herself, if merely in a roundabout sort of way. The malevolence had been purged down to the very corners of the earth, and soon, Alisha would take the throne—when all had been said and done, this was what she had wanted, wasn’t it?
Still, she couldn’t shake the imminent feeling that something was missing —a tightly coiled truth spun into an open wound. Something that bloomed in her chest like the most sinister of roses, each flower ablaze beneath her skin; she almost worried that one day, they’d expel themselves from within, bursting through the faultlines of her flesh. What a fitting way for her to die, engulfed by blossoms. Soft to the core.
She knew what was missing; she couldn’t bring herself to speak it.
It was fitting, then, that Alisha found herself in the garden that day, perched just outside the roses. An azure-blue sky stretched above her, endless, cloudless, and the flowers bloomed just as pink as the flush on her skin.
She let out a dreamy breath at the sight, for it was far more picturesque than any language had words to describe. What a beautiful world they had created— what a beautiful world she had created.
“I see you’re becoming sentimental again, Lady Alisha.”
The words made her heart leap from her chest, twisting around the flowers trapped in the cage of her ribs before finally landing in her throat. That voice could only have belonged to one entity, and she had died by her own hand (hers? hers?)
Alisha twisted her head around hard enough to snap her neck. It couldn’t-wouldn’t-can’t be her; it was.
Maltran took a seat next to Alisha in the emerald grass, reaching out to brush a still-gloved hand against the bush’s thorns. Strange, how she would so willingly touch them, but not the flowers.
“L-lady Maltran!?” Alisha gasped with a breath of empty air. “I thought you were— that you had—”
“You’re aware that’s going to get you killed one day, correct?” Maltran replied, her tone akin to erupting glass. “I suppose no matter how many times I tell you these things, you never learn.”
“Wh—” Alisha began, and she hated the way she looked at her, even if neither could look away. “Lady Maltran, what are you talking about?”
The tip of Maltran’s glove wafted over the briars slowly enough to be tantalizing. “The sentiment. You should know by now that you can’t let yourself become softhearted if you plan to be a knight, much less to rule.”
Alisha reached out and placed her hand against her mentor’s shoulder, just to confirm she was real; it felt warm to the touch, a gentle blaze. Moments later, she brought her fingers up to Maltran’s hair, and the perennial-pink ran through her splayed fingers like running water. Maltran, to Alisha’s surprise, permitted it.
“You seem surprised.” Anyone else, and Maltran’s expression might have appeared congenial. “Yet another thing that’s going to get you killed in the end.”
Maltran’s words didn’t phase her this time; Alisha’s vision was distorted by tears— tears for what once was and what she thought she’d never have again. For the first time, that open wound flooded with petals and buds didn’t feel like it was suffocating her. After all, she’d always known what was missing.
“I’m sorry, Lady Maltran,” Alisha spoke through her grief, pulling her hand away in time with Maltran plucking a single rose from its stalk. The thorns pierced her glove, leaving a single trail of red against the barbs. In any other circumstance, it would have been beautiful.
“You need not apologize to me,” Maltran drawled, keeping her voice level as she discarded the flower like a scrap of paper and left it to wilt. “Simply do better next time. That is all I expect from you, Lady Alisha.”
This was all too much— Alisha had thought she’d never see her again, yet here she was, bone and flesh and marrow, and how was she alive? For Shepherd's sake, she’d watched her die.
“I’m sure you’re aware roses were your mother’s favourite,” Maltran stated, her voice still painted with neutrality. Alisha couldn’t help but wonder why she would destroy them with that in mind.
“That’s right,” Alisha began, steeling herself enough to quiet her sobs, just as a good knight would. “You knew my mother. Back then, before…”
Maltran then moved to the next, snipping the rose from its stem. “I trained you as a favour to her.”
By then, Alisha’s face had flushed the same colour of the flowers before them, swallowing her shameful feelings to the pit of her stomach. Snip, snip, snip. There were now five blossoms sitting at her feet. She almost wondered if she’d expelled them herself.
“Lady Maltran,” Alisha started, even as it all began slipping away. When she continued, she didn’t know what more there was to say. “I— I…”
“Lady Alisha,” Maltran spoke, cupping her open palm around Alisha’s cheek. Her voice had never sounded so sugar-sweet. “It’s time to wake up.”
“What!?” Alisha froze, even in the haze she’d found herself swimming in, her presence floating away gracefully, and then—
—she shot upwards in bed, coughing and sputtering, and that open wound was back, all give without take. She felt the blossoms in her chest, beneath her ribs, and she wondered if she peeled her skin back, she’d spill roses.
“It… was all a dream?” she whispered, choking in conniptions as a single hand wandered to her chest. All of it felt so real, like a reassurance, so unlike anything else—
And then, moments later, she glanced over at her silken pillow to spy a single fuschia rose sitting in place like a harbinger, like an omen. Her fingers ghosted over the petals, and her voice squeaked with a muffled noise not unlike the sea; at least some part of it must have been real.
Alisha would have cried, if she had it in her. She would have broken down and sobbed until she spit petals from her sandpaper throat. Instead, Maltran’s name rested within her chest. She knew that Maltran had always been what was missing, but that they’d find each other eventually—and that they did.
Soft to the core.