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Time is… passing strangely.
The thought is bright. It flashes across the Regent’s mind like a comet through the sky. It burns up and winks out just as fast.
(He claws at the thought. Reaches and grabs for it with every fiber of his being. Bleeds himself on the attempt because anything, anything is better than this, than the vapid, vacuous nothing of endless contentment. He has to hold on to something, hold on to anything at all anything please anything anything—)
His hand closes around the stem of a rose.
Its thorns gouge into the shell of his hands like nails through wet clay. Not that it matters. It's such a pretty rose. As pretty as all the other roses that keep him company here. He turns it this way and that, watching the sunlight catch on the petals just so, gilding it in a brilliant gold. Something in the back of the Regent's mind wonders if there are meant to be this many roses in one place, but it is small and it is smothered.
What does he really know about this planet anyway? Maybe this many roses is normal.
And, alright, perhaps it would be nice to find out, to know more about this planet he's chosen to strand himself on. But that seems like a whole lot of effort for a primitive world that hardly knows anything of the stars. They haven't even consolidated a universal map of constellations yet!
Not that he'd study it if they did. Sure, it could be interesting. He might even enjoy it. But then he'd have to look away from the roses.
The monarch shuffles forward to cradle another one of the crimson blooms. Or, he tries to. A sharp, scraping pain reminds him that his legs are tangled up in the twisting, prickly stems. He remembers this. And then he remembers that he already knew this.
He turns to look at the source of his discomfort. The brambles wind playfully around his limbs.
I’m sorry. He thinks. I’m not trying to leave. I promise.
Which rankles him, a bit, honestly. Apologizing is for people who make mistakes. Leaving would count as one, of course, but he wasn’t actually trying to leave. Why would he? He’s happy—well. Maybe happy isn’t the right word. But he’s at peace. It’s peaceful here. He needn't even do anything to achieve it. The Regent can just sit here, amongst the roses, their pristine thorns and their velvet-soft petals, the air thickly perfumed with their unique aroma, and be at peace.
(It’s killing him. It’s killing him and he knows it. They’re creeping under his shell now, the brambles finding old, unhealed gaps to crawl into and dragging their thorns gleefully across soft void-flesh. It doesn’t hurt. It doesn’t hurt. Somehow, that’s the worst part. The agonizing numbness of it all. He wants to move, lunge forward, feel the thorns rip him open because the pain might make him real again. He can’t die, but he might die here. He knows this. Knows it like he knows the inevitable heat death of the universe, like the long, slow death of stagnation that he knows would have killed him the same way he’s dying now if he stayed back there.)
(But back there, he could try. He could scream and get the perplexed responses of his court. He could complain and get the fond dismissal of his peers. He could announce his departure and then he would leave to the ignorantly sad, but well-intentioned, wishes of his people. Back there he was real—)
The nectar rolling off of the petals of the roses is as red as the roses themselves. Idly, the monarch catches a drop on his finger. It seeps into the grooves of his hand, the red creeping along the lines of his palm. Contrary to the floral smell permeating his every breath, it tastes like iron.
(Red. Red and fire and flame. Flashing steel and burning eyes, brass-clad power that bled himself for the sake of their mission. Blood became sparking steel became shield became blade. The arc of a weapon wielded with the fury of immolating for untold centuries.)
He doesn’t move his hand. More red splashes across his shell.
Blasphemously, he thinks of other colors.
(Green. Liquid shadow and acrid venom sting. Cool, sleek, graceful like something that lives and breathes in time with the undergrowth. Wild, diligently-tamed savagery. Tooth and claw of a sharpness matched only by her equally sharp mind.)
(Pink. Death. Undeath. Peril on a leash, on a string, pulled taut around the throats of their foes. Simmering anguish that burned so viciously it froze cold and hard in her chest, whetted and honed into purpose. Kindness was not carved away to make space for it.)
(Blue. Strange little not-a-life. Handcrafted mind. Handcrafted heart. Breaking and building and breaking and building itself up again. Does it ever doubt how real it is? Or does it already know, like a planet knows to orbit around a star?)
(The Regent wants to hoard them all in a little box. They’re so interesting so uniquely absurdly different from each other and from him. His planet would never have produced people like this, absolutely devoid of the pain and struggle that must have carved them into the shape they are today. How would it have changed them? To be from his birth planet? Would the Ironclad still tear his ambition, the root of his suffering, to little bloody shreds? Would the Silent still overcome her screaming bones and rent muscles to prove herself to her family? Would the Necrobinder still exist in any recognizable capacity? Would the Defect? No, right? Right? Isn't the answer no?)
(What about them? What would they think? Would they prefer the answer to be no? Would they hate him for wanting an answer at all? He wants to go back to them. He wants to know more. He wants to know everything. He wants—)
A drop of red nectar lands on his knee.
Oh. Oops.
He tries to wipe it away. More red smears across his leg. It stands out against the dull bronze of the thin plating.
What a mess.
Another rose blooms in his field of view, a lovely organic burst of layered petals, brighter, more beautiful, more fragrant than the last, and it puts the mess out of his mind. How pretty! The flora on his home planet was never this pretty. Thank goodness he left it behind. It’s so dizzyingly vibrant that it might as well be luminescent in the night. The whole garden is bathed in a warm, rosy glow.
Night. Night? When did it become night? He could’ve sworn he watched the sun rise with the roses just a few moments ago.
Time is… passing strangely.
The thought is bright. It flashes across the Regent’s mind like a comet through the sky.
It burns up and winks out just as fast.