"How are you feeling, Ivy-Mother?" asks one of my Petal caretakers, their true-voice lighting up my candle-lacking bulb. They've tried their best to find me a substitute one while mine is being repaired. But, I wish she wouldn't call me that. I swore off that title and role, ever since the Petal of our flower was damaged when...

When my love... He...

"Ivy-Mother!?" the Petal brightly goes as tears silently run down my face. Shaking my head and biting down on my lip, I retreat under the covers of my bed. It traps the scent of my bitter despair and exposes me to my battered body and its odour. The warmth of this comfortable cavern and my emotions do a lot to heat me up.

Tubes strike the marble ground and I sigh as I come to terms with my solitude. I can only guess she left to find me something that would make me feel better. Maybe she thinks I am in pain and need something to kill and dampen the suffering. However, she will never find any such item, no story or even sensation can make me feel better.

All I want, the only things I want is my love. My precious Nin. The man who proved himself so thoroughly by defeating that which never returned my affections. He is gone. My love is gone and only the God of Death shall ever feel his touch now and I am no priestess of Undwote.

An Ivy-Mother owes herself only to three of the divine, and I'm not even that anymore. Motrtha, Aahtha and Pluuit, Motherhood, Pleasure and Plants. Any means for me to find any happiness is gone. I will not honour the goddesses with my love-making and the seed that comes of it, nor the god by planting my beloved child so I can watch him spring.

I want one so badly and I deserve it so uncondi-

A roar echoes across the flower, catching on the turbulent wind. My eyes linger on the fluttering entrance to the bulb. My ears chase the dying sound and bounce back the way it came. The source is either very powerful or immediately close...

"Ah... Ah! Ah... A-Ah..." I let out as I get up and secure my bare points on the ground. Be it either the pain or the time I have spent resting, the act of walking is trying. This really is my first time getting up since... Since then. I do not even know why I am getting up.

Maybe in the silent recesses of my head, there are whispers telling me the simple truth. If I wish to be with my love again, I must let this beast kill me. Our vibrantly enlightened souls would entwine where no unjust evil could take us apart. Love stronger than the thickest of forest-choking vines would make us eternal.

Or, perhaps, in my misery, I want to see something squirm in pain. The reassurance that others in this mortal world suffer as much as I am right now. To watch as thorns tear it apart, to get that sadistic glee of knowing something shares my situation! Never again being able to see their precious lover...

Taking a blanket with me and wrapping up my naked self, I poke my head out of the bulb's entrance. Grip tightening ever more on the sturdy wooden poles as a bundle of thorns glow remarks between each other. A powerful creature has suddenly appeared in the sight of our wild-seers. They're glowing that it almost popped into existence.

From Nothing, Creation.

However, there is one detail in particular that is capturing my heart and my mind. It all is happening in the same place the Valkinvar killed the corrupted form of my precious love. Empty of thoughts and able to recklessly harbour the pain, I slip out and run. A quilt trailing behind my displayed beauty as a dress might.

The pain is catching up to me, however. With choking wheezes born from aggravated injuries, I slip into the remaining forest. Our flower is immobile while the repairs are happening, and it will not move while I am gone. If this is worth looking into, truly, I will have a home waiting for me.

Each stab into the ground, though, it hurts so much and I've barely moved away from the flower. Were it not for my standards, I would be retreating to the disgusting safety of the Stem or even the Roots! The occupants of these places barely have the right to see me when I am properly dressed. Let alone one hooking branch away from true nakedness.

If anything, it only fuels my drive to carry on and, like a man of old, I bite back the pain. I cross the night-shadowed lands and reach the lake. My body clings its way around, circumventing the looming corpse of the peak-broken mountain. Each time my bare points settle into the earth, the roars get louder.

Whatever is desecrating the grave and sacred earth of my precious love... It's unacceptable- Unacceptable. I will tear it apart myself!

All I can think about is that, tearing it apart with every breath of magic in my body. The strength the petals have been using to heal me, I shall turn into a means to destroy. This pain I feel, I will distil it so very finely into the beast. A blood-red wine so fine.

"Gods and goddesses, please lend me strength." I pray with the voice I spoke to my precious love with. Carrying on through the edges of the grounds my loved proved himself in, I grow flustered. Here he displayed himself to be the best lover I could ever want and have. My best chance at having a beautiful baby boy.

A dark form crashes into the dirt. Snapping around to face the middle of the grounds, my back presses up against the stone of the mountain. My eyes shake and my true-voice dims to not even a speck as the moonlit creature rises fully. The height of nearly two full-grown men!

The songs of safety break through into view and many forms leap forward to try and catch it. Likely even kill it. Their weapons whip and tear up the ground in elaborate displays of skill. Yet, not one goes in for the life-ending blow.

The first one makes their move, highlighted by hands rich with forming spells.

"KILL ME! WHY WON'T YOU KILL ME!?" the creature roars out again and again with each failed attack. Bladed saw chains wrap and come undone around its limbs, not a speck of blood covering their silver teeth. Magic, the colour of the Plant God's fruits and labour, rips no chunks from the suicidal creature's body. More and more, the creature throws itself at their attacks, breaking and dissipating them through sheer will and force.

The thorns back away, disarmed through no fault of their own. Some yelp in surprise as it starts to rip their armour off, only to smash it to a blunted, folded pile upon its head. It's so desperate to die it keeps forcing itself onto the broken chains. The creature throws itself onto the broken teeth of the chains. Rolling around with none of the imagery one might expect from someone like I would conjure in glass.

Yet, the more this creature speaks, the more I find myself unable to shake a strange feeling away. Though I can clearly make out the characteristics of the hated Osibindah race. The magic aura that fills it out, it's so very clearly human. Of the race born of spilt divine ichor and the clay it soaked. Bright and warm with the Orbital-Halo's light, as fresh as that which departs the All-Coast Sea. This is no osibindah. The sickly, unwelcoming brown is nowhere to be seen. There is only prehnite's glitter.

A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

Never mind the subtler aspects of a creature's individual magical aura. How the internal-magic reserves paint the muscles, how the external-magic flow places them in this world. I've seen it before. And, as the creature wildly charges for the remains of one of the great weights, I find myself blind no more.

As it lifts the tower of iron and oak, I see how it is indistinguishable!

Running with all I have, I move closer to the platform where he is trying to bury himself. The one I sneered at him with scorn and contempt. Where I prayed for his fall and the victory of the Gilded-Bark. I rush past the thorns and slip by their abrupt notice.

The creature, no... My... He notices me and charges, the weight still falling. Taking me tightly into his arms and leaping us into the sky with ground-breaking force. The wind howls at our trespass and we bounce along the ground into the Petals of the flower. With a quivering set of lips, I return his grip, although he is trying to draw out our flower's strongest with each roar.

"KILL ME!" my love roars for once again as the Gilded-Bark jumps out into the open, spear in hand. Suddenly, my love spins me around, locking my neck into his bulging bicep. Almost choking on the armour muscle, I drift my hands up. I need to...

"Rose'lhia!" the Gilded-Bark manages to flashbang out as his spear nears the perfect throwing angle. Our leader wants me to know that I am safe, but that is not what needs to be done. The one who needs to know everything is ok is right here. Holding me with the release of death being all he can think about.

I need to hurry; I need to find the strength, otherwise the Gilded-Bark will plant his weapon, blade first. A thin tree with sap the colour of loved blood. I cannot let it happen. Thankfully, despite my wishes for the opposite, the flower still sees me as Ivy-Mother.

No one out of all who are gathering with weapon and magic will strike. It's trying to leave its body open for attack, but, with me here, they will not. To so much as hurt an ivy-mother is to be damned in life and excommunicated from all our beloved traditions and practises. Magical and religious. More importantly, birth.

"You are her... You are her... Good." the creature whimpers as its grip loosens into erratic trembles. My heart skips a beat and I hide my smile against his shell. He was looking for me? My precious love has returned and was looking for me!?

My true-voice lights up and I shutter it for the sake of words, "You... You know who I am?"

What sounds like tears escape it, and its grip ends completely. Before the first arrow can fly, I spin and latch onto the tearful being. He hugs me back as tight as I can with him. A gasp escapes me as my words fail to form.

"I'm sorry Rose-sweerui... I'm sorry for nearly killing you... I'M SORRY!" Nin lets out as his actions turn tender and gentle. Enough so that thorns can slip in and remove me from his grip. My injuries keeping me in place, I am forced to oblige while others wrap my love's limbs in their bladed chains.

Those holding me place me against the Gilded-Bark and their lead steps up, "Orders?"

"Take my spear and kill it!" the Gilded-Bark hisses, his weapon becoming a great honour for the ranked individual. She eagerly takes the weapon and almost carries it out as my love whimpers between dire thoughts. He wants to die yet sought me out. He sought me out over dying!

Moving out of our aware leader's grip, I present my true-voice for all to see, "DO NOT TOUCH HIM! RESTRAIN HIM IN A BUSH, BUT YOU WILL NOT DRAW HIS BLOOD!"

Half-way through forcing my way to block the spear-holder, the Gilded-Bark steps forward, strong and bulky arm up and high, "Ivy-Mother, that's an osibindah! We must kill it!"

I freeze up a little at that fact, though it is my love. That is the truth now. He has become an osibindah. Not one like all the others, but one nonetheless. Regardless of the challenge the gods and goddesses have presented me with, however, I still love him.

I still honour Motrtha's calling!

"So you say, but name one that acts this way? What osibindah speaks to me with familiarity and knows our culture enough to refer to me as his Sweerui?" I try to argue and the Gilded-Barks scoffs with the throw of his hands.

"It doesn't matter how it acts, it's an osibindah!" he argues back, an arm out and lurching back.

"And I won't let you kill him! Not until I have had the opportunity to speak with it!" I flash towards him with blinding spectacle. He looks away with narrowed eyelids and brings his gaze back. A sneer on his malformed lips.

"From him to an it...? Fine, take it away!" he relents with a tired huff as he returns to his throne. His impromptu spear-carrier chasing after him so she can stow away the sacred weapon.

Lingering where I am as they take the osibindah away, I flinch in pain. Clutching my bruised side, I smack my lips at the copper taste in my mouth. The eyes of the Gilded-Bark and I meet. He shakes his head.

"Take that quilt back to your bed and rest. You're not done healing!" he orders, and I brush it off to follow the visibly awkward thorns. However, while I am unwilling to listen, he has a true and poignant point. One that speaks to me through hisses and grit teeth.

"Find me something to lie on." I glow to one of the uncertain-eyed thorns as the osibindah is put into its barbed bush. My attention remains on this creature of such peculiar familiarity. It only briefly turns away so I can kneel before its new confines and I set myself up cautiously, but close. Not for fear of this creature's claws, but the steel spikes so intricately moulded into a single metallic form.

For all the things this osibindah has, one detail remains distinctly the opposite: its eyes. His eyes. They're still what I remember Nin to have. Not powerful enough to glow with magic, but, like all soil, the potential is there for plains of grass and even forest.

"What is your name?" I ask it, speaking in words so he can properly understand me.

He initially doesn't answer, it only shakes with a chittering whimper that grows hotter, "You already know my name!"

Its head slams against the bars, snapping the spikes and bending the already worming metal out. I almost jump back at the effortless shattering, but I manage to keep my composure. I do not intend for my silence to offend. But with each lack of spectacle that is my sultry tongue, he snarls.

"NIN! MY NAME IS NIN!" he roars against me, opening his vile jaw to unveil what has been lost and what is gained. My suspicions finally settled, I reach out for my distraught love and place my hand on him. I brush what metal lingers on his invulnerable shell and tenderly guide my nails into the gaps in it. What sounds like a purr escapes him involuntarily and he moves back with something universal.

Embarrassment.

I smile deeply at my precious love and bid for him to return to my hand. Something he does with the eagerness of a haunted child and its caring mother. Were it not for the pain it would cause, I would giggle so sweetly at the thought. I would let myself be enthralled by the idea of doing this with our future child. So freshly sprouted from the nutrient-rich earth.

I lean in, scooting closer as tears build alongside my growing sense of excitement, "Can... Can you tell me my name again?"

I can barely believe it, my precious love is back, and he's right here!

"Rose... You're Rose'Ihia! M-My Rose-sweerui... You are the one who mainly looked after me after I escaped that hive... You ran out and kissed me during that tournament... I tried to..." he lets out, almost sobbing as if he needs to justify to me why he is alive and real. Smiling, I use my magic to break the lock, much to the thorns' surprise. My love comes out and holds me close and I return the affection.

My love... My love is alive! All the gods and goddesses in the heavens and still wandering the Last Garden. He's alive, he is back.

They only have my gratitude, they need only but ask and I will give it. Anything at all! My tears wet the dark armour of my precious love. He may not have the soft tenderness of skin, fat, and muscle. But this is him... It is him.

"I cannot even begin to describe how happy I am...!" I can barely get out as I lean away to wipe away the tears streaming down my face. Despite my previous reservations, gentle laughs leave my lips as my tongue wets them and I flex their plumpness. Yet, I cannot find it within me to move in and kiss him.

It worries me, knowing that I am unwilling to move in and show my love but-

"Ivy-Mother!" blinks a thorn as I become aware of how many are arriving. Perhaps because of the sound of shattered lock steel? Shaking my head, I put my focus on them while my body maintains the hug. Nin is so large compared to me now, it's almost like how I would try to make the Gilded-Bark hold me in a time gone.

"Stand down, I am fine!" I flash to a thorn while stroking Nin's head. Slowly, I move him closer to my bosom to show the control I have over this situation. Though, I guess, one thing I am hoping for is that his love for me will extend into this bristling magic aura he is surrounding me with. A subconscious effect to make this power heal me faster.

Thankfully, to have my precious love in my arms once more, it makes it so easy to ignore the pain.