CHAINED FLOWERS ( z. dragneel )

04 | "the most powerful"

04
{ "the most powerful." }

-

' h e
w h o
f o r g e t s. '

-

The scene starts with the girl dreaming. Of her times when she was still a goddess. She remembers the silver tomb full of stars and constellations and flowers every moon. There were geraniums that day when she saw the beautiful girl encased in silver and the boy who loved the girl so.

"Father, why did Mother have to die?"

"She isn't dead, dear. Creatures like us do not die."

The girl looks at the silver tomb, wherein her mother lies. Cold and empty of ichor. Starless eyes and no magic in her at all.

"Then why is she like... this?"

"Because people have forgotten her, my sweet."

"Forgotten?"

His eyes are darker and more solemn than ever. Sometimes it twists curiosity in her chest. How her father's eyes are different from hers. She has her mother's eyes, she has heard the servants lingering in the palace say. Different from her father's ebony eyes, hers are springs and newly blossomed leaves under daylight.

"Yes."

She is barely a hundred years old. Barely knowledgeable of the workings of the world her parents had crafted together. Her innocence is dripping from her eyes and her father is pained at how she too can one day disappear if she does not learn.

"How?"

"Because she loved them so much that she forgot that those who love are easily forgotten. Easier to fade."

She still doesn't understand. She probably won't for a long time, but her father will wait, because he will teach her.

"And in order to remain," her father said, his voice colder than ice. "You must make them fear you."

She hears wooden logs crackle beneath her and she opens her eyes. The stars glow above, with the crescent moon and the clouds billow softly like angels passing. Her lover sits a far distance away from her and she smiles to herself. Esen takes notice of the bandages covering her wrist and smiles wryly at how pointless the things are. She heals easily, she thinks as she starts removing the bandages.

Almost immediately, her lover rushes to his side. He's carrying a wooden bowl of what seems to be soup and the steam rises to the stop and it smells of potatoes and how many days has it been since she has last eaten, Esen cannot tell, but the smell has whet her appetite.

"It's wiser to let the bandages stay," he says, his voice oozing with concern. Her heart is a weak thing when it comes to him. It flutters so easily. "And I uh... got you this. It's potato soup with some mushrooms I found lying around."

Esen looks at him, his disheveled form. He is still clad in the same clothes, but there is something different about him. Once, there was a marble wall towering her, it's propped strategically between them and now with every move, every touch and every whisper, the cracks are forming. Cracks that would weather the great walls, cracks she wants to fix because I love you so much, but please don't love me back because I can feel the impermanence and the sorrow.

"I heal easily," Esen says, a little chilly like Ishtar on winter nights, but she sees the frailty in his eyes at the cruel words and adds, "I'm sorry..." She looks up and her lover is still warmth in the snowstorm, a glimmer in a cave filled with swirling darkness. The soup is in front of her. "Thank you for... this."

Her lover smiles at her and he's such a beautiful thing, such a precious gem that does not deserve this curse that has befallen him. "You're welcome," he says. "I'll eat over there if you need anything."

Esen think it's stupid that he has to go a ways from her when he could simply sit so she clutches the raven colored fabric and looks up with her eyes. "Stay..."

To be completely frank, Esen didn't expect him to do as told, but he did so anyway and now he's sitting in front of her, carefully sipping the soup from the bowl. She looks at her own bowl, uneven cuts of what seemed to be potatoes and mushrooms float in the soup and she takes an unhesitant sip.

It tastes... okay. Or maybe Esen's standards were just that low since she's counted years before being able to taste food. When you are undying and in despair, food will be the last thing you'll think about.

Esen is halfway through finishing her soup when her lover speaks.

"Why did you do it?" he asks.

"What, what did I do?"

He blinks, perplexed. He thinks that she's appealing to ignorance. "Slit your wrists," he says, his voice cool. "I thought you were trying to kill yourself, but after seeing your wounds heal so easily, your intentions were not to die, were they?"

Esen looks up to the canopy of clouds high above them, swirling and floating like birds and bees and hues of warm orange are peeking through them, the sun on its anticipated path. She knew it was to break the curse, to find someone who could help because he did not deserve this, because she does not want this. But why? Why does she continue to hope and pray that the march of pain will stop? Why did she do it?

Esen has so many words to say, secrets to spill, but she simply settles for telling him that it is to find the Black Wizard. She also doesn't miss the slight twitch of his lips and the discomfort in his eyes when she mentions the epithet.

"It's a foolish endeavor, but I need his help," she admits.

Her lover shakes his head. "He's not worth it. It's foolish as you said. To hope for something, to wish, it is all but fruitless if it's with regards to that man."

Esen breathes, her hands on the bowl trembling and disrupting its contents. "Even so..." she whispers.

"I took you for a smart woman," he says. "Don't do it. He will never appear."

Esen meets his eyes with a defiant gaze, because, because no matter how much she tries to believe that her soul is cold, her heart is hollow, she still clings to hope like a suckling infant to its mother. Esen rises, as if ready for departure. "Then I'll probably keep on doing the ritual. Until I find the Black Wizard."

Suddenly, he grabs her and the bowl of soup in his hand plummets to the ground, spills in the grass and soil. A raspy breath. "Don't."

A voice, quivering but ultimately steadies. "Don't hurt yourself."

Her heart is leaping from her chest and she loves him, she is drawn to, she is poised to, but there is something, something more than the sun and stars, the flowers and the bees from this. His eyes meet her own and it's both amazing and adoring.

And softer, "you found him."

Eyes widen, lips part and the wind blows in a coincidence that both astounds and astonishes her. Leaves rustle against each other and his eyes have now been circled with red, ominous red. Her heart beats and millions of emotions fight at the cavity of her chest for dominance. "I am the Black Wizard, Zeref Dragneel."

-

e n d.
[ thank you for reading chained flowers. ]
c o m i n g:
05 | "the girl, heartless."

• idk what im doing with this tbh. i've already written the ending, but the path to that is SO difficult...